The dangers of authorship

In Foucault’s "What is an Author," he is discussing exactly what the title suggests: the implications of becoming an author. He states in his second paragraph, "For the moment, however, I want to deal solely with the relationships between text and author and with the manner in which the text points to this 'figure', that, at least in appearance, is outside it and antecedes it."

Foucault is exploring the ways in which we see texts not just for themselves but for who created them. The text and the ideas that it implies takes on a life of its own and in a sense, murders its author. When we begin to see Foucault not just for who Foucault was but for his responsibility in bringing to the light the theory of panoptic power, everything we read is tainted by these notions and Foucault himself is tainted with his own notions.

When I became interested in doing a creative writing thesis I was a little overwhelmed with the idea of becoming a "serious writer", as my advisor put it, but as a writer, I am constantly writing so it's not difficult to see myself as a writer. But the struggle to become an author is much more difficult, and now I'm realizing, much more dangerous.

So what's Foucault’s solution to his own ideas murdering him? I think he would say that the ideas are worth killing himself otherwise he would not have become an author himself. And as we are coming to an end of our major rhetorical figure presentations, we are beginning to see that an author is much more than his or her work and the ideas he or she has left behind, but as time passes after the end of this course, all we will be left with are the ideas that our figures have left behind and their effects on why and how we study composition today. It's easy to see the correlations between history and an author's life and the work they're producing, but, as Foucault says, we tend to see writing as a practice rather than something completed. So keep practicing.

The whole does not equal the sum of its parts

In "The Computer and the Inexperienced Writer," Christine Hult uses another article by Elizabeth Sommers to explain the difference between student writers and adult writiers and how those differences relate to word processing and revision.

"'Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers' identified two main ways in which the revision strategies of student and experienced writers differ: (1) student writers saw their compositions in discrete parts and considered revision to be a rewording activity; experienced writers saw their compositions as a complete unit and considered revision to be a communication activity," Hult says.

Hult's main point in defining these differences is to serve her purpose of showing how word processing can "potentially inhibit the very revision strategies we attempt to teach our inexperienced student writers", but I think I.A. Richards (who I will be forced to think about constantly now after my presentation) would be interested in these kinds of differences.

It may speak to his efforts of trying to get student writers to communicate better that Sommers found that experienced writers saw revision as a communication act. We are affected constantly by the language we use to communicate and if you are an experienced writer, then you have mastered language so that you communicate clearly. Student writers who see revision as rewording are missing the meaning of writing: to get across your meaning as clearly and efficiently as possible.

Richards would also be interested in Sommer's other finding: " student writers viewed their texts as the embodiment of redefined meaning; experienced writers used writing and rewriting to discover meaning." In creating his theory of Basic English, Richards wanted us to always be aware of the fact that we can create meaning through metaphor. We can communicate anything we want with the use of language as a metaphor.

Richards and Sommers seem to be on the same page in some sense because their findings reveal what Richards advocates for: being aware of how you use language so language does not use you. Experienced writers are successful because they know this.

Classroom politics

Our discussion of bell hooks Tuesday was an important realization that politics and education will always be inevitably linked. Women like bell hooks strive to change the ways in which we see education and more importantly, the ways in which we educate. She is in good company when trying to escape the white-supremist, patriachial hierarchy in which we see the classroom.

Cynthia Selfe is attempting to escape this same paradigm in her article "The Politics of the Interface," in which she warns of the ways computers can marginalize certain populations of students based on class and socio-economic background and education.

Tim McGee and Patricia Ericsson visit politics again in their article "Politics of the Program: MS Word as the Invisble Grammarian." They quote Selfe's article as well as an article by Joel Haefner to begin their article about the politics of MS Word: "English instructors in computer-supported classrooms need to know something about the context and the necromancers of the code," Haefner says in resonse to Theodor Nelson's claim that "a computer language is a system for casting spells." (308-09)

The authors talk about politics in writing in terms of what issues are priveleged over others while students are drafting in MS Word. Their claim is that Word makes grammar seem like the most important part of writing because its default setting, "Check grammar as you type", "makes grammar a primary concern by foregrounding correctness even while writers are in the drafting stage."

McGee and Ericsson suggest changing the default settings of MS Word so as not to discourage students from writing by concerning them too much with grammatical correctness, thus escaping the politics of "the invisible grammarian." bell hooks suggests changing the way we teach to include students and their experiences in their own learning process to escape the politics of the classroom and "the academy". We cannot escape the politics of any aspect of teaching. That is something we will inevitably face when exploring our own pedagogies.

In Maxine Cousin Hairston's essay "The Winds of Change," she outlines the traditional composition paradigm and then suggests an emerging paradigm (emerging in terms of 1982) and its features. The last feature of the paradigm is, for me, the most important: "It (the paradigm) stresses that writing teachers should be people who write."

This is something that I was glad Wendy Bishop speaks about. As an accomplished creative writer, Bishop also stresses the importance of writing teachers being writers themselves. This goes back to the generalized rule that teachers should practice what they preach, but I also think it contributes to a teacher's classroom ethos. Teachers should be constantly learning and improving their writing as they struggle to help their students improve. As Dr. Souder quoted in her blog this week, the best way to learn something is to write about it. Teachers should not only be educators of new learners, but life-long learners themsleves. Wendy Bishop was a proponent for bringing creative writing into the composition classroom. She constantly practiced her own creative writing and had much of her work published, so when she says that teachers can be writers too, she proves it.

Another of Hairston's features I found important was that the paradigm is based on "linguistic research into the composing process." This relates to the research Leki did into the testing of students as they entered the composition program. Her new way of testing was proven successful as they implemented in Tennessee and as Kimi tried it in her class, showing that research pays off. It helped her develop new ways of doing things that are beneficial to writing students.

Look on the bright side

To me the most meaningful discussion surrounding the presentations this week was that of feminism. Locke presented himself in a way that was a bit pretentious when he made the statement “All men are created equal” at such a tumultuous time. While Hume shocked a lot of us with his statement that women should read more history in order to contribute to men’s conversation better. It was very easy and quite tempting for me to get very angry about these statements, but as I left class I tried to remember that these were times in history where thoughts about women were different for the masses.

So in my attempt to look at the position in this situation, I decided to see this as a testament to how far the view of women has come. I applaud Locke’s bold statement which contributed to America’s history in a way he did not intend, because whatever his intentions, it did affect history in ways that are still very positive. This statement has shaped the way America has evolved and how certain minority groups, including women, have come out with their own voices and fought to include themselves in this statement.

Hume’s statement that “only a woman who was acquainted with the history of her own country, and with those of Greece and Rome, could engage in conversation which ‘can afford any entertainment to men of sense and virtue, ’” seems shocking to us women now, but this was a step in the ways of women’s rights at the time that we have to appreciate. If men like Hume wouldn’t have started us somewhere, although the step may seem small, then we would not have gotten to a point where we are now.

I’m not saying that women have it made these days. I’ve experienced sexism in my life, as I’m sure all women have. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t acknowledge our progress thus far in order to move us into more progress in the (hopefully near) future.

What's wrong with computers?

In Richard Enos’ “Rediscovering the Lost Art of Researching the History of Rhetoric,” Enos urges rhetoricians to be historians. He says at the end of his article that “all that is necessary for ignorance to prevail in our discipline is for historians of rhetoric to forget their primary job of doing history.”

I think it is very easier for students to get stuck in the virtual world of doing research in a solitary state, and yes, computers are to blame for our recluse ways of doing research. It is too easy for us to sit at home by ourselves in front of our computer while searching Google Scholar for secondary source articles about our topics, but I think there is also so much value in our new technologies that we need to appreciate.

When I am getting through a class that requires research, I turn to the internet and nothing else, but this allows me to accomplish my goal and then move on to something else. I can devote less time to the means of doing research and concentrate on the end: the actual material that I’m learning from. I am able to access a search engine full of information stored in the mysterious universe of cyber space, but the point is that I have it in front of me, even on a computer screen to read through and process.

It is very important for historians of rhetoric to maintain the history of the rhetoric that has influenced us now, yes. Without it we would not have evolved into the students and institutions that we are, but does that mean we should stop the evolution that is happening with how we research?

Audience in Argumentation

In "The Social Contexts of Argumentation," Chaim Perelman talks in the beginning about the relationship between argumentation and audience.

"The development of all argumentation is a function of the audience to which it is addressed and to which the speaker is to adapt himself." (or herself) (252-53)

Perelman is saying that the speaker (writer or orator) has an obligation to the audience. A speaker must adapt to his/her audience in order for argumentation to be successful and for it to be argumentation. The difficulty in this is analyzing a diverse audience and convincing those who are different of the same end.

“The diversity of audience is extreme. They can vary quantitatively from the speaker himself… right up to the totality of beings capable of reason – that universal audience which is then not a concrete social reality but a construction of the speaker based on elements in his experience.” (253)

I think Perelman is pointing out a skill that is not only useful to a writer/speaker, but to an individual functioning in a society.

Perelman also points out the importance of language in argumentation and how we must change it as our audience changes:

“The effective exercise of argumentation assumes a means of communication, a common language without which there can be no contact of minds.”

The author also points out the importance of rationality in argumentation:

“Precedent plays a quite primary role in argumentation, the rationality of which is linked with the observance of the rule of justice, which demands equal treatment for similar situations.

Again this ties into the overall theme of audience. You must (as a writer) decide what each audience holds to be true as a precedent and appeal to that which is already assumed. The author is speaking about the rule of justice in relation to history; therefore the obligation lies with the speaker in knowing the past precedents. Learning how each audience fells and thinks about similar situations depends on research into the past.

Perelman says, “These precedents, just like the models by which a society is inspired, make part of its cultural tradition, which can be reconstructed on the basis of the argumentations in which they have been employed.” On the basis of which audience is being spoken to. (254)

There is a reason the core of composition papers is based on getting students to make an argument and know how to back it up. In order to do this, instructors ask for research as evidence and provide the tools of persuasion in the form of ethos, logos and pathos. Everything a student does in preparation for their comp papers is based on supporting their argument of making it convincing. It’s my belief that recognizing audience is an important life skill, and part of my personal pedagogy. We must consider our audience in everything that we do while functioning in the world.

Remedial English courses

In this week’s reading, I was most struck by the figures about remedial English courses offered at the college level. In Albert Kitzhaber’s essay, “The Present State of Freshman Compostition,” he says that no more than 40% of colleges still offer remedial college courses. This is in the 1960s and it doesn't seem like there has been much improvement now.

“One university in the South frankly calls its course ‘subcollegiate’ and says that the main object of the course ‘is to teach high school English to weak college students,’” he says on page 264.

It’s interesting that Brereton in his essay, "The Origins of Composition Studies..." (pg. 98) talks about three important figures in the beginning of composition programs in American colleges and the programs these men are describing would now be considered “remedial English” courses. They both advocate for drill-based classes to help students who have never before been taught basic grammar and sentence structure. English departments moved pretty slowly from the late 1800s and early 1900s to the 1960s.

When composition programs were first beginning and English departments were trying to establish themselves across American universities, these types of courses were important in establishing a student base that could write in order to be successful in other aspects. It’s still of the same importance now to create students, who may have been deprived of learning how to write in high school of lower education, that can be successful writers and ultimately successful communicators.

The three appeals in writing

The three appeals of rhetoric immediately reminds me of my high school speech class in which I had to use these tools in order to persuade my wonderful teacher Mrs. Applebaum to give me praise for my speech and ultimately, a good grade. Talking about them five or so years later makes me think of how I can use them to my advantage in something that is of more interest to me. Surrounded by teachers, I can see how one would apply these to the classroom and at my job as a marketing assistant writing press releases, I can use them in order to appeal to the form of media in which we want our events and news to be featured.

But as I move away from persuasive writing and into creative writing, which is my true desire, I struggle to apply the three appeals as I sit in my room alone (usually late at night) trying to create something very personal. This goes back to how rhetoric in general influences my creative writing. It's a little disheartening as I think about my audience as a creative writer and that I must appeal to an audience in order to make a living. I would like to maintain the purity of creating something that I feel is important, but at the same time I must write in order to sell myself to a publisher and a general public.