Well, I have to say that reading through these (so far) has been illuminating to say the least. I now know that I need to know more...so, uh, that r/c phd I was considering seems like an even better idea (even if that alluring 5x statistic isn't true)! I found Lloyd-Jones and D'Angelo's the most provocative for me. Lloyd-Jones, despite his ever-shifting and sometimes baffling metaphors, seemed to cover so much ground: the role/need for scholarship, the need for teacher training, the binary (or not-so binary) of human and technology, and the need for generalists in a world of specialization. I found myself wondering about the context of composition in 1977, despite Llyod-Jones synthesis of the political climate.
Did basic/developmental writing comprise the majority of comp courses?
When did WAC & WID come into the conversation? (he lays the groundwork for it here)
When did our favorite terms of "scaffolding" and "building blocks" join the vernacular?
Was our position in academe so base that he felt we needed to set aside practice and scholarship in application in favor of "demonstrating our right to a central function in the academy"?
D'Angelo also seems to be laying groundwork and a justification for WAC/WID. His discussion of R/C's role within the English discipline seems to be a starting point for talking about R/C's role in ALL disciplines. I'm not whether I think R/C is the central sun that holds all the revolving planets together in its massive gravitational force, but I do think it is cross-disciplinary and the more we all realize that the happier the world will be (I'm just working for world peace here. Kum-by-yah!).
I am also interested in this idea of "expression" and "humanizing." Irmscher talks about the transformative process of composition, both externally and internally (66) and many of the others riff on the multiple ways composition composes. I don't have anything insightful about any of it, but I noticed it as a theme and I wonder how the current climate feels about the value of "expression."
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
first installment
When reading these addresses, I was struck by two things: one, the issues they address are so incredibly relevant today (i.e., economic crisis, devaluing of the humanities broadly, etc.), and second, the defensive ethos of composition, which continues to this day and reflects a systemic subjugation of writing and its instruction within the context of higher education. So the affect tends to be "steal yourself against enemies" or, as Lloyd-Jones says, "those people" who deny rhetorical choice, see language as rule-bound, and so forth. Irmscher calls them "invaders," "scientific absolutists," and "anti-rhetoricians." "We" must protect ourselves from "them."
Some other issues that I noted: remarks about the interdisciplinary nature of the field (we have always borrowed from other fields to help us do our work). Irmscher makes clear our rhetorical heritage as does D'Angelo when he talks about rhetoric as a unifying center for English Studies. Davis comments on the need to borrow from social science in order to develop research methods to assess and defend our work (we/them binary again). Davis's emphasis on learning how to speak in a more public voice about the value and importance of writing and literacy also resonates with current efforts by CCCC and NCTE to place lobbyists and to prime representatives who can speak to reporters about writing placement, testing, and the myriad other politicized issues that require funding, and lots of it, to thrive.
D'Angelo's call to embrace all text-making as critical, important work, not just imaginative writing (i.e., lit), is also very topical today and remains a point of contention in many English depts across the country. I like this point in his essay, "Reading and writing, when taught as the art of expression, should not be concerned with elite verbal artifacts, but with the verbal arts as process." Composing as action and movement, not static, fixed product. Cool.
Troyka's comments remain a challenge and a call to action. Diversity among student populations is seriously at risk in the current climate in which "developmental" or "basic" education is increasingly being farmed out to two-year colleges.
Some other issues that I noted: remarks about the interdisciplinary nature of the field (we have always borrowed from other fields to help us do our work). Irmscher makes clear our rhetorical heritage as does D'Angelo when he talks about rhetoric as a unifying center for English Studies. Davis comments on the need to borrow from social science in order to develop research methods to assess and defend our work (we/them binary again). Davis's emphasis on learning how to speak in a more public voice about the value and importance of writing and literacy also resonates with current efforts by CCCC and NCTE to place lobbyists and to prime representatives who can speak to reporters about writing placement, testing, and the myriad other politicized issues that require funding, and lots of it, to thrive.
D'Angelo's call to embrace all text-making as critical, important work, not just imaginative writing (i.e., lit), is also very topical today and remains a point of contention in many English depts across the country. I like this point in his essay, "Reading and writing, when taught as the art of expression, should not be concerned with elite verbal artifacts, but with the verbal arts as process." Composing as action and movement, not static, fixed product. Cool.
Troyka's comments remain a challenge and a call to action. Diversity among student populations is seriously at risk in the current climate in which "developmental" or "basic" education is increasingly being farmed out to two-year colleges.
Thoughts on the first set of readings
Of the five, William F. Irmscher’s 1979 address, “Writing as a Way of Learning and Developing,” struck me as the most fully-formed, the most moving, the most convincing, and the most well-written. (I’ll admit to not yet having read the 1981 address.) Of the others, the first two felt, to me at least, a little directionless and metaphor-heavy. I’m tempted to be less generous and borrow from Vivian Davis’s extended metaphor—comparing the research of English teaching’s effectiveness (I think?) to chicken decapitation—by deeming these first two selections a “feathery hell” (58), though I guess that by virtue of suggestion I just did. And maybe that’s unfair. Maybe it just took twenty pages for me to get my brain back into rhet/comp comprehension mode.
Still, I found Irmscher’s essay useful and inspiring. He articulated an argument that, for a long time, I’ve tried to make to friends, parents, and people I meet on the street, with far less success: That the ability to write is “one of the most essential and valuable resources of anyone’s education” (63); that language is not just to be read, it is to be written, and that we can’t fully understand or appreciate language’s complexities and subtleties without attempting our own compositions (64); that, regardless of our motives for writing, writing is “an action and a way of knowing” (65); that writing is “a way of learning about anything and everything” (65); that verbalization provokes “fuller understanding” (65); that writing promotes “higher intellectual development” (66); that writing promotes “awareness, abstraction, and control” (66); and, finally, that one’s ability to write “translates into self-confidence and self-sufficiency” (68). I can’t think of a better defense of rhetoric and composition studies.
Yet, as inspiring as all of this is, I also find it humbling. It leaves us, as teachers, with an enormous responsibility. Our failure to reach students translates to more than failing grades. If you buy into Irmscher’s philosophy, as I believe I do, you’re responsible not only for teaching your students how to write. You’re responsible for teaching them how to think and reason, and how to verbalize that thinking and reasoning. And, while I disagree with Frank D’Angelo’s 1980 claim that “if a students’ writing lacks composure, it is because we have failed to teach them how to compose themselves” (77) (this, of course, can’t always be true, as learning is, essentially, a team effort, requiring both the teacher’s discipline and the student’s willingness, and I’m not prepared to accept responsibility for all of my students’ failings), I am left with the sobering reminder that our jobs aren’t ones to take so lightly. There is a moral component here, a responsibility to our students. It makes me think that I can do better.
-Jamie
Still, I found Irmscher’s essay useful and inspiring. He articulated an argument that, for a long time, I’ve tried to make to friends, parents, and people I meet on the street, with far less success: That the ability to write is “one of the most essential and valuable resources of anyone’s education” (63); that language is not just to be read, it is to be written, and that we can’t fully understand or appreciate language’s complexities and subtleties without attempting our own compositions (64); that, regardless of our motives for writing, writing is “an action and a way of knowing” (65); that writing is “a way of learning about anything and everything” (65); that verbalization provokes “fuller understanding” (65); that writing promotes “higher intellectual development” (66); that writing promotes “awareness, abstraction, and control” (66); and, finally, that one’s ability to write “translates into self-confidence and self-sufficiency” (68). I can’t think of a better defense of rhetoric and composition studies.
Yet, as inspiring as all of this is, I also find it humbling. It leaves us, as teachers, with an enormous responsibility. Our failure to reach students translates to more than failing grades. If you buy into Irmscher’s philosophy, as I believe I do, you’re responsible not only for teaching your students how to write. You’re responsible for teaching them how to think and reason, and how to verbalize that thinking and reasoning. And, while I disagree with Frank D’Angelo’s 1980 claim that “if a students’ writing lacks composure, it is because we have failed to teach them how to compose themselves” (77) (this, of course, can’t always be true, as learning is, essentially, a team effort, requiring both the teacher’s discipline and the student’s willingness, and I’m not prepared to accept responsibility for all of my students’ failings), I am left with the sobering reminder that our jobs aren’t ones to take so lightly. There is a moral component here, a responsibility to our students. It makes me think that I can do better.
-Jamie
Monday, July 20, 2009
Something simple to start with...
As a grad student, my brain perks up when I come across statistics about the academic job market. On the first page of Frank D’Angelo’s speech “Regaining Our Composure,” he states a statistic about the openness of the composition & rhetoric field. He writes, “of the 405 jobs advertised in the ’76-’77 for people with Ph.D.’s in English, 56 of those jobs were in rhetoric and composition, 53 in linguistics, and 29 in creative writing” (71)... Then he goes on to list how few jobs there are for those who teach areas like British Literature, Black Studies, Colonial Literature, etc.
My question I want to pose to the group is simple, but I’m sure there’s room for differing opinions: has the job market for comp folks gotten better or worse or stayed the same since D’Angelo’s speech almost thirty years ago? And, in addition, is there the same sense of possibility in the air now—or has that sense of possibility tapered off?
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