Takeaways from 733

The takeaways from this course are really divided into two areas for me: Problematizing the ideas I already had about rhetoric and expanding my view of rhetoric. These are, of course, related. In many classes the goal is simply to expand a knowledge base with the idea that more knowledge means greater intellect. But more can probably be gained from questioning the beliefs (or “facts”) that we already possess. Sometimes the best way to call these beliefs into question is by expanding our knowledge base and then synthesizing. For me—especially since I have had the opportunity to take 733 and 603 simultaneously—733 has been a place to synthesize. That’s where I learned the most.

            First, the expansion. On the most basic level I ended up reading more the Rhetorical Tradition than I did as an MA student. But instead of looking at “pieces of rhetoric” we also began to explore systems of rhetoric and how they come to define the larger tradition. (The book, The Rhetorical Tradition, was not discussed, but rather acted as a warehouse of texts in my MA program.) I also developed a better sense of writing technologies (most notably language and writing) and how they came to shape not just culture, but also thought processes. The differentiation of speech and writing and their complicated relationship came to light a little better. I also have a fuller sense of history. One of the recurring themes about RT that became apparent in our classroom critiques is that it is a person-based text. History as a class (and the last one I took was as an undergrad) is usually event based. So, in looking at these historical figures, I gained another dimension of the construct we call history.

            Then came the problems. The systems of knowledge really bugged me at first—the whole idea that we are operating inside this ideology and can’t get out of it. I guess this is why the RT began to bother me so much: because as a text it really came to exemplify how we create these ideas and then make institutions that reinforce these ideas and turn them into ideologies. My interest in libraries and the Dewey Decimal Classification comes from this vein. I also began to note some of the discrepancies or exclusions from history, causing me to question how history is formed and how it operates as a system itself. The usual components of history—events, people, and politics—began to crystallize as rhetorical. (Think of the suffrage movement in history versus how it is approached in RT.) Add the writing technologies into the mix and I began to appreciate the seemingly less significant movements in the history of rhetoric like letter writing or the use of silence.

            That’s more than 2-3 things and nothing that really zeros in on a takeaway. (And thus is my focus this semester.) How about this as my big takeaway: Our goal as teachers should not be to stuff the students’ heads with “new” information like logos, ethos, kairos and whatever other Greek words we can rustle up. Instead, maybe we can better teach by slowly expanding the students’ world in ways that challenge their beliefs. We need to be interdisciplinary. (We’ve seen what a rift in the humanities can do in the long term.) We also need to design assignments that challenge students’ perceptions of writing. First, we need to make writing relevant by giving it venue, audience, and kairotic purpose. Secondly, we need to broaden our notions of rhetoric in the first-year classroom. Why do we assign papers? Speeches, videos, system design, and metadata are the rhetorics we should be concerned with now. I saw this article about one of Kurt Vonnegut’s writing assignments and it struck me as particularly useful. (Then it struck me that he was doing this nearly five decades ago.) We should be looking at texts, yes, but we also need to acknowledge the tools and the methods of production.