Discovery and Rhetoric

In my internship this week, I observed two days of conferencing for the students' personal digital media literacy narratives. My mentor urged all of her students to be more personal in their writing, and they were excited to talk about themselves and use "I" rather than a distant observer voice. One student made remarkable improvements from her conference draft to the draft she emailed on Friday by taking this advice and really starting to discover her own voice.

This notion of discovery (namely, students' personal discoveries in writing) best falls into Berlin's Expressionistic Rhetoric. On the importance of the individual in this approach, he writes, "It [writing] is an art, a creative act in which the process--the discovery of the true self--is as important as the product--the self discovered and expressed" (16). Berlin's description of this process poses Expressionism within the Romantic tradition, in which students use the art of writing to discover their "true selves." In ENC 1101, we are working to develop the writer as well as the writing, as we discussed on the first day of class, and this form of rhetoric useful to accomplishing that goal.

Berlin favors Social-Epistemic to Expressionistic Rhetoric, arguing that students (and therefore their voices and writing) are the products of their social and historic contexts. This approach devalues the role of self-discovery in the writing process that is so critical to the Expressionistic approach. Like Berlin, Braun aruges for a more outwardly-directed rhetoric in first-year composition--"attention on the texts that already surround" students rather than the traditional "process of self-discovery" (97).

Although Berlin and Braun would suggest a different approach to teaching (the social-epistemic), I still like to think of my students as in a process of self-discovery. Just as I am starting a new book in my life, so are they. Whether they are coming to FSU from across town, across the state, or across the globe, they are in a new place and having experiences everyday that change their perspectives and, in turn, shape their voices as young writers. Sometimes the change is difficult and painful (I'm guessing a student or two may feel homesick in the fall...), but what great emotions to draw upon for writing. As I am forming my own approach to teaching in the fall, I am picking and comibing elements of different approaches, including a flower of expressionism.

This week's musings courtesy of:

Berlin, James. “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Classroom.” The Writing Teacher’s Sourcebook, Eds. Edward PJ Corbett, Nancy Myers, and Gary Tate: Oxford UP, 2000. 9-25.

Winterowd. W. Ross. “The Classical Tradition and Composition/Rhetoric. A Teacher’s Introduction to Composition in the Rhetorical Tradition. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1994. 1-18.

Braun, M.J. “The Prospects for Rhetoric in a First-Year Composition Program: Deliberative Discourse as a Vehicle for Change?” WPA: Writing Program Administration 31.3 (2008): 89-109.



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[Because the commenting function is not working, I will have to post my comment response here.]

As I am considering discovery on this blog and primarily coming from the expressionist camp here, I have to think about the uniqueness implied in Berlin's own social-epistemic rhetoric. He argues that an authentic voice doesn't exist in favor of considering the product of cultural and historical context. Can these social influences not affect one student differently from the way they affect the next student?
Berlin's four strands of rhetoric do indeed consider language in different ways, especially when it comes to the role of the writer and his or her voice. Elements from the different approaches will perhaps never fit together seamlessly, but using patches (key ideas) of different approaches can be useful in a composition class. I am thinking about the assignments for the Strand I course that I am observing for my internship. The first paper, the personal literacy narrative, works well with expressionist rhetoric, as students explore their own pasts and the formation of the individuals they are today. This assignment is also one of the first experiences students have for using the "I" in their academic writing, a key in cognitive rhetoric. The second paper, the digital media analysis, and the third, the advertisement analysis, both work well within the social-epistemic approach, as the students critically examine social implications of each (and often push against them). All three papers have elements of the current traditionalist approach, as students write within established genres.
July 17, 2011 4:24 PM