Rhetorical Roots

In the mid 70s Alex Haley wrote Roots which altered the perception of the African American slave experience in the United States. Haley's reasearch also demonstrated that the African oral tradition was a powerful narrative. And, Roots was credited with triggering an explosive interest in genealogical research with our country. Little did I know when I watched the televised series that I would be privileged to be part of that genealogy craze. Yet, by the mid-80s I was employed in Denver at the Rocky Mountain Region of the National Archives. Part of my duties was to assist patrons in the microfilm research room as they scrolled through rolls of census records searching for their "roots." Little did I know during that decade with the archives, that I would be engaged in anothergenealogy project as a graduate student at CSU-Pueblo!
Searching for our roots is simply another way of trying to puzzle out who we are. How we became who we become. As I see it, this rhetorical family tree is an extension of that search. We are influenced by our instructors. Who were influenced by their instructors. This is so obvious that it has become a transparent given. And, that is the purpose of this rhetorical family tree project. Taking the time to research and connect those influences which will shape our practices. Certainly, my pedagogy has been significantly altered by the theory and pedagogy of compositionists I have read in the course of this class. Now I want to know how they came to be.
My group is researching the "roots" of Dr. Patricia Trujullo's pedagogy. How fascinating to discover she has been as influenced by female family members and community activists, as she has been by members of academia.
As we come together as a classroom community of researchers, I look forward to the connections that will be revealed as we piece together this puzzle that has or will influence our individual perceptions.
My suggestion for the creative endeavor is to keep it simple and straight forward. There isn't a lot of space and let that space speak for itself.

The Legacy of Progressive Education?

During the turbulent years of the 1960's and 1970's, Mina Shaughnessy was on the front lines as a "powerful advocate for basic writers when open admissions challenged educators to look beyond traditional teaching methods in order to meet the needs of under-prepared students" (COMP-biblio, 265). Shaughnessy studied "more than 4,000 student essays" (271) which provided the research for her textbook Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing published in 1977. This text is still highly regarded as a tool which allows the composition teacher to empower students and help them gain control over language (271). In recognition of her contributions to the field of composition, the Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize was established by the MLA Executive Council.
Lester Faigley author of "Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal," an assigned reading for this week, was a recipient of the MLA Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize for his textbook, Fragments of Rationality (1992). While Shaughnessy's work was in response to open admissions policy and the needs of underprepared students, Faigley examines the legacy of this response as he discusses three pedagogies that emerged from those turbulent decades. The "Expressive View," the "Cognitive View," and the "Social View" are pedigogies carried into the twenty-first century by composition instructors who struggle with their students to produce "good writing." Faigley argues there are ideological questions attached to each of these approaches which cannot be ignored (682).
Certainly the under prepared students Shaughnessy encountered at CUNY were under educated women, minorities, and recent immigrants. Yet, Kenneth Bruffee's article from last week's readings, "Collaborative Learning and the 'Conversation of Mankind,'" argues that during
those turbulent decades there was a "pressing educational need" (547) that became apparent, not only for the under educated, but for the better prepared student entering college. "For cultural reasons we may not yet fully understand, all these students seemed to have difficulty adapting to the traditional or 'normal' conventions of the college classroom (547). Bruffee states it was an attempt to meet the needs of both sets of students that led to collaborative learning in the classroom.
Shall we point a finger at John Dewey's Progressive Education as one cultural link to a generation of failed writers? There are those who would say that Progressive Education's emphasis on "interesting and freeing the child, and it's cavalier treatment of the study of classic literature and classical languages" (handout) certainly contributed to the demise of learning in the teacher-centered classrooms of yester-year. Of course, simplistic connections never serve complex problems. Yet, that is not to say that the link doesn't exist.

The Pitchfork Theory Tackles Grammar

There were two articles from our assigned readings for last week that had a profound impact on me. First, when I read Rex Veeder's essay "Coleridge's Philosophy of Composition: An Overview of a Romantic Rhetorician" I recognized myself. "The Coleridgean compositionist would make considerable use of observation and detailed sensual description in order to engage the emotions and memory in the process of fixing both the writer's attention and the reader's attention on the subject (27). Veeder then proceeds to describe this strategy as "looping" in which, for example, a topic addressed to saving the homeless might draw upon the decline of agrarian ideals leading to an increase in the homeless population. "Such an approach requires a trust in associations, a willingness to believe that if we think of agriculture as we write about the homeless a relationship does indeed exist. It is the writer's task to connect the diverse associations by seeing them as metaphor or an analogy for the 'initiative'" (27). How many other students intuitively take this approach to their writing? Are they "Coleridgean compositionists" or are their papers seen as "disorganized", those who could benefit by first drafting an outline? Perhaps their creative powers need direction but not at the expense of a new topic sentence for each paragraph. As Veeder argues, "At each turn of the associational loop, the composer would increase the tension and deepen the mystery of the relationship between farming and the homeless rather than move to an immediate resolution" (27). Granted, this is very sophisticated theory even for advanced writers. But, the merit of this approach should be considered as a technique that does indeed drive some students. I know this is not only how I write, but how I process information and think. To have this approach validated by a pedagogy within the classroom might unleash creativity that is too often stiffled by dogmatic approaches.
Which brings to mind the second article "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar" by Patrick Hartwell. Finally, finally an essay on grammar that absolutely makes sense. There isn't one grammar. Hartwell argues there are five grammars each with their own focus in relationship to writing pedagogy. What clarity! What insight! What are we waiting for? Twenty-five years after his article was published, the snarling debates continue. Hartwell has no qualms as to where he stands in 1985, "For me the grammar issue was settled at least twenty years ago with the conclusion offered by Richard Braddock, Richard Lloyd-Jones, and Lowell Schoer in 1963 'In view of the widespread agreement of research studies based upon many types of students and teachers, the conclusion can be stated in strong and unqualifies terms: the teaching of formal grammar has a neglibible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice in composition, even a harmful effect on improvement in writing'" (563). Hartwell then draws upon the seminal research of W. Nelson Francis who offered the "Three Meanings of Grammar" (566). Hartwell uses this as foundation for his own argument that because we are not informed by an awareness of past research "we are constrained to reinvent the wheel" (581). Hartwell divides the topic of grammar into: a formal pattern where words in language are arranged to convey meaning; the description and analysis of formal language patterns; linguistics; school grammar (slang); and grammatical terms used in the interest of prose style (578). Hartwell concludes "it is time that we, as researchers, move on to more interesting areas of inquiry" (581). Isn't it time that creativity in composition be approached and strenghtened by Hartwell's guidance?

Corsets and Composition

A "Protestant monastery" (148), now there's a concept! Here's a good example of a great idea couched in bad linguistics. While Mary Astell's "elevator pitch" fell flat with Anglicized Britain, it begs the question why would young women need to be "cloistered" to be educated? The pedagogy of seventeenth century England turned away from a more liberal view of the Renaissance in which "upper-class women" received "an academic education" (147). Therefore, they were little more than ornamentation for male society. Reduced to idle ways and vanity, Astell demanded that these young women cultivate the mind which was a Godly gift. After all, Astell argued, this was a woman's Christain duty to use what nature endowed: "a musical tone, persuasive air and winning address" (152). Astell viewed the virtuous woman speaking well as a positive opportunity to put their truth into daily practice as good Christian women. This compelling argument, based on Christian doctrine, was a brilliant hedge against the social norms of her day.
Yet, Hugh Blair's argument for taste as a "vital force" made its mark on the pedagogical legacy that influences our practices or rejection of practices in today's approach to composition; Mary Astell's legacy remains relatively unknown. Blair's "preoccupation with rules and with form" (25) fall more in line with the thinking of Astell as she attempted to navigate young women back into the mainstream of rhetorical discourse. Blair's view that "rhetoric is a public endeavor"(26) reflected his society in which there was a "more widespread access to literacy than ever before" (27). However, Blair was accused of narrowing "the scope of rhetoric for decades"... because "his emphasis on taste, style, and textual interpretation illustrate his focus on teaching students the processes through which discourse is received as well as produced" (25).
Through her approach to creative non-fiction, Wendy Bishop would see the value of Blair's theory. The final product was not separated from the process. Bishop is given credit for "blending composition studies and creative writing"(24). With two masters degrees and a PhD, Mary Astell would certainly acknowledge Wendy Bishop as one of the "learned ladies" (147).