Points of Praxis

My Blog Reflects on Visual Rhetorical Theory and Disability Rhetoric and their Connections to Classical and Contemporary Rhetorical Theory

Comp Theory 1860's--1980's
(part of discussion from James J. Murphy's A Short History of Writing Instruction, particularly Catherine Hobbs' and James Berlin's chapter "A Century of Writing Instruction in School and College English.")

• 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act.
• 1860's-1900's--everything organized and professionalized. Elective courses. Specialized.
  
• Science incorporated into many disciplines.
• Vocational training.
• 19th cent. emphasis on "American":  new courses, new subjects.
• Belle Lettres--but concern for American writing (Emerson).  Not interpretation but appreciation.
• Introduction of women into classroom.
• Writing primary means of evaluation over declamatio.
• Harvard's "English A"--comp moved from 2nd year to 1st.  Writing separated from other disciplines.
• New comprehensive university modeled after German universities.

Old University                                 New University
Classics                                           Land Grant Universities
Tutorial System                                 Lectures
Teachers taught every course             Specialization
Recitation                                         Writing Assignments
Public Speaking                                Specific Composition Courses. 
Declamatio                                       Other courses do not have to "teach" writing.
Male, Literary Fraternity                     Women in courses

Movements in American Comp Teaching

• Liberal Culture.  Literature based.  Write good writing leads to being able to write well.  reacting against scientific approach to comp and lit.  Teaching connected w/ morality.  little to do w/ kairos, public discourse, invention.  Concerned w/ lit crit. self-development. spiritual quality. Yale.  Connections to the "Sublime" and Blair.  Literary text expression of human potential. Literature--truth, goodness, and beauty.  C-R--too democratic.  Sublime writing cannot be taught. Literature connected to culture.  Aristocratic. 
  


• Alternative Social Rhetoric. Scott. Buck.continuation of some classical--kairos, Cicero. public discourse for public good. paragraph writing. important but not very influential at time.  invention.  originality. discourse for specific purposes.  Neither completely sensory or subjective. Both private and public setting. Rhetoric of public service.  Rhetoric of public good. Writing as social act of complex interaction between writer, audience, subject, and language.
  

• Current Traditional Rhetoric. skills emphasis. mechanics. product over process. modes of discourse. non-heuristic. non-kairos. conflict w/ l-c b/c c-t writing is a teachable skill.  l-c writing for self. Began at Harvard in response to report.  Based on scientific method. Reliable knowledge is sense impression. Use inductive methods to derive data. Language stands in for experience. Mind is a set of faculties.  Faculties correspond to expression and discourse.  Modes of discourse. Exposition and argumentation--reason.  Description and Persuasion--emotion and will.  Knowledge exists prior to discourse. Emphasis on arrangement and style (correctness).  Objective, mechanical, disinterested rhetoric. Scientific pedagogy.
  

Major Figures
    A. S. Hill. Harvard.  English A.  Why Johnny Can't Write.
    F. N. Scott. taught at Michigan.  Founded MLA. developed own program apart from lit.
    Gertrude Buck. 1st woman w/ PhD in Rhetoric.
    Edwin Hopkins.

Movements of 20's and 30's--

• "Efficiency." WWI. productivity and efficiency. schools take business model.  more students to fewer teachers.  Psychological development for planning pedagogy.
  

• Expressionism. Opposite of efficiency.  extreme l-c. more democratic.  influenced by Freud.  marginalized groups find expressionism appealing. cultural implications other than discourse. Concern for unique individual.  Creative potential of student (coming out of optimism for education following WWI).  Dehumanizing effects of industrialized capitalism. Process beginning.
  

• Current Traditional Rhetoric.  Connected w/ Behaviorism and concern for measurement through testing.
  

40's and 50's--development of 4C's in '49 (Revival of interest in composition)

• "Comp Lit." humanist.  literature-based. quality of writing and thinking primary focus.
  

• Social Rhetoric. similar to transactional theory.
  

• Communication Skills. part of general education. remedial. reaction to influx of G.I. Bill Veterans w/ limited educational background.  combined speech and composition. ultimately failed b/c conflict b/t faculty. logistical problems. became communication courses.
• Current Traditional Rhetoric.
  

60's and 70's--

• Neo-Classicism. Corbitt, Classical Rhetoric for Modern Student.  Course in content. more about logic. argumentation. little interaction w/ current discourse. 
• Linguistics (Structuralism, structural grammar). language as a science. words' function.
  

• Neo-expressionism. K. Macrorie, P. Elbow. Vietnam changed pedagogy.  Themes writing. Journalistic writing about self to learn "voice." free writing. writing for self-development rather than part of social discourse.  anti-product. anti c-r. composing process. some backlash b/c no concern for product.
  

• Current Traditional Rhetoric.

late 70's and 80's--

• Cognitivism. Flower, J. Emig, Mike Rose. cognitive process of writing. students wrote while talking about writing choices. composing process became part of writing programs' pedagogy. Rose--interest in Writer's Block.  Most stuck in c-t model. stuck on grammar. encouraged free writing.
  

• Current Traditional Rhetoric.

• Linguistics (sentence combining). Christianson. sentence types as methods of construction. generative rhetoric of sentence. no kairos. no context. no theme/ rhyme. Kellogg-Hunt model.  T-units.  Kernel sentences. improve syntactic maturity. school of education. classes on combining sentences. no reading. no contexts. no invention.  anti-process pedagogy. no theoretical background.
  

• Open admissions: two year colleges.

• "Basic Writing." culturally marginized.  problems w/ print code conventions and syntax.     problems w/ discourse features--pragmatic and semantic. Cognitivism. Linguistic perspective. error analysis. dialect interference.  (Shaughnessy and Bolin). Culturalism. "membership"      model. discourse and acculturaltion. worldview clashes (Bizzell). marginalization. rejection of acculturation (hooks).

• ESL.

1980's and after--

• Social Constructionism. Zhan-Lu. discourse deeply involved w/ culture. anti-skill approach. cultural studies. feminism. political mvmt.
  

• Post Modernism. meaning is entirely contextual. cannot pin down language.    

• Abolition Movements.combined w/ lit-comp theories and efficiency models at many two year colleges.

• E-Comp. Selfe.

posted by: rgregory at 16:09 | link | comments |

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