Breaking out of the “Prison House of Self”

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While many points of the reading this week were interesting, the new taxonomy of significant learning and the three “interest-killing approaches—the technical, the judgmental, and the documentary—” inspired the most reflective thought for me this week. I saw much overlap with works we have previously read this semester and conversations in which we have engaged. For example, Fink’s “significant learning” sounds quite similar in many ways to “learning transfer,” both as end goals for course designs and student learning. Also, many of the pieces were either implicitly or explicitly promoting a metacognitive approach to the classroom and the learning process.

I found Fink’s piece rather idealistic in his discussion of change as the absolute assessment tool for significant learning, and maybe it is the mere adjective significant that warrants such a grandiose claim as “No change, no learning.” Maybe I am just extra cynical in my fourth quarter state of exhaustion, but this maxim seems to belittle much of what we as teachers do on a daily basis. I am not naive enough to think that every single day with be life-changing for all students, and we have already discussed how the entire educational system does need an overhaul.

However, statements such as the following place a tremendous amount of pressure upon us as instructors as we strive for perfection in our course designs: “significant learning requires that there be some kind of lasting change that is important in terms of the learner’s life” (3). In some ways, I read this text and see Fink as calling for a version of the Multiliteracies’ “Transformed Practice” as the goal. That seems doable; we provide multiple contexts for learning so that students can practice adapting the knowledge and skills they are gleaning. In other ways, as I look to his concluding thoughts, his ideas seem more encompassing; anything from “application learning” to “foundational knowledge” can be significant learning, and that leaves me asking what’s so new about this taxonomy anyway?

The Morson text, on the other hand, had me nodding in agreement throughout its entirety. I kept saying, “Yes, my students need this! They have no empathy and position themselves as the victims on a daily basis!” Yet, by the end of the article, my reflection turned inward and I had to acknowledge my own tendencies to dismiss literature for any one of the three approaches mentioned: technical, judgmental, or documentary. I appreciated this reminder: “To teach anything well, you have to place yourself in the position of the learner who does not already know the basics and has to be persuaded that the subject is worth studying.” What an excellent prompt for reflective practice! I am currently teaching Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to my sophomores. You can imagine how excited they are in April about Elizabethan drama. If I take the time at the start of each unit I teach to re-situate myself as learner alongside my students, much as Freire encourages, the students and I can dialogically seek persuasion for validity of Shakespearean studies.

There were so many points within this article that I highlighted and could expound upon reflectively; however, I leave you with just one more thought-provoking quote: “We grow wiser, and we understand ourselves better, if we can put ourselves in the position of those who think differently.” In our current culture of exaggerated differences and hostility in nearly all arenas, how great a gift we possess in literature’s capacity to allow us the chance to enter another’s shoes and to invite our students to the same right along with us. To more shoe swapping!

Writing Centers & Writing Assessment: Out with the Old??

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How much have we changed? Stephen North poses a question worth reflecting upon even now in our technological era. As a discipline, we claim to be ever-changing as we cross boundaries and engage new technologies. However, in thinking about my own secondary classroom, seemingly much has changed in even the eight years I have been teaching. All students have either an iPad or laptop now and nearly all assignments are submitted digitally. But are the assignments and the lessons actually different? For our school at least, not so much. They are largely the same assignments, just on a new platform. Huot stated similar concerns about the way in which we assess writing and discuss writing assessment: it hasn’t changed. We still haven’t merged theory and practice.

But then again, why are we so quick to desire the new as a replacement for the old? After all, isn’t it the old that has gotten us this far? I love Royster’s discussion in Traces of a Stream in which she continuously points to the new identities of the African American women writers: a fusion of both old and new identities. Within our own discipline, many scholars have recently written about our field as undefined or lacking in a clear identity. We have become a type of hodge-podge field of eclectic students and scholars, but does that mean we have lost our identity? I would argue, like Royster, that the old has fused with the new. Much like our classrooms in which we are engaging new technologies and even new pedagogical practices and approaches, we are still instructing within the boundaries of literacy skills, as we should be. The old isn’t always a bad thing!

Now, I know that isn’t exactly what North was arguing against. Then, as now even, writing centers were relegated to second-class amongst the academy at large and the faculty-ascribed perceptions that were being spread across campuses were of one-stop fix-it shops. I found his “Revisit” opening with the key scenes from Dead Poet’s Society interesting in light of this discussion of old and new. Robin Williams’ character would undoubtedly represent the new, the change against the stuffy traditionalist approach to classroom instruction and learning. However, North reacts against that portrayal calling it unrealistic in expectations. And while I do agree with him as far as expectations go, isn’t that part of the problem inherent in his claim that we as a department haven’t changed at all? We balk at change most often as reading and writing are some of the most basic skills imbued with traditional instructional methods.

Students still need the same things to a large degree. They need caring adults both inside and outside of the classroom who believe that they can learn. They need a safe learning environment. They need their basic needs met before they can begin to give a damn about rhetorical writing and research. Yet it is the little things that North and Huot mention that make the difference many times. It is seeing each student as a unique writer rather than a piece of writing to be fixed or graded. It is the balance of praise and constructive feedback specific to each student writer’s giftings and learning needs. Ultimately, writing assessment and writing tutoring have one thing in common: they are moving targets. We as teachers and tutors can not become formulaic in our interactions with students or student texts. As we forge ahead in our constant search for new and seek to merge theory and practice, may we as teacher-scholars never forget our civic rhetoric: the students we teach.

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“Freshman writing, if taught with an eye toward transfer of learning and with an explicit acknowledgement of the context of freshman writing itself as a social practice, can set students on a course of life-long learning so that they know how to learn to become better and better writers in a variety of social contexts.” (Anne Beaufort as qtd. In Fishman and Reiff)

I think this quote adequately encapsulates much of what lies behind several of the arguments with which we have engaged this semester through our readings. Several terms continue to emerge and overlap: transfer, social practice, and contexts. Yancey, et al.’s “Teaching for Transfer” course clearly argues for a very specific curriculum that takes a metacognitive approach to FYC and focuses on rhetorical vocabulary and a theory of writing. Freire and Dewey provide a foundation for social practice as integral for meaningful learning through experiences. The authors of the Multiliteracies Pedagogical Project argue for transformed practice as a student outcome; students should be able to apply meaningful knowledge to new contexts.

These terms, not surprisingly, also appear in multiplicity in all of the position statements we looked at this week. So why aren’t we getting it right yet? I think this is where Phelps’ distinction between curriculum and pedagogy holds applicability. We have been building upon constructivist pedagogical practices that work quite well overall, but we are adding in the newer genre studies, WAW, and discourse community curriculum as if pedagogy and curriculum are in fact synonymous. Curriculum is the framework; it encompasses both horizontal and vertical alignment. Pedagogy refers to the collective toolbox of strategies that are utilized within a curriculum (at least this is my novice attempt to summarize some of Phelps’ argument).

But in light of the fairly practical wording and approach of each of the organization’s position statements, how much does a clear distinction of these terms matter? Don’t get me wrong; I am certainly glad that there are scholars who have the amazing capacity to theorize the big picture here. However, as FYC instructors, our constantly overwhelmed mind and schedule doesn’t always allow for true reflective practice as far as this level of theory is concerned.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that my reflective take-aways so far are those repetitive terms and their direct impact on my students, as my current civic rhetoric: How can I come alongside them to spur them on to transferable practice and knowledge? How can I structure my class times to make writing a truly social practice? And how can I encourage transformed practice for a variety of contexts?

Paper #6: “On Being a Scholar of Rhetoric of Identity”

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What does it take to be a scholar of…well, anything? I don’t know that I have ever truly paused to think this through before as I am a person who is always pushing towards the next thing, whether that is the next paper, class, degree, or even just the next weekend. Yet, this course of study has made it is clear that to be a scholar of anything requires a foundational knowledge of the history. For speaking-wellmy chosen research topic of rhetoric of identity, Quintilian and Cicero represent just a few of the males who dominated the rhetorical tradition early on. Both rhetors stressed the character of the speaker: Quintilian with his mantra of “A Good Man Speaking Well” and Cicero with his emphasis on the importance of “integrity and supreme wisdom” (Bizzell & Herzberg 359; qtd. in Katz 255). It wasn’t until the last half a century that women began to emerge from the patriarchal structure of rhetoric’s past. Key scholars like Glenn and Gale gave Aspasia a voice, and others such as Showalter and Butler have furthered the push to restore marginalized voices to the canon.

But it isn’t the history alone that defines rhetoric of identity. While rhetorical scholars are still asking similar major questions about the identity of the rhetor and the audience (Depew), the objects of study have expanded to include both human and non-human texts. From online identity constructions to the physical body, nearly anything can be rhetorically crafted and therefore analyzed. Through my research this semester, I surprisingly found my own epistemological alignment somewhere near the camp of the Marxists. Althusser, for example, claims that ideologies are ever-present and are constantly acting upon us, molding and making us who we are (1335-1360). Why not rhetorically analyze who we are then in an effort to unveil some of these ideological implications upon our own identity constructs?

This is the root reason for my research interest. My own upbringing in a Christian identityschool was volatile in many ways as worldviews clashed around me and much was determined for me. I am grateful for many reasons for the protective environment in which I was raised and in which I now find myself as a faculty member. However, my role as teacher now affords me a different perspective on these ideological forces, and I feel a responsibility to my students to act as a catalyst for them, to expose them to ideas beyond the horizon of the tension-filled ideologies of religion and education. For in these types of institutions, much as Foucault claims, their identities have been largely determined for them through the language of the mission statement, daily procedures, schedules, curriculum objectives, etc.

These reflections, on both my own identity and those largely pre-determined identities of my students, keeps me coming back to these rhetorical theories of identification. Kenneth Burke’s theories of consubstantiality, of being both joined with yet separate from, seems to be a potential key to guiding my students to self-discovery through the ways in which I design my own course assignments and frame my discourse communities, into which I invite my students (1325). Student identity constructs are my object of study, primarily because students are my passion. Knowledge and a clashing of worldviews, ideologies, and theories has been transformative for me, and it is that transformation that I hope for my students.

The pedagogical implications of rhetoric of identity are never-ending. From Karen Kopelson’s move away from identity-based pedagogical approaches to Erin Gruwell’s less-than-formalized rhetorical choices to connect with her student audience, teachers posses a great power and responsibility to create an atmosphere where students are comfortable to explore and to create their own identities (Kopelson 17-35). For some, this will be major as they question their sexuality and gender associations. For others, it might mean they process the familiar identity constructs of their close friends and family members and decide that is exactly where they fit with their own identity. Wherever each student may fall, this is my civic rhetoric: my rhetorically-designed classroom for identity construction.

This brings me to my final point on what it takes to be a scholar of rhetoric of identity: reflection and ownership. To be a scholar of anything requires a reflectiondedication to metacognitive reflection, rhetorical identification perhaps moreso because of the uniquely personal nature of identity research. These times of reflection should lead to a sense of ownership that moves one to civic engagement of some capacity. Ivory towers and academic silos are not where English Studies belong, much have we have discussed this semester; and any scholar of rhetoric of identity should show ownership of this move to engage the public with ideas, theories, and findings. Everyone has an innate desire to belong; identification rhetoric can provide a means for engaging this desire to be “both joined together, yet separate from” a community (Burke 1325). For me, in this phase of my life, being a scholar of rhetoric of identity means that I make myself consubstantial with my students, with my academic classmates and colleagues, and with my diverse community groups.

Works Cited

Althusser, Louis. “From Ideology and State Apparatuses.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd ed., edited by Vincent B. Leitch, et al., W.W. Norton & Company, 2010, 1335-1360.

Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg. “Quintilian.” The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, edited by Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001, 359-364.

Burke, Kenneth. “From A Rhetoric of Motives.” The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, edited by Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001, 1324-1340.

Butler, Judith. “From Gender Trouble.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd ed., edited by Vincent B. Leitch, et al., W.W. Norton & Company, 2010, 2540-2552.

Depew, Kevin. Personal interview. 5 October 2016.

Foucault, Michel. “From The Order of Discourse.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd ed., edited by Vincent B. Leitch, et al., W.W. Norton & Company, 2010, 1460-1470.

Glenn, Cheryl. “Remapping Rhetorical Territory.” Rhetoric Review, vol. 13, no. 2, Spring 1995, pp. 287-303. JSTOR. Sept. 14, 2016.

Katz, S. B. “The ethic of expediency: Classical rhetoric, technology, and the Holocaust.” College English, vol. 54, no. 3, 1992, pp.255-275. JSTOR. Oct. 4, 2008.

Kopelson, Karen. “Dis/Integrating the Gay/Queer Binary: ‘Reconstructed Identity Politics’ for a Performative Pedagogy.” College English, vol. 65, no. 1, pp.17-35, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3250728. Accessed 12 Oct. 2016.

Showalter, Elaine. “Introduction and Chapter 1.” A Literature of their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing. Expanded Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1999. p. xi-36. Print.

Paper #5: Objects of Study-Rhetoric of Identity

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As is true for the field of English Studies in general, the objects of study for rhetoric of identity are vast and interdisciplinary. Texts, both human and not, of all kinds become points of analysis under a rhetorical lens. Traditional objects of study are written (books and the like) and oral (speeches predominantly) with attention to addressing the major questions surrounding the rhetor and the audience.

  1. What are the rhetor’s intentions and how does he/she want to be perceived?
  2. How much of the rhetor’s identity is determined by the audience? (Depew).

Phillip Sipiora, for example, analyzed Darwin’s book Origin of the Species with attention to the identity Darwin as author/rhetor created because he knew his largely religious audience would not readily accept his scientific ideas. Ryan Lee Teten demonstrates analysis of oral texts in looking at State of the Union Addresses from the founding fathers to the current presidents to look at identification rhetoric usage in addressing dual audiences of Congress and the general public.

identity-map1

Example of Multiple Identity Constructions via Social Media

The texts that dominate objects of study within the rapidly evolving twentieth and twenty-first centuries have expanded to include visual arguments, social media presences, and physical bodies just to name a few. Social media particularly has prompted much identity research as, in many ways, online identity has become a type of simulacrum slipping from a reflection of basic reality to little or no relation to the reality of the original identity (Baudrillard 1560). The ideal identity presence via digital platforms can be rhetorically crafted for any number of audiences.

Twenty-first century conversations are largely building on the latter object of study, physical bodies, by exploring issues of gender and cultural impact on identity. Judith Butler is maintaining a dominant voice in the conversation for both professional and personal reasons. By challenging the norm and claiming all gender as performative, she effectively undermines many identity labels that promote a binary of the Other.

 

Karen Kopelson is another voice in this discussion. The pedagogical nature of some of her work is of interest to me as I hope to find a niche in researching student identity constructs as one of my primary objects of study. Her queer pedagogical approach evolves from her claim that

“any aspect of identity, or any intersection of aspects of identity, can be ‘queered’” (25).

 

Her complete rejection of identity-based pedagogical approaches left me questioning the ethical implications of a queer pedagogical approach that has “the express intention of disrupting students’ identity-based expectations” or that attempts to keep “them [students] ‘off balance’ by deliberately shifting among and between positions of provocative skepticism and fervent belief” (20, 25). As one instructor within Kopelson’s example stated, some students need an essentialist identity for a time of transition into a more unstable mindset. This argument is just one of many examples connecting rhetoric of identity to the classroom.

These snapshot examples of current conversations and objects of study stem from a longstanding rhetorical history dating back to the Sophists and Socrates. While objects of study were largely limited to oral texts at this time, written texts became just as dominant in research once the printing press evolved and rhetoric was re-birthed in the late 1800s. The establishment of the canon gave boundaries for accepted and respected objects of study until the feminist movements of the twentieth century. The canon then became an object of study for different purposes: highlighting its many gaps. Marginalized groups were not, and still are not equally, represented. Those lost and missing voices became a dominant area aspasiafrom which to pull objects of study. Aspasia, as Dr. VanHaitsma stressed through her article selections earlier this semester, was one of the first objects of feminist study. This attempt to balance the voices of the canon has led the field to current conversations of queering objects of study. These feminist and queer theoretical lens inherently build upon the tradition of rhetoric of identity.

A common thread of most of our course readings and discussions this semester has been the volatile boundaries and border crossings of the multidisciplinary field of English studies. My research of rhetorical conversations of identity connect in many ways to this crisis as English majors often find themselves in careers not entirely relatable to the core subdiscplines of English Studies. Even teaching is outside the scope of some English programs of study. For these reasons, some scholars, such as Matthew T. Pifer, argue for a reconceptualization of professional identity for English majors as generalists or teacher-scholars. This new professional identity would alter several aspects, from scholarship to epistemology, of the field (188-190). Perhaps the generalist can become a new object of study for rhetoric of identity research. How does the label of teacher-scholar affect identity construction for graduates?

Works Cited

Baudrillard, Jean. “From The Precession of Simulacra.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd. Ed., edited by Vincent B. Leitch, W.W. Norton & Company, 2010, 1553-1566.  

Depew, Kevin. Personal interview. 5 October 2016.

Pifer, Matthew T. “On the Border: Theorizing the Generalist.” Transforming English Studies: New Voices in an Emerging Genre, edited by Lori Ostergaard, Jeff Ludwig, and Jim Nugent, Parlor Press, 2009, 179-194.

Sipiora, Phillip. “Ethical Argumentation in Darwin’s Origin of the Species.” Ethos: New Essays in Rhetorical and Critical Theory, edited by James S. Baumlin and Tita French Baumlin, Southern Methodist University Press, 1995, 265-292.

Teten, Ryan Lee. “‘We the People’: The ‘Modern’ Rhetorical Popular Address of the Presidents during the Founding Period.” Political Research Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 4, Dec. 2007, pp. 669-682. Ebscohost, doi: 10.1177/1065912907304495. Accessed 27 Oct. 2016.

Paper #4 Theories & Methods: Rhetoric of Identity

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Quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods–these are the standard research methods that come to mind when considering scholarly research. For the field of rhetoric, perhaps rhetorical analysis, a staple essay for any secondary writer or freshman composition syllabus. But rhetorical studies contains a myriad of diverse methods that are more specialized to individual research projects.

Before looking at some of these, it is important to note the subtle differences between methods and methodologies. While methods are the practices employed to analyze a text or to gather data, Sullivan and Porter highlight the bias that any researcher brings to a project through a chosen methodology, for it is a “rhetorical invention…[a] rhetorical interaction…it is itself an act of rhetoric” (10, 12, 13). A methodological framework is coupled with an ideology that is largely unavoidable; this is why a researcher must be careful in methodology selection and must be open about the resulting implications of that choice upon the research. Sullivan and Porter go further to claim that methodologies need to be reflexive and flexible in order to fit the given research text or situation (70).

Rhetoric is a sub-discipline that permeates so many others and its methodologies and theories are fairly vast, at least in their application.

“Lauer,” in our course text, claims “the field’s methodology as multimodal. Prominent among these modes of inquiry have been historical studies; theory building; empirical research (from qualitative studies like ethnographies to quantitative studies like experiments and meta-analyses); discourse analysis and interpretative studies, feminist and teacher research; and postmodern investigations” (132).

This list serves as a starting point for identifying and categorizing the array of research that rhetoricians do, as well as rhetorical methods employed by other disciplines.

Ryan Lee Teten, a rhetorical scholar of political communication, uses rhetorical analysis to do historical inquiry within the field of political science to look at “the ‘traditional/modern’” paradigm as it relates to the speech category of the State of the Union address. His method is a “line-by-line content analysis through all of the State of the Union Addresses from George Washington to George W. Bush to count elements such as word length, specific word usage, and context” (671). These categories are designed to highlight both audience in address to congress vs. the people and speaker in identification, authority, and directive rhetoric. Teten concludes that “contemporary presidents use identification rhetoric [we, us, our] in amounts never before seen in the State of the Union Address…[and] that presidential rhetoric may not be easily categorized as simply ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’” (675, 670-671).

historical-inquiry

His multidisciplinary methodological approach allows for shared data and terms that can bring much to conversations in both Political Science and English Studies. The methodology of historical inquiry allows the method of rhetorical analysis to highlight both the importance of the language and the historical figures. I do wonder what a similar analysis of Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s stump speeches and debates would reveal in using Teten’s same lens of identification, authority, and directive rhetoric. Would they align with our founding fathers in any ways or further the traditional/modern divide?

Phillip Sipiora uses discourse analysis to rhetorically analyse Darwin’s foundational text, On the Origin of Species. Sipiora claims that this scientific discourse breaks traditidiscourseons in moving away from the conventions of scientific demonstrations as Darwin writes an ethical argument or a “quasi-scientific treatise” (266). The expositor-narrator (speaker) is constantly aware of and seeking to built a relationship of trust with the reader (audience). In hearkening back the historical roots of the field, the author does so using three of Aristotle’s subappeals: virtue (arete), goodwill (eunoia), and good sense (phronesis) (266). While Sipiora is not claiming that Darwin ignores pathos and logos, he is claiming that ethos was more important to Darwin in the writing of this text as “it is crucial that the scientific rhetor create a persona that emanates credibility” because of the time in which the book was published in 1859 (269). Sipiora concludes, “Perhaps exploring the rhetoric of ethics in scientific texts will lead us to ask generative questions about ethical dimensions and implications far beyond the texts themselves” (288).

Sipiora’s argument, with its emphasis on both the rhetor and the audience, rests upon a foundational theory to the field of rhetoric. It also addresses some of the field’s major questions when it comes to analyzing identity portrayal and perceptions, both points of interest in my own course outcomes. The major questions of the rhetor’s intentions and identity as determined by the audience, as well as the challenges facing the rhetor in establishing an identity construct necessary to successfully persuade an audience, are all addressed by Sipiora in the discourse analysis of Darwin’s text (Depew).

Sipiora’s article is of further interest to me because of the author’s direct references to Kenneth Burke’s identification: “The expositor-narrator must share some of the reader’s basic assumptions, what Kenneth Burke calls ‘identification,’ and it is this evolving identification with the reader that makes the Origin such a powerful rhetorical argument” (268). Burke’s theories of consubstantiality are of particular interest to me based on my personal course outcomes to explore major theorists and conversations surrounding rhetoric of identity.

While empirical research, with its ties to scientific writing, has been more authoritative in the past, feminist studies has become more dominant in rhetorical conversations over the past couple of decades. Within this, historical inquiry and discourse analysis have been utilized. For example, our class discussion and course reading on Aspasia involved both methodologies in building from questions of our field’s established history and the gaps in canonized texts. Current trends are building upon the momentum of feminist studies to embrace queer studies not just in the sub-discipline of rhetoric, but throughout the field of English studies. These methodological trends provide theoretical frameworks for much of my objects of study relating to identity constructs.

Works Cited

Depew, Kevin. Personal interview. 5 October 2016.

Lauer, Janice M. “Rhetoric and Composition.” English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s), edited by Bruce McComiskey, National Council for Teachers of English,  2006, 106-152.

Miller, C. R. “A humanistic rationale for technical writing.” College English, vol. 40, no. 6, 1979, pp. 610-617.

Sipiora, Phillip. “Ethical Argumentation in Darwin’s Origin of the Species.” Ethos: New Essays in Rhetorical and Critical Theory, edited by James S. Baumlin and Tita French Baumlin, Southern Methodist University Press, 1995, 265-292.

Sullivan, P. A., & Porter, J. E. Opening spaces: Writing technologies and critical research practices. Ablex, 1997, 1-13, 45-99.

Teten, Ryan Lee. “‘We the People’: The ‘Modern’ Rhetorical Popular Address of the Presidents during the Founding Period.” Political Research Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 4, Dec. 2007, pp. 669-682. Ebscohost, doi: 10.1177/1065912907304495. Accessed 27 Oct. 2016.

PAB #4 (Methods & Methodology)

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Sipiora, Phillip. “Ethical Argumentation in Darwin’s Origin of the Species.” Ethos: New Essays in Rhetorical and Critical Theory, edited by James S. Baumlin and Tita French Baumlin, Southern Methodist University Press, 1995, 265-292.

Sipiora, using a discourse analysis methodology, rhetorically analyses Darwin’s foundational darwintext, On the Origin of Species. Sipiora claims that this scientific discourse breaks traditions in moving away from the conventions of scientific demonstrations as Darwin writes an ethical argument or a “quasi-scientific treatise” (266). The expositor-narrator (speaker) is constantly aware of and seeking to built a relationship of trust with the reader (audience). He does so using three of Aristotle’s subappeals: virtue (arete), goodwill (eunoia), and good sense (phronesis) (266).

ethos

Virtue (arete) is found in Darwin’s passive constructions, establishment of professional integrity, patterns of self-effacement, third-person references, stative verbs, and catenative constructions. In utilizing these rhetorical devices, Darwin rests his dependence “on his attempts to involve the reader in the progressive development of the argument” (276). His “self-deprecating, self-correcting stance is a persuasive ethical strategy,” which Sipiora argues is key to his ethical argumentation (275).

Darwin’s use of goodwill (eunoia) is key in the “conjoining of rhetor and audience in a common endeavor” (276). This is accomplished through rhetorical devices such as identification rhetorical pronoun usage (we, our), rhetorical questioning, value appeals, first-person references (to highlight collective ignorance), and conditional clauses (if). Sipiora calls Darwin’s use of goodwill a “double-edged strategy…[and] a powerful rhetorical weapon…[for] simultaneous bonding with and manipulating of the reader” (279, 280).

Lastly, Darwin highlights good sense (phronesis) in his emphasis on probability. Comment clauses, integration of both first and third person pronouns (I, we), and strategic location of his argument within “accepted scientific investigation” all work together to “appeal to common sense” (282).  Readers “are forced to rely on the good judgment of the expositor” because of our general lack of scientific knowledge and our ignorance exploited through these subappeals (287).

First Edition showing theological quotes by William Whewell & Francis Bacon

While Sipiora is not claiming that Darwin ignores pathos and logos, he is claiming that ethos was more important to Darwin in the writing of this text as “it is crucial that the scientific rhetor create a persona that emanates credibility” because of the time in which the book was published in 1859 (269). In fact, Darwin was so sure that the Church of the time would see the text as heretical, the first edition opened with two theological quotes to start establishing his credibility with his audience immediately. Sipiora ends by addressing the “so what” question: “Perhaps exploring the rhetoric of ethics in scientific texts will lead us to ask generative questions about ethical dimensions and implications far beyond the texts themselves” (288).

Sipiora’s multidisciplinary argument is unique in that it is analyzing a scientific text through a rhetorical lens. Typically, scientific discourse falls into the technical writing territory. Sipiora’s claim that Darwin’s text is in fact a rhetorical argument fits within the scope of Carolyn R. Miller’s claim that the positivist legacy of scientific discourse relaying Truth (uppercase implying absolute) isn’t valid. All writing is arguing for an interpretation of the world around us and is therefore arguing for truth (lowercase implying subjective). Considering Sipiora’s argument, Darwin’s text just might be proof of that claim.

I selected this article to demonstrate the rhetorical methodology of discourse analysis and because it deals with identification. In fact, Sipiora directly references Kenneth Burke’s identification: “The expositor-narrator must share some of the reader’s basic assumptions, what Kenneth Burke calls ‘identification,’ and it is this evolving identification with the reader that makes the Origin such a powerful rhetorical argument” (268). Burke’s theories of consubstantiality are of particular interest to me based on my personal course outcomes to explore major theorists and conversations surrounding rhetoric of identity.

Works Cited

Miller, C. R. “A humanistic rationale for technical writing.” College English, vol. 40, no. 6, 1979, pp. 610-617.

PAB #4 (Methods & Methodology)

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Teten, Ryan Lee. “‘We the People’: The ‘Modern’ Rhetorical Popular Address of the Presidents during the Founding Period.” Political Research Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 4, Dec. 2007, pp. 669-682. Ebscohost, doi: 10.1177/1065912907304495. Accessed 27 Oct. 2016.

Teten, a rhetorical scholar of political communication, uses rhetorical analysis to do historical inquiry within the field of political science to look at “the ‘traditional/modern’” paradigm as it relates to the speech category of the State of the Union address. For the scope souaof this research, he defines rhetorical leadership “as the process of discovering, articulating, and sharing the available means of influence in order to motivate human agents in a particular situation…it is leadership exerted through talk or persuasion” (Dorsey as qtd. on 670). His method is a “line-by-line content analysis through all of the State of the Union Addresses from George Washington to George W. Bush to count elements such as word length, specific word usage, and context” (671). These categories are designed to highlight both audience in address to congress vs. the people and speaker in identification, authority, and directive rhetoric. Teten concludes “that presidential rhetoric may not be easily categorized as simply ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’” (670, 671).

A closer look at each of the above listed categories reveals claims through each set of graphed data. For example, “contemporary presidents use identification rhetoric [we, us, our] in amounts never before seen in the State of the Union Address” (675). Authority rhetoric (I, me, my) is slightly more prevalent on the modern side of the paradigm, but there are traces of it more consistently throughout presidential history. Directive rhetoric (you, your, yours) is prevalent in our founding fathers’ speeches: “the initial presidents spoke with high levels of directive rhetoric to the people and the Congress…[which] mirrors the directive rhetoric of late-twentieth-century State of the Union Addresses” (678, 679).

Because of the method that Teten use, his study holds value in that each of his data sets holds a plethora of questions for further study. His multidisciplinary methodological approach allows for shared data and terms that can bring much to conversations in both Political Science and English Studies. Teten reiterates communication scholar David ffZarefsky’s conclusion that “‘it is worth re-examining earlier presidencies–not only to appreciate them more and see from whence we came–but to realize striking similarities and recurrent patterns of rhetorical innovation’” (qtd. on 680). The methodology of historical inquiry allows rhetorical analysis to highlight both the importance of the language used as well as the historical figures and to integrate multiple disciplines successfully. In light of our current political season, this analysis was interesting. I wonder what an analysis of Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s stump speeches and debates would reveal in using Teten’s same lens of identification, authority, and directive rhetoric. Would they align with our founding fathers in any ways or further the traditional/modern divide?

I had a hard time finding articles for this week’s topic of methods and methodologies. Rhetoric is a discipline that permeates so many others and its methodologies are fairly vast, at least in their application. I was able to find a small passage in one of our course textbooks that listed out historical inquiry, theory building, empirical research, discourse analysis, and postmodern investigation as a starting point for identifying and categorizing the array of research that rhetoricians do and rhetorical methods employed by other disciplines (Lauer 132). Ultimately, I had to use a couple articles that would highlight a methodology indirectly and connect to identification is some way.

Works Cited

Lauer, Janice M. “Rhetoric and Composition.” English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s), edited by Bruce McComiskey, National Council for Teachers of English,  2006, 106-152.

Rhetoric of Identity: Epistemological Alignment

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I suppose the guiding questions for this paper would firstly prompt a confession of my true identityintentions behind my research interests in rhetoric of identity: I am largely still trying to figure out my own identity. I don’t entirely know what I want to be when I grow up and there are many layers within my thirty-one years of life that have played a part in who I am as a scholar and truth-seeker, an educator, a student, a wife, a friend, a daughter, etc. Behind each aspect of my identity lies questions of how that construction came to be.

What rhetorical elements were and are still at play in my own identity formation and what role do I play in the identity constructions, both actively and passively, of my students and those whom I interact with consistently? What role does society play on my identity and the identities of my students?

 

As we have firmly established already this semester, English is a multidisciplinary field. If we can not agree on any other definition, that fact is evident. This fact is precisely what led me to English and has continued to lure me back into the English classroom, both as student and teacher. Rhetoric is of particular interest to me because it seems to be the intersection of so many aspects of each subdiscipline. The texts of study and contexts of consideration of each subfield require attention to unique rhetorical situations, and the resulting identities are fascinating to me. Language, society and culture, power structures, ideologies–all of these converge through rhetoric and impact identity construction in multifarious ways. How are we ultimately defined by the ideologies embedded within each of the above listed aspects? And how are these ideologies translated to us as members of a myriad of communities at any given stage of our lives? It is for all of these reasons that I have narrowed my research energy this semester to rhetoric of identity.

Althusser: Subjectivity and Ideology

In considering my own epistemological alignment, I find myself returning to Kenneth Burke’s term consubstantiality. Burke uses this term to describe someone who is both joined with and separate from another person or group. In our postmodern society, this seems to be how most people prefer to think of themselves in relation to any discourse community; we want to be part of a community but also maintain some level of independence and individuality. I also find myself more readily drawn to discussions of subjectivity, as Louis Althusser uses the term  when describing the identity construct one assumes within an ideological framework. We are capable, to some extent, of role-playing or assuming some level of expected identity portrayal when functioning within an ideological framework, but are we also able to resist the identity constructions being placed upon us?

From my own personal experience as both a student and a teacher within religious school settings, the overlapping ideologies of religion and education demand a certain identity. When applying a Burkean lens to one K-12 school’s vision statement, these two ideologies converge into a specific identity construct that is expected of students: “to become godly warriors.” Rhetoric helps to maintain the constant tension between the two ideologies and enables the subjectivity of each student and faculty member who is consubstantial with the institution.

In looking through sources for this paper, I discovered quite a spectrum in relation to this conversation of rhetoric of identity. From Freud to Burke to Butler, the topic dips into multidisciplinarity quickly. Burke, a follower of Freud in many regards, believed that “the most fundamental human desire is social rather than sexual” as Freud often claimed (124). Another point of divergent thought in Burke and Freud is in Burke’s insistence that “there is no essential identity” (Davis 127). The identifying “I” becomes essentially an actor assuming the mores of a group as a means of identification. The underlying premise here is that there is “an ‘individual’ who is individuated by nature itself”; this estrangement between self and other Burke explains as biological (128). Overcoming this biological estrangement becomes the rhetorical job of identification.

This of course relates to the Hegelian concept of the Other as well as Judith Butler’s inclusion of otherness in queer theory. Karen Kopelson, utilizing Butler’s theories, seems to be on the other end of the spectrum from either Freud or Burke: no intrinsic identity or self. Freud, claiming there is an intrinsic sexual self, forms one end of the spectrum; Burke, believing in an estranged biological self that is influenced socially, plots another point, perhaps near the middle of the spectrum, while Butler and Kopelson are on the other end of this identity spectrum: identity is performative.

This provides quite the array to consider when seeking my own epistemological alignment. Because my learning outcomes are often connected, at least partially, to my own identity as an educator, my Objects of Study are often students themselves and connecting artifacts, such as school handbooks and vision and mission statements. The pedagogical basis of Kopelson’s argument caught my attention for that reason. However, I was left questioning the ethical implications of a queer pedagogical approach that has “the express intention of disrupting students’ identity-based expectations” or that attempts to keep “them [students] ‘off balance’ by deliberately shifting among and between positions of provocative skepticism and fervent belief” (20, 25). As one instructor within Kopelson’s example stated, some students need an essentialist identity for a time of transition into a more unstable mindset. Are teenagers cognitively and emotionally able to deal with this level of instability?  

These residual questions imply that I do not align in all regards with queer theory approaches. I do, however, believe that Burke was onto something with his discussion of identity being largely molded by society and Althusser’s notions of ideological implications in identity construction. Butler also speaks to gender being a social construct, so in that regard I do agree with her theories. I believe that I align somewhere within this Marxist camp in its emphasis of power structures and ideological influence, although I obviously do not subscribe to all Marxist tenets.

Ultimately, I am fascinated in language’s power, no matter the theoretical lens, to impact identity construction in ways of which an individual is not even aware. I hope to find a niche in researching student identity constructs as one of my primary objects of study. Perhaps, through my research process, I will start to understand my own identity…here’s to hoping!

who-am-i

Works Cited

Althusser, Louis. “From Ideology and State Apparatuses.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd ed., edited by Vincent B. Leitch, et al., W.W. Norton & Company, 2010, 1335-1360.

Burke, Kenneth. “From A Rhetoric of Motives.” The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, edited by Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001, 1324-1340.

Davis, Diane. “Identification: Burke and Freud on Who You Are.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 2, 2008, pp. 123-147, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02773940701779785. Accessed 12 Oct. 2016.

Kopelson, Karen. “Dis/Integrating the Gay/Queer Binary: ‘Reconstructed Identity Politics’ for a Performative Pedagogy.” College English, vol. 65, no. 1, pp.17-35, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3250728. Accessed 12 Oct. 2016.

 

PAB #3 (Epistemological Alignment)

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Kopelson, Karen. “Dis/Integrating the Gay/Queer Binary: ‘Reconstructed Identity Politics’ for a Performative Pedagogy.” College English, vol. 65, no. 1, pp.17-35, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3250728. Accessed 12 Oct. 2016.

Examples of Identity Spectrums that many Identity-Based Pedagogical Approaches Promote

Kopelson, building upon Butler’s theory of performativity, argues for a deconstruction of identity-based politics. Much as Butler has stated, Kopelson reiterates that the coming-out narrative further perpetuates the binary construct of heterosexuality as the norm and homosexuality as the other. Identity-based pedagogical approaches, no matter how well-intentioned, run the risk of doing the same: creating a binary structure and encouraging that mindset within students. The both/and negotiated approaches of many English Studies Departments and composition classrooms can either centralize homophobic attitudes, perpetuate an atmosphere of fear, or reduce “‘the problem of remedying homophobia’” (20). Queer theory in general confuses, destabilizes, and challenges existing concepts of gender and sexuality. In fact, Kopelson goes so far as to claim the term queer as a verb because of the above mentioned synonymous actions that accompany a truly queer approach that results in a denormalizing of identity categories.

Ultimately, “any aspect of identity, or any intersection of aspects of identity, can be ‘queered’” (25). Kopelson gives an example of an instructor who queers the concept of whiteness and another who queers the identity of being a Jew. However, there is always a risk in association. Another example the author brings up is that of a Catholic, black lesbian. She is most commonly associated with black females and her sexuality and religion identity constructs become invisible because of this association. Perhaps the biggest issue Kopelson raises in conjunction with identity-based politics is the false presence of unity. As outliers, all marginalized people come to be viewed in unison. Ultimately, this eliminates the possibilities for difference.

Queer pedagogy that is performative-focused allows for “multiplicity… [which is] one of the greatest advantages of queer or performative pedagogies over pedagogies of disclosure/coming out” (25). While many who oppose queer pedagogical approaches fear that these will ironically replicate the invisibility of students who are already struggling for recognition, Kopelson sees this dynamic shift to embrace queer “politics where identity is a persistent and provocative question, but never a certainty” as a viable option to avoid both/and approaches or replicas of binary constructs (32). While she admits the possibility for failure, she ends with a admonition to embrace a pedagogy of no sides where there is a chance for success.

I found Kopelson’s multidisciplinary argument fascinating, especially following the identity theories of Burke and Freud who both argue for some ratio of essential identity, whether it’s social or sexual. Kopelson, utilizing Butler’s theories, seems to be on the other end of the spectrum: no intrinsic identity or self. This provides quite the array to consider when seeking my own epistemological alignment. Because my learning outcomes are often connected, at least partially, to my own identity as an educator, the pedagogical basis of Kopelson’s argument was interesting. I was left questioning the ethical implications of a queer pedagogical approach that has “the express intention of disrupting students’ identity-based expectations” or that attempts to keep “them [students] ‘off balance’ by deliberately shifting among and between positions of provocative skepticism and fervent belief” (20, 25). As one instructor within Kopelson’s example stated, some students need an essentialist identity for a time of transition into a more unstable  mindset. This call for dynamic pedagogy gives me reason to pause and consider all my students. Are teenagers cognitively and emotionally able to deal with this level of instability?  Perhaps explicitly queer pedagogical approaches should be reserved for the collegiate classroom.