What is rhetoric? What is the history and theory of rhetoric? What do you hope to gain from this course?
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It has to do with the way we use language to incite, excite, convey, impress, cajole. Persuasion, as an art, has many different intentions. Rhetoric and the study of rhetoric have to do with how we parse out those intentions rather than just reacting. What designs does an author have on us as readers? Why do we feel so stimulated by certain orators, even when the content is not always stimulating? I’ve long believed that you cannot have control over the way someone reacts to an impetus. We are all too wound up with prior experiences and emotions for even the color blue to mean the same thing to you and you and you. But the study of rhetoric helps to streamline this wildness.
I enjoyed reading about the long history of rhetoric juxtaposed with the relatively short history of the English Department. I especially enjoyed our discussion of the Four Stages of Composition (product, process, post-process, beyond-post-process) because it gave me a workable framework in which to understand what I’m currently teaching and how I’m teaching it.
I also wondered how the decline in Classics since around 1883 and the rise of modern languages has affected our love for rhyme and myth. Rhyme and myth, so powerful in the Classics, are obviously still strong components of modern literature, but in less obvious forms.
I always struggle to read about uncertainty around “sufficient substance of English as an academic subject.” What could possibly be more important than the way we communicate with each other? What could be more nuanced, more exciting, more tied to every other field? Especially as we move through an era where people are communicating more than ever, universities have a responsibility to “hold down the fort” of academic English. How can we continue to improve upon a subject if we are not in touch with its history?
During this course, I hope to better understand how and why we make each other feel, what the “science of communication” is. Especially as a poet, I’m interested in why so few students read poetry. Why are they willing to spend hours with a movie or television show, or weeks with a book, but not sit with a poem for a few moments? What is the difference in transfer of emotion, of intuition? Through the study of rhetoric and its history, I think I can better understand how this gap widened, and how to help narrow it again.
"Why do we feel so stimulated by certain orators, even when the content is not always stimulating?" This question really piqued my interest, because it's absolutely true and can be answered through a thousand different lenses. My first thought was Plato, given that we are discussing Classical Rhetoric. I love Plato, and I particularly love his symposium on the Origin of Love, but dear God I cannot stand to read it. It's so boring, I've read it once and that was once too many. So you're right for asking why do I claim to love this particular writer and this particular subject that he writes about, yet I cannot stand to read it, and I certainly do not enjoy reading it. But perhaps that exactly the rhetorician's point or purpose or maybe even partial goal. Because rhetoric is also about how we deliver the message in addition to what we say, this could very well be the answer to your question and my love/hate for Plato. It's both what he says, but more so how he describes the Origin of Love that makes me squee with happiness when I come across the topic of either Plato or his symposium. Moreover, my second thought was teachers. As a former high school teacher, at the end of the year I asked my students to reflect on their year and write a journal entry. One of my students said, "Even though you were mean, and made us do a lot of work, you were my favorite teacher." Another student recently emailed me about her new English teacher and said, "I have very high expectations for my new teacher and she just can't meet them because you set the bar so high." Nearly all of my students groaned when it was time for our weekly grammar lesson, but in their reflections they would say that looking back it wasn't so bad because of how I taught them grammar.
ReplyDeleteMany students, of any age, dislike English class. Many students dread writing essays. But at the same time, those students still show up to class, still participate, still engage in the lesson, but why? Is it because they know I'm grading for participation? Is it because they're eager to learn the material? Is it because they secretly enjoy writing essays? Or is it something else? Is it because of the teacher, the professor, the mentor, the rhetorician standing in front of them making a seemingly awful subject something fun and interesting?
I think this is a very big key to teaching, not just composition, although it certainly applies more readily because we're constantly asked the question: "how will I use this [insert English concept here] in my daily life?" When it comes to teaching, whether it be college, secondary, or even primary education, one of the hardest, albeit most valuable factor for the educator, is knowing your students. You state, "How can we continue to improve upon a subject if we are not in touch with its history?"
It's not just about improving the study of composition by knowing its history, but it's also about improving your teaching of composition by knowing your audience, knowing their history. Knowing how your students work, how they think, how they learn, and how they process the material you're throwing at them. This is one of many purposes of rhetoric as well. I can stand up in front of the classroom and lecture on the proper use of verbs in a monotone voice, or I can make learning those same verbs fun and exciting by using a varying tone in my voice, using examples relating to my students, or I can even make it a game.
I think, in composition studies, it's not just simply about delivering content. It's about engaging students in and with the content.
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, I truly love your definition of rhetoric. Interestingly enough, I feel as if the way that you framed that initial paragraph provided me with a better understanding (a "more rounded" one, if you will) of the true scope of rhetoric. I appreciate the way that you formulate your opening in such a way as to reflect that which you are describing.
On a different note, your point about the decline of the Classics and then the slow "killing off" of our adoration for rhyme and myth is compelling. I was stimulated by this thought, and couldn't help but wonder if the arising "discipline" of composition may have effected this negatively. Considering that composition as a field of study arose around this era, I find it ironic that two of the most creative forms of composed expression (poetry and myth) fell to the wayside. I wonder if it was a reaction against prescribed learning standards?
I also think, to expand upon the above thought and on your questioning of the decline in poetry reading, that this decline or disinterest stems from a lack of understanding rhetoric itself. As poets, we are linguistically, spatially, and tonally aware within on our own writing, making it easier to recognize these aspects in others' works. I can't help but place alot of the blame on our educational systems, which indoctrinates the expository essay (alone) into students, but I also wonder if technology hasn't stunted our growth in this area as well? With the immediacy of information today, I believe that many see no use in composing or in reading, as they can always depend on gleaning the information (and purpose, audience, etc.) from an already published source. Interesting questions you've asked.
"Especially as a poet, I’m interested in why so few students read poetry. Why are they willing to spend hours with a movie or television show, or weeks with a book, but not sit with a poem for a few moments?"
ReplyDeleteI think a huge part of this (based on my own experiences) is how poetry gets taught at the primary and secondary levels of education. Poetry is often taught as something super rarefied, impenetrable, utterly foreign to contemporary life. Even when a modern or contemporary author is taught, the general notion is that poetry is something to be decoded, with difficulty. It's all symbolism and we gotta translate it into something understandable, relatable. Okay, maybe the language of Chaucer *is* very far away from contemporary English. But I think even English teachers are afraid of poetry. There is so much fear. And therefore an emphasis on parsing meaning instead of enjoying music. Work instead of play. I mean, poems often make you work for their meanings. But it can often be a pleasurable labor.
As educators, we need to bring out more of that pleasure. As poets, we need to say to folks (students *and* fellow teachers), You don't have to be afraid. You don't have to understand everything about the poem before you can enjoy its rhythms and tones and associations. Does Helen Vendler understand everything about every Wallace Stevens poem? I don't think she does; otherwise she would not keep writing about his work and others'. Poetry is a lifelong discovery. You never stop learning how to read poems. Sure, that can be frustrating. But it is so deeply rewarding. And the more poems one reads, the more ready one is for the next one. It isn't so weird. Then again, one of the chief powers and responsibilities of poetry, to my mind, is to keep language weird, fresh, slanted (a la Dickinson).
Teachers of poetry can start with contemporary poets like Terrance Hayes or Mary Ruefle, who are very playful and pleasurable to read. In an immediate way. Though their meanings and references may take some time to reach. But the emphasis ought to be on the enjoyment of sound and rhythm, first. And getting the gist of it, the texture of it, before the line by line analysis. "Analysis" always sounds boring to students (and to me, frankly). **Read poems out loud** It is an oral art, too, yes? **Read poems out loud** Shakespeare makes 10,000% more sense when read out loud, acted out, played with.
Other good "intro" poets: Lucille Clifton. Li-Young Lee. Dorianne Laux. Aracelis Girmay. Nikky Finney. Sharon Olds. Kenneth Koch. Noami Shihab Nye. Mary Oliver. Billy Collins. (I know these last two are kind of looked down upon as being "popular" or even "commercial" but they're a good entrance point for students who've never really read or liked poetry.)
Nice comments here giving you some valuable viewpoints. I'm curious why the classics should be so valuable. I believe they are, but why?
ReplyDeleteDr. Rice - I think they are valuable because you cannot fully hope to understand a subject if you don't also understand its history. I also think it's incredibly helpful to read texts that are linguistically disorienting, that remove us from the automation of "comfortable" reading. Thus the Classics function in two ways: as a history of literature and as an exercise in literature.
ReplyDeleteOh and Chen, I love your list of "intro" poets!
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