For starters, in addition to the 30 students originally enrolled in my class, I was given 6 additional students when the two classes I’m teaching were collapsed with another two sections. Then, as though 36 is not already a few too many for a class that requires so much one-on-one, an International English class created to aid new international students in preparing to meet the standards necessary to enter Basic Writing was cancelled, and three of these students somehow managed to miss filtering and become part of my class.

So, as day three of my classes began, I had a rather motley collection of students ranging from homeschooled students who didn’t get “around” to taking the state test that would evaluate their writing–this group feels that they don’t “need” the class–to students who have no English skills whatsoever–I have one in this group who cannot even seem to communicate questions with me, but instead can only gesture at her computer screen. The class discussions have been lively; you don’t have to write well to engage in the discourse. Still, I’ve wondered if they were “getting” anything.

I was spending half an hour after class summarizing the lecture for my Nigerian, who can read and write English, but apparently cannot comprehend spoken English. She’s also prone to losing things. Just the other day she wanted to me to write down what goes in the learning logs I’m requiring this semester, I explained that this was on a handout and she just looked at me dumbfounded when I provided her with another handout instead of physically writing down each component of the assignment.

Then I have the mouth and the mutterer. Mouth tries to focus the entirety of the class period on her while mutterer is really using this class as a place to pick up women. Seriously, he sits by a new girl each time and spends the class period muttering to her just loud enough that I can hear him.

Oh, and I have several of my “I don’t need this class” students who have decided that this is not a class, but is study hall. So, they bring their homework to class and work dutifully on it while in class. I don’t think those around them have noticed; they’re too busy MySpacing.

In previous semesters, this last group of students would have been ejected from class after being given a verbal warning. However, with the new rules in our department, I can’t do it. So, I’ve just taken to not mentioning it, acting as though I’m oblivious and then deciding to add a participation grade to the gradebook.

And none of this is new to my classroom; I’m used to all of this crap happening in the classroom–just not at the same time. And, I certainly wasn’t expecting this from students who need this class more than anything.

So, by the time week four rolled around and they were to turn in their first mini-assignment, many of them were so confused (due to serious lack of reading the handouts) as to what was to be turned in that they had to ask for an extension. Week four ended with their first writing assignment being turned in. As the culmination of week four, we spent an entire class period discussing the writing assignment before the class turned in their work. I received work from 2/3 of my students. Yet, yesterday, I had a student ask for clarification on an assignment related to their revisions (from WA1). When I told her that this was a sheet that would have been returned with her first essay she started acting like she didn’t know anything about the assignment (the one that we had been working on in class for two weeks). Then, she begged to know if she could turn it in late (I don’t take late work). At this point, the discussion went something like this:

She: “But, I didn’t know we had to turn it in.”

I: “You were part of the roundtable last Wednesday. Remember when it was over and I asked you to turn in your paragraph and *Sarah* asked for clarification on which one.”

She: “Yes.”

I: “So you knew you had to turn it in.”

She: “I didn’t think you meant right then. So, it was due right then.”

I: “Yes. It was.”

She: “And you don’t take no late work does you.” (I swear, that’s exactly what she said. I will never forget that line.)

I: “No, I don’t take late work.”

She: “So can I turn it in on Friday?”

Now, this discussion continues for several more minutes before she realized that I wasn’t going to take her work.

So here I was, at my wits end with these students. It was Monday, I had the beginnings of a bad migraine, and I was ready to fling myself into a brick wall just to get them to understand.

And then came Wednesday

Wednesday, with a migraine and the beginning of what has proven to be the flu, I trudged in to work. I am so glad that I did. In my first class of the day, I watched a lightbulb go on with one of my students. She had finally connected Generative Grammar to not only a homework assignment that I forced them to turn in, but also to a good strategy to writing her own paragraphs. Yeah! Then, in my next class, I had a student stop me after class and ask me if we could sit down and talk sometime because she’s learning a lot in the class, but doesn’t know how to incorporate this into her other classes.

So, I guess the moral of the story is that we should always wait until week six before giving up hope on a class. But, I think that once we reach week six, we should wait two more weeks just to be sure. Just when you’re at your wits end, some good student will throw you a rope. We just have to wait and see if they are going to pull us up or if we have to do it ourselves.

Chun’s introduction focuses on the ideas of control and power as they apply to the Internet. Examining Deleuze’s and Foucault’s ideas of control societies and the differences between control societies and disciplinary societies. Chun looks at the ways in which control and power, in the terms of the Internet, always relate to ideas of sexuality and how these relationships led to the early means in which censors sought to quash the Internet and how early examinations of MUDs and MOOs clenched Foucault’s argument on discursive sexuality. As she wraps up the examination of the friction that exists among forms of Internet control and power, Chun concludes that these two ideals are not opposites, but are, in fact opposite sides of the same coin.

Chapter One: Why Cyberspace

n “Why Cyberspace,” Chun explores the idea behind the term “cyberspace” as a term used in relation to the Internet. The term “cyberspace” first appeared in William Gibson’s _Neuromancer,_ but looked there nothing like our perception of cyberspace. Chun also discusses how the term “cyberspace” is misleading since the actual idea of cyberspace “erases all reference to content, apparatus, process or form, offering instead a metaphor and a mirage, for cyberspace is not spatial” (39). She look closely at how communications and Internet browsing do not actually take place in space, but term was found by judges to be more appropriate since it allowed legislation to look at the various “areas” of the Internet. Additionally, Chun compares the lack of space and place that occur when a person is online to the specific space and place of the television. She explains that with television a program comes on at a certain time (space) and on a certain channel (place) and no “back” button exists to return a viewer to a previous space and place. However, cyberspace functions as a form of “time travel” since viewers can be in multiple places at the same time and can skip back to a page they viewed in the literal past without disrupting time continuums. It is for this reason, asserts Chun, that Foucault’s idea of a heterotopia exists in cyberspace. Since viewers are neither in a specific place or time, they have the ability to be anywhere, public or private. Finally, Chun looks at the variations of people who can exist in cyberspace and, as with the name cyberspace, many of these people come from SciFi novels. For example, she discusses the era of the cyerpunk, Benjamin’s rubbernecker, and Baudeleire’s flaneur. Through these classifications, Chun looks carefully at the various types of users in cyberspace and how each one functions in the see and be seen relationship that pervades cyberspace.

Chapter Two: Screening Pornography

Asserting that cyberporn is another of Foucault’s technologies of the self and that it, therefore, requires the entire social body to place themselves under surveillance and pay close attention to the movements they make as individuals in the world of Internet and Internet pornography, Chun raises the question of for whom or to whom we are to place ourselves under surveillance. Then, with this question looming unanswered, Chun shifts into the history of cyberspace and pornography. She frames the chapter, largely, around early writings on Internet pornography by Elmer-Dewitt. Chun continues through the analysis of the works of these two cyberporn scholars and the impact this work had on bringing cyberporn into the eyes of the public, thus making it appear even worse than it truly was.

Additionally, Chun looks at the work of the CDA and COPA to eliminate access to porn by those 18 and under. The CDA passed an act that threatened up to $100,000 and two years in prison to anybody who, in any way, attempted to pass cyberporn along to a minor.

Two of the most interesting points that Chun makes in this point are in relation to the idea of “control” and the Internet. Chun points out, first, that many of the fears parents have about their children viewing pornography in cyberspace stems from their own feeling of powerlessness in relation to the use of the Internet. Chun asserts that since parents were unable to fully control the Internet and the sites that they were viewing (i.e. were not able to prevent pornography pop-ups or, for that matter, any form of pop-up), they transferred their fear from their own powerlessness to the powerlessness of their children since this allows them to ignore their own powerlessness. The other point that Chun makes is in relation to Foucault’s ideas of power and how this can be asserted by the viewer in cyberspace. Chun asserts that Internet users who interact with the amateur models on webcams are feeling that they actually control the moves of these models, thus allowing the voyeur the chance to feel they are in control and, therefore, assert the power over these women.

Chapter Three: Scenes of Empowerment

In this chapter, Chun discusses the ways that advertisers sought to change the face of the Internet. Advertisements by ISPs in the 1990s desperately sought to change the viewer and user’s concept of the Internet from one of uncontrollable pornography to one of a Utopian community blind to the constraints that separate us in reality.

Chun looks specifically at how MCI’s 1997 “Anthem” commercial sought to promote the Internet as a “medium of minds” (131) as opposed to a medium concerned with race, color, creed, gender, or disability. Chun discusses how the Internet provided users with the idea that they could sign in and become whoever they wanted to be without being questioned. She examines how the focus on the Internet in the MCI commercial was on masking your identity to obliterate standard classifications, and how MCI portrayed the Internet as a place that masks the user but never hints that as the user is lying to others about their own self, they too are being lied to about other users’ identities. In addition, Chun looks at the way that the Internet’s intention to obliterate race did not obliterate the idea of racism on the Internet. She reveals that the message of the Internet is not anti-discrimination based, but rather racism avoidance.

Through the chapter, Chun looks at several images in the commercial as presenting the Internet as user friendly for all users. She focuses on the image of the elderly man, the young girl, and the African-American businessman to demonstrate MCI’s goal to present the Internet as user-friendly, not race-specific. In addition, her look at the father and daughter using the Internet together examines how the Internet is family friendly, a far cry from the previous arguments on the pervasiveness of pornography that would pollute the minds of children.

Also, Chun looks at the attempts of sites like MongrelX to obliterate pornography on the Internet. Chun explains how the search engine MongrelX does not function as a typical search engine and simply send users to the pages they want to see, but how it links racist search terms and redirects the user to webpages devised to begin eliminating racism on the Internet. In this section, Chun looks at several of MongrelX’s web pages including hte Natural Selection page which demands readers question their racist beliefs. Another site that Chun looks at is the Venus Fly Killer site that appears when users type racist slang into the search engine. This site pulls up a page with multiple racist slang terms and forces the reader to continue to grapple with pop-up boxes that ask questions such as “Is this what you think of me?”

Overall, Chun is examining the way that ISPs touted the Internet as a place to overcome the racist and digital divide compared to how the Internet is actually working to overcome these divides. In all, a very interesting chapter that kept me reading throughout. I was, however, disappointed to find out that the Venus Fly Killer site is no longer linked to MongrelX and is, apparently, no longer on the Internet.

Chapter Four: Orienting the Future

In this chapter, Chun analyzes the text of William Gibson’s Neuromancer to seek an answer to the question: “To what extent is cyberpunk a symptom of or a diagnosis of our ‘present’ condition and to what extent is Neuromancer really postmodern?” (174). Chun asserts that cyberspace is not the origin of what we understand as cyberspace, but rather a conflation of what we understand cyberspace to be. Looking closely at the text and comparing it to Mamoru Oshii’s anime feature Ghost in the Shell, Chun examines the concept of high-tech Orientalism put forth in both works and ties this trend to the East-West rhetorical division that erases the majority of Asia and conflates the continent into thee bustling nation of Japan. By creating this Japanified future, Chun writes, “cyberspace appears to be a Western frontier in which U.S. ingenuity wins over Japanese corporate assimilation, for cyberspace allows for piracy and autonomy” (187). She relates the characters and settings in cyberpunk, specifically in Neuromancer, to the U.S frontier filled with cowboys attempting to tame and conquor the land. The difference between the cybercowboys and the traditional cowboys of the Old West, according to Chun, is that cybercowboys cannot survive without Japanese products.

Chun uses Ghost in the Shell, an anime, to demonstrate how cyberpunk has impacted the anime genres popular in Japan and the U.S. In both genres, an Asian landscape, traditionally either Japan or Hong Kong, is inhabited by people comprised of both human and computer parts living in a futuristic world in which everyone “has turned Japanese” (211). Interestingly, the characters in many anime works are not specifically Japanese, but rather Japanese characters with features they idealize from their western counterparts. These Japanese characters often have accentuated round eyes, red hair, long legs, and thin bodies (Chun 214). Often, the main characters of the anime genre, much like the cyberpunk genre, are females or transgendered males. Because of this orientation, characters are not jacking into cyberspace, but rather being jacked into by cyberspace. It is this concept, the freedom of intercourse provided when one is jacked into cyberspace, that is the ultimate protest of the legislators who posit the dangers of the Internet lie in the availability of “sex and pornography” on the Internet. Their true fear is not in this availability, but in the freedom of the intercourse, in all senses of the world, that takes place after one has jacked in.

Chapter Five: Control and Freedom

In Chapter five, Chun looks closely at the ideas of paranoia, freedom and control as they relate to the Internet. She first discusses Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage as a theory easily related to our real lives and e-lives. In this section, she discusses how e-lives are, in essence, a mirror of our own real identity and how we follow through the various stages of infatuation and jealousy with our e-lives much as we do with our mirror selves.

One of the strongest points that Chun makes in this chapter is the fact that paranoia stems from a desire to compensate for a perceived weakness in symbolic authority. While Chun scratches the surface with this idea it is easy to relate this to her earlier ideas on parents wanting to censor the internet so that their children don’t get access to them. Ultimately, the parents become paranoid because they do not have the authority to deny their children complete access to these sights. This theory can also be seen in companies who ban their employees from blogging or fire them when they discover they blog. There is not anything specifically wrong with their employees keeping a blog. The only problem behind this media is that the bosses have no control over what the employee is writing. Chun connects this idea of paranoi directly to William Burroughs’ concept that control occurs through words.
Chun’s next area of focus is that in the online world, doing something without being controlled is doing something “freely.” She relates this idea specifically to the idea of online porn web-cams and the girls who “act” for these cameras. These girls subvert the idea of a panopticon by asking users to place them under surveillance. Instead of being controlled by the voyeurs who watch these cameras, the girls exhibit their own freedom by deciding, often against the wishes of their voyeurs, what clothing to remove, how they will act and all other components of their actions on their own.

After reading your paper I’ve decided to make more use of blogs in my face to face advanced writing class in the fall. One problem with such set-ups, though, is that the class contributions and documents are all public. How do you contend with that?

Now, I wasn’t just gloating over the fact that I’ve influenced a professor (and me, a lowly PhD student). I was also gloating over the fact that I had an answer and had already been contemplating addressing this issue in a paper/presentation that I want to get a jump start on. Damn, I’m good! Look for more on this current question as time progresses.

Secondary education could readily incorporate rhetoric into the curriculum without much change. For this to happen, high school curriculums would need only remove the focus on standardized testing and the five paragraph essay and place more emphasis on material that will prove useful to the student throughout their education. For students to further accept this material as lessons for their life instead of lessons with an end goal of aiding in better scores on standardized tests, instructors need to stress and continually reiterate Antiphon’s philosophy.

To teach Antiphon’s philosophy in secondary schools allows students to begin understanding why they are writing and how this will ultimately connect to their lives. Antiphon’s philosophy posits that education has as its primary goal helping students find harmony between their public and private lives. This philosophy should not be taught only at the secondary level, but should continue to be stressed in the teachings of the post-secondary instruction. This can be done by asking students to write essays on real topics that apply to their daily lives and communities they are involved in. This way they can see how writing in their real life will always be important. These essays can specifically aid not only in helping students to see the benefit of writing in school, but also as an aid to their comprehension of the canons of rhetoric and the six parts of speech.

To begin teaching the canons of rhetoric and the six parts of speech at the secondary level provides students a chance to begin learning how how thoughts are articulated into cohesive essays. The canons of rhetoric aid students in working through the writing process so that they have a cohesive essay when they turn in their papers. Additionally, using the parts of a speech/composition as a writing model allows students to maintain the structure of an outline, while teaching them something more useful than the five paragraph essay. As with anything taught in schools, repetition would aid in retention and students would soon internalize these method as “standards” for writing. Therefore, when they reach their college composition classes, they would be able to gain more important information since college instructors would not need to reteach these aspects of general rhetoric, but would only need to review these and enforce the methods in their own lesson plans.

One final aspect that students should be taught in their secondary education so that it becomes second nature by the time they reach college is kairos. Kairos should be taught at the secondary level as students are learning to write various types of essays. In today’s college classroom, students enter into an essay with the belief that they are writing to “their teacher” and that the end means for an essay is to “get a good grade.” By asking students to consider other audiences during their secondary education, they can begin to grasp this concept much earlier in their education and begin to internalize this for future use.

To begin teaching the more general material at the secondary level means that college instruction is open to teach more information in the span of a semester. Since many students do not enter college knowing anything about these aspects of rhetoric, college composition instructors must devote a large portion of the first semester of composition to teaching this material. Therefore, the student spends more time learning material that could have been taught in their secondary classes instead of using this time to learn new information that would make them better, more focused writers. Additionally, since this material is only covered in two semesters at the most, there is little chance that students will actually retain and internalize this material.

When secondary instructors begin teaching these general principles of rhetoric at a younger age, there is more time for students to internalize this material. Teaching these principles at the secondary level could, ultimately, allow for a revised composition curriculum in post-secondary education. This revised curriculum would allow instructors to focus on more specific material that becomes applicable when students enter their career fields. Potentially, students would learn general rhetorical concepts in their secondary classrooms, then spend a semester in post-secondary working with more specific principles. This would mean that composition programs could then create discipline specific classes for all areas of post-secondary instruction. This second semester composition class could be postponed until the student had decided upon a major and then base the instruction on writing for the career field (e.g. Business Writing, Composition for Nurses). This would allow students to enter the work force, if not their advanced major courses, with a basic knowledge of how to write for their discipline. Therefore, the work force would find new graduates who had a more in-depth knowledge of how to write for the discipline they were working in and companies would not have to spend additional resources teaching new employees what they should have learned in college.

For this in-depth knowledge to occur, students should have more focused rhetoric in their college classes. First Year Composition should focus specifically on preparing students for their future classes and for the work force. Therefore, these classes should present material more relevant to future writing endeavors. For this to happen, students need to learn the three types of rhetoric, the logic associated with rhetoric, and should be taught specific information that leads to their ability to create a more convincing, dynamic argument when they write.

The three types of rhetoric and the logic associated with these types, mainly the use of syllogisms and enthymemes, should be taught at the post-secondary level since, in my mind, the material students should learn in post-secondary education needs to prepare them to write more focused arguments. With the amount of rhetoric that should be taught at the secondary level there can be a more specific focus on teaching argumentation at the post-secondary level. Therefore, while students can be taught to research and argue a point, the specifics of argumentation should be saved for the post-secondary level so that students have mastered some of the more general rhetorical lessons (much as they would in the Greek and Roman periods) and can now move into the more specific aspects of writing and argumentation. At the current time, the logic that arguments need to follow tend to become a brief discussion of the fallacies students should avoid when they write. However, this alone is not enough and college composition instructors should focus also on teaching logic and logical styles when they teach fallacies. At the post-secondary level students are more prepared to comprehend these ideas. Also, since I feel teaching at the college level should turn more to argumentation and less to review of secondary school skills, teachers would have more time in classes to devote to these styles and methods.

To further the understanding of the three types of rhetoric and the logic used in these arguments, students need to have focused reading assignments to accompany their own writing. To have students undertake an in-depth reading of Plato’s Phaedrus, provides a chance for students to understand the dynamics that accompany an argument. The point that Plato makes within the dialogue–that a good argument, regardless of the position it takes, can sway an argument would work well when taught in conjunction with argumentative assignments.This provides students the opportunity to understand why they need to include both sides of the argument and the need for strong refutation in their writing. Also, Plato’s demonstration that rhetoric aids a person in comprehension as well as persuading his listeners. These are both skills that a writer needs to comprehend before they enter the “real world” but they are a bit too complex to be taught at the secondary level where students should be fine tuning their more general writing skills.

In addition to reading the Phaedrus, students should receive instruction based on Antiphon’s method of teaching. Antiphon asked students to write two separate arguments when preparing their material; individually, these assignments argued opposite sides of the argument and prepared an orator for a debate. When used in the composition classroom, students can use these two arguments to see where the strengths and weaknesses lie in both sides of the argument. Therefore, when they write their own argumentative essay, they have more solid counterarguments than they would if just asked to include counterarguments.

By focusing post-secondary instruction on these more specific rhetorical concepts, students would have a chance to better their writing in areas more applicable to the workforce. The current layout of college composition has students working to write essays that range from personal narratives to expositions on random topics throughout the range of their entire first semester. Then, during the second semester, students begin to focus on argumentation. Therefore, for the student it seems that the entire first semester is nothing but a waste of time. If composition were redesigned so that college composition focused solely on writing argumentation and writing for an audience, students would have a chance to begin understanding how writing relates to their lives in general as well as to their chosen career. This, ultimately, would allow students the chance to take more interest in their courses since they would not be putting little effort into a “useless” course.

When society begins to create better writers in school, they are creating better citizens. College graduates enter the workforce with a better idea of how to write. However, they also enter society with a better ability to comprehend and analyze important matters. Aristotle’s four advantages to studying rhetoric in a democratic society are still valid in our modern society. Aristotle posits that rhetoric teaches us how to:

1. perceive the difference between truth and falsehood
2. understand how people are moved to action
3. see both sides of an issue
4. defend ourselves against the arguments of others

When graduates enter society with these abilities, they are able to make better decisions throughout their lives. These students would have the ability to choose the better political or job candidate because they would have the ability to see through the pathos appeals in the speeches. They would be able to sway people to join a cause once they had analyzed it to determine that the cause was just and noble. Finally, they would have the background to see the weaknesses in arguments against themselves and protect themselves from slander or faulty arguments through refutation instead of through lawsuits.

• grand style
  • smooth and ornate arrangements of impressive words
• middle style
  • lower yet not the lowest and most colloquial class of words
• plain style
  • brought down to the most current idiom of standard speech

Virtues of Speech

Correctness

• Quality of style by which one speaks or writes in a manner consistent with a given language’s norms

Clarity

• Clarity is measured in terms of how clear our speech seems to our audience or how well it appeals logically to the understanding (logos).

Evidence

• Evidence measures how well language reaches the emotions through vivid depiction. (pathos)

Decorum

A central rhetorical principle requiring one’s words and subject matter be aptly fit to each other, to the circumstances and occasion (kairos), the audience, and the speaker.
Ornateness

Ornateness aims at producing delight or admiration in the audience, and may thereby jeopardize clarity.

Like clarity, ornateness is a quality of both single words and groups of words, and some of the same choices that might threaten clarity may improve ornateness—for example, the use of old, coined, or metaphorical words.

Scope of the Lesson

Demonstrate to students how to write in each of the three styles. Demonstrate the nuances that vary between each of the styles and how to focus on the virtues of speech in each of these styles and how the virtues change for each of the styles.

This lesson should come early in the semester-either preparing students for their first essay or culminating in their first essay, depending on the class. This way, students become more aware of audience influence on style at a much earlier time than they often do.

Lesson Design

Lesson One-Writing in the Plain Style

• Students draft an email on why the cafeteria food needs to be improved.

• For this email they are told that they are writing this letter to a close friend attending another university.

Worthiness

Many students feel that writing is something they can’t do well. They see writing as a task to be completed within a classroom setting. To begin an assignment by going over all of the technical terms and then asking them to write while keeping all the rules and guidelines in mind can overwhelm students. Therefore, to open a class by asking them to write an email assuages some of their fear since they are already familiar with this medium of writing.

• Discuss the attributes of the plain style. Place the emphasis on the style being the one we use most often without thinking about it. The goal here is to prove to students that they can write in the plain style.

Worthiness

To discuss the attributes of the style after students have written an essay in that style allows them to see their writing as belonging to the style, instead of something they must work to create so that it fits the style. This way, students feel they have an advantage when working with styles; since they already use one of these styles, they feel more comfortable writing in the other styles.

• In class, examine a sample email for the virtues of style. As this email is discussed and color coded in the class exercise, answers to the questions would be discussed so that students have a better idea of how to look for these virtues in their own writing. During this time we would discuss why each of the selected passages are attributed to each virtue and how some, though they work in multiple places fit better into one specific virtue for a certain reason.

• • Correctness
    • How is this email a sample of how you write your friends on a regular basis?
    • What traits distinguish this email as one written to a friend?
    • Look closely at your arrangement, content and word choice
    • Mark these places by changing the font color to green
  • Clarity
    • How well will the recipient understand the reasons cafeteria food should be improved?
    • Will the recipient see the logic in your argument? How specifically will they see this?
    • • Mark these places by changing the font color to red
  • Evidence
    • What emotions are you appealing to in the email?
    • How have you conveyed this plea in your email?
    • • Mark these places by changing the font color to blue
  • Decorum
    • What words have you used that you would not use when speaking to a stranger?
    • What evidence is contained in your word choice that acknowledges you are writing to a friend?
    • How can we tell that this is a casual email sent to a friend?
    • • Mark these places by changing the font color to purple
  • Ornateness
    • Are you using clichés?
    • Do you use metaphors that only your friend will understand?
    • • Mark these places by changing the font color to pink

At this point, a sample email would likely look like this

Maria,
OMG! I just came back from the cafeteria and there was nothing to eat! They have hamburgers there that are greasier than Jack Walker’s hair was! The salad bar had the limpest, brownest lettuce I have ever seen. They definitely need to fix this food.
Seriously, I am paying so much for food that I don’t eat here. If I could save that money I could buy a new pair of shoes every month. But no, they have to make us get this retarded meal plan and we have to eat on campus whenever we’re hungry. Yuck! The apple I tried to eat actually had a worm in it! I have never eaten such crappy food. Can you imagine? How’s the food at A&M? Do you have good food? Maybe I should transfer in the spring.
Jackie

Worthiness
As with discussing the attributes to the plain style after asking students to create the email, discussing the virtues of the style after students have seen how these are already present in their own writing aids students in seeing what they already know about writing in the plain style. Words like decorum and ornateness can intimidate students when they are attached to somewhat ambiguous rules that students feel they don’t comprehend. Yet attaching these words and rules to tangible areas in a student’s writing helps them to understand the rules by making them more coherent to the student.

Homework Day One

Rewrite the email as a letter to the student body that will be published in the school newspaper.

Worthiness

Asking students to write to a community they belong to makes them consider their audience carefully while also helping them to continue to feel comfortable in their writing. Again, the audience provides little pressure and though students are aware how this fits in with the lesson, the familiar audience aids in continuing to take a good bit of the pressure off the writing anxiety.

Lesson Two–Middle Style

• Discuss the attributes of the middle style. Place the emphasis on this style being used occasionally in our life writing. This forum can allow students to come up with various ways they would use the middle style (i.e. emails to their parents, emails to professors to ask a question, letters to the newspaper). The goal here is to prove to students that they can write in the middle style just by paying some attention to the virtues of this style.

Worthiness

As with the discussion after the email on day one, this discussion serves as a means of proving to students that they are capable of writing in the middle style. This continues to build their confidence in their writing ability, which makes preparation for the final stage of this group of lessons more effective.

• In class we examine a student’s letter for the virtues of style. As this letter is discussed and students color code their own homework, answers to the same questions posed on the first assignment are reassessed. Questions would be discussed so that students have a better idea of how to look for these virtues in their own writing. During this time we would discuss why each of the selected passages are attributed to each virtue and how some, though they work in multiple places fit better into one specific virtue for a certain reason.

• Once the essay is color coded and the virtues have been reiterated, the remainder of the class period is spent discussing the differences in the two writing styles. During this session questions are directed to aid students in seeing the differences between the plain style and the medium style. This should aid in their comprehension of not only the two styles, but also how they vary their writing to fit each of these styles.
  • Correctness
    • How did you write the letter differently than the email?
    • What aspects of arrangement, content and word choice changed?
    • How did these aspects change?
    • What sets the letter apart, in general, from the email?
    • How did constructing the letter differ from constructing the email?
    • What traits distinguish this as the medium style?
    • Did you spell check this letter more?
    • Did you grammar check this letter?
  • Clarity
    • Did you add additional information that other students would relate to?
    • Did you add information that only your fellow students would comprehend?
  • Evidence
    • What emotions are you appealing to in the letter?
    • Have these emotions changed from those in the email?
    • Do you use different methods of pathos to create your appeals?
  • Decorum
    • What effect did the audience have on your word choice?
    • How did you choose specific words for this letter?
    • Why did you choose to use these words here but not in your email?
    • What evidence is contained in your word choice that acknowledges you are writing to the student body?
  • Ornateness
    • Do you use more educated metaphors?
    • Why did you choose to use the metaphors you used this time as opposed to those in your email?

Worthiness

With the discussion of variations of the virtues of style between the plain and medium style, students have the chance to begin making connections between audience and style that will apply to future writings. This discussion also aids students in inferring the specific rules that accompany the virtues of style.

Homework Day Two
Rewrite the letter. This time you will want to address the letter to the President of the college. Remember to follow the style virtues carefully.

Worthiness

This homework assignment, coupled with the subsequent lecture, demonstrates to students the need to write more eloquently for a more formal audience. Generally, students are asked to write essays with no guide as to the audience. Therefore, the students tend to write essays in the middle style and address these specifically to their instructors. Since they are familiar with this audience, they feel the middle style is appropriate. However, this assignment forces students to think about how they would write to a more sophisticated, unfamiliar audience. When discussed during the Lesson Three lecture, this allows for a further discussion of the grand style in a manner that students can relate to.

Lesson Three–Grand Style

• Discuss the attributes of the grand style. Place the emphasis on this style being used for all formal writing and make sure students understand that this style is the most difficult to write.

Worthiness

This forum can allow students to come up with various ways they would use the grand style so they have concrete audiences for each of the three styles. The goal here is to demonstrate to students that they need to be fully aware of how to write in the grand style so that they are prepared for the majority of their college career and their future in the workforce.

• In class we examine a different student’s letter for the virtues of style. As this letter is discussed and students color code their own homework, answers to the same questions posed on the first assignments are reassessed and students return to the comparison created in the previous class, only this time they compare the medium and grand styles.

Worthiness

As with the comparison between the plain and the medium style, this comparison allows students to see the nature of the differences while also demonstrating that as long as students take care in their writing, there is not much that differs between the medium and the grand style.

• Now that student have had a chance to look specifically at each of the styles and have been provided with a chance to write in each of the styles, they are more familiar with the audience’s impact on the style used. Now, in my opinion, is the best time to provide them with the more concrete rules for the lesson. The best way to do this, however is not to actually provide them with the rules for each style, but to create a chart that exemplifies this.

Worthiness

Asking students to aid in the creation of the chart allows for a chance to gauge the students’ individual knowledge of the rules. This also aids students in their own realization that they can distinguish between the three styles and that they do know the virtues that go along with these styles. Also, creating the chart in class, through the use of a Word table projected on an overhead allows students to see the chart being created and allows the instructor to post this chart to the course webpage once it has been completed. By waiting until the end of the unit to establish the rules for the styles, students have had a chance to become accustomed with writing in the styles without feeling overwhelmed by the rules associated with the style and, therefore, not creating assignments that will aid in their understanding of these styles.

Homework Day Three

Begin Revisions to your letters, making sure that both letters adhere specifically to the virtues of their specific style.

Worthiness

Asking students to revise the two letters while paying attention to the virtues should finally solidify any ambiguity between style differences. Additionally, this assignment asks students to look at the styles in relation to their virtues as they complete the revisions. Therefore, the specific virtues associated with each style are internalized as students continue to connect the virtues with traits of their own writing.

1. Rhetoric in secondary composition education
2. Rhetoric in post-secondary composition education

Within each of those divisions, I will focus on four specific points

1. Facets of rhetoric that should be taught (rhetorical concepts)
2. Why it would be taught at this level
3. Benefit to the student if this material was taught at this level
4. Benefit to society at large (why this matters to the “real world”)

Now on to the organized brainstorm

Rhetoric in secondary composition education

Facets of rhetoric that should be taught (rhetorical concepts)

Antiphon’s philosophy

Canons of Rhetoric

Six Parts of a Speech

kairos

Why it would be taught at this level

Antiphon’s philosophy: To teach Antiphon’s philosophy in secondary schools allows students to begin understanding why they are writing and how this will ultimately connect to their lives. This philosophy should not be taught only at the secondary level, but should continue to be stressed in the teachings of the post-secondary instruction. This can be done by asking students to write essays on real topics that apply to their daily lives and communities they are involved in. This way they can see how writing in their real life will always be important.

Canons of Rhetoric: To begin teaching the canons of rhetoric at the secondary level provides students a chance to begin learning how the writing process works. As with anything taught in schools, repetition would aid in retention and students would soon internalize this method as the “standard” for writing. Therefore, when they reach their college composition classes, they would be able to gain more important information since college instructors would not need to teach the canons in-depth, but would only need to review these and enforce this method in their own lesson plans.

Six Parts of a Speech: This should be taught at the secondary level in order to prevent students from entering college courses with the ability and mindset that a five-paragraph essay is the only way to create an essay. Using the parts of a speech/composition as the way to write allows students to maintain the structure of an outline, while teaching them something more useful than the five paragraph essay. I’m not asserting that the five-paragraph essay should be completely eliminated, but it should be taught alongside this method so that when students begin writing more complex material, they have a better structure.

kairos: Kairos should be taught at the secondary level as students are learning to write various types of essays. In today’s college classroom, students enter into an essay with the belief that they are writing to “their teacher” and that the end means for an essay is to “get a good grade.” By asking students to consider other audiences during their secondary education, they can begin to grasp this concept much earlier in their education and begin to internalize this for future use.

Benefit to the student if this material was taught at this level

To begin teaching the more general material at the secondary level means that college instruction is open to teach more information in the span of a semester. Since many students do not enter college knowing anything about these aspects of rhetoric, college composition instructors must devote a large portion of the first semester of composition to teaching this material. Therefore, the student spends more time learning material that could have been taught in their secondary classes instead of using this time to learn new information that would make them better, more focused writers. Additionally, since this material is only covered in two semesters at the most, there is little chance that students will actually retain and internalize this material.

Benefit to society at large (why this matters to the “real world”)

When secondary instructors begin teaching these general principles of rhetoric at a younger age, there is more time for students to internalize this material. Teaching these principles at the secondary level could, ultimately, allow for a revised composition curriculum in post-secondary education. This revised curriculum would allow instructors to focus on more specific material that becomes applicable when students enter their career fields. Potentially, students would learn general rhetorical concepts in their secondary classrooms, then spend a semester in post-secondary working with more specific principles. This would mean that composition programs could then create discipline specific classes for all areas of post-secondary instruction. This second semester composition class could be postponed until the student had decided upon a major and then base the instruction on writing for the career field (e.g. Business Writing, Composition for Nurses). This would allow students to enter the work force, if not their advanced major courses, with a basic knowledge of how to write for their discipline. Therefore, the work force would find new graduates who had a more in-depth knowledge of how to write for the discipline they were working in and companies would not have to spend additional resources teaching new employees what they should have learned in college.

Rhetoric in post-secondary composition education

Facets of rhetoric that should be taught (rhetorical concepts)

Three Types of Rhetoric

Syllogisms, Enthymemes and Logical Problems

Antiphon’s method of teaching

Plato’s Phaedrus

Corax’s Doctrine of General Probability

Why it would be taught at this level

Three Types of Rhetoric: This should be taught at the post-secondary level since in my mind, the material students are being taught at the secondary level prepares them to write in general. With the amount of rhetoric that should be taught at the secondary level there can be a more specific focus on teaching argumentation at the post-secondary level. Therefore, while students can be taught to research and argue a point, the specifics of argumentation should be saved for the post-secondary level so that students have mastered some of the more general rhetorical lessons (much as they would in the Greek and Roman periods) and can now move into the more specific aspects of writing and argumentation.

Syllogisms, Enthymemes and Logical Problems: At the current time, the logic that arguments need to follow tend to become a brief discussion of the fallacies students should avoid when they write. However, this alone is not enough and college composition instructors should focus also on teaching logic and logical styles when they teach fallacies. At the post-secondary level students are more prepared to comprehend these ideas. Also, since I feel teaching at the college level should turn more to argumentation and less to review of secondary school skills, teachers would have more time in classes to devote to these styles and methods.

Antiphon’s method of teaching: While this is not a style of rhetorical writing, it is a method that should be used in post-secondary education. In asking students to write an argument from both points of view aids in teaching them the necessity of counterarguments in their writing.

Plato’s Phaedrus: The point that Plato makes within the dialogue–that a good argument, regardless of the position it takes, can sway an argument would work well when taught in conjunction with argumentation units so that students could see the need to include both sides of the argument and the need for strong refutation in their writing. Also, Plato’s demonstration that rhetoric aids a person in comprehension as well as persuading his listeners. These are both skills that a writer needs to comprehend before they enter the “real world” but they are a bit too complex to be taught at the secondary level where students should be fine tuning their more general writing skills.

Corax’s Doctrine of General Probability: Once more, this is a method that needs to be taught with argumentation so that students understand more of the logic required within a paper as well as how they must support their side of the argument so that readers are accepting that as the proper side to take.

Benefit to the student if this material was taught at this level

By focusing post-secondary instruction on these more specific rhetorical concepts, students would have a chance to better their writing in areas more applicable to the workforce. The current layout of college composition has students working to write essays that range from personal narratives to expositions on random topics throughout the range of their entire first semester. Then, during the second semester, students begin to focus on argumentation. Therefore, for the student it seems that the entire first semester is nothing but a waste of time. If composition were redesigned so that college composition focused solely on writing argumentation and writing for an audience, students would have a chance to begin understanding how writing relates to their lives in general as well as to their chosen career. This, ultimately, would allow students the chance to take more interest in their courses since they would not be putting little effort into a “useless” course.

Benefit to society at large (why this matters to the “real world”)

When society begins to create better writers in school, they are creating better citizens. College graduates enter the workforce with a better idea of how to write. However, they also enter society with a better ability to comprehend and analyze important matters. Aristotle’s four advantages to studying rhetoric in a democratic society are still valid in our modern society. Aristotle posits that rhetoric teaches us how to:

1. perceive the difference between truth and falsehood
2. understand how people are moved to action
3. see both sides of an issue
4. defend ourselves against the arguments of others

When graduates enter society with these abilities, they are able to make better decisions throughout their lives. These students would have the ability to choose the better political or job candidate because they would have the ability to see through the pathos appeals in the speeches. They would be able to sway people to join a cause once they had analyzed it to determine that the cause was just and noble. Finally, they would have the background to see the weaknesses in arguments against themselves and protect themselves from slander or faulty arguments through refutation instead of through lawsuits.

J. David Fleming’s “The Very Idea of a Progymnasmata” (2003) argues that the issue with using this classical method of writing instruction in the modern composition classroom lies not in the antiquity of the concept, but rather in the failure of instructors to incorporate both the exercises and the idea behind the original progymnasmata. Fleming asserts this argument through a careful examination of the original types of exercises used by classic rhetoric teachers and the lengthy methods these teachers used to ensure that every student comprehended the methodology behind each exercise. Explaining that the progymnasmata originally spanned a student’s entire educational career, Fleming calls for a similar understanding within our academic institutions, postulating that the only way the progymnasmata can work in today’s educational hierarchy lies in beginning this form of drill writing at the grammar school level and teaching it continually through secondary and college classes. While Fleming addresses a large, diverse audience of composition instructors, his article seems more focused on explicating the change needed for the progymnasmata to work within today’s educational system to administrative personnel. Overall, Fleming intention is to advocate the use of the progymnasmata within composition classrooms while alerting instructors to the realization that the method cannot be taught just as assignments, but must also incorporate the complete idea behind the progymnasmata—that this method was intended to instill very specific habits in students that make them better writers and speakers.

Fleming’s article proved very timely for me; in the past week I have been contemplating using this method to teach a developmental English class this coming fall and had begun to research the method further only to discover that many scholars are completely against the use of the progymnasmata in any composition class. Therefore, reading Fleming’s argument made me more aware of both the reasons for this animosity as well as the method I would need to overcome this obstacle in my own classes. The article is designed for all scholars and teachers; Fleming sets the article up so that those unfamiliar with the individual exercises and steps within the progymnasmata can familiarize themselves before moving into the applications within modern composition scholarship. I also found this article extremely helpful in aiding my comprehension of not only the exercises involved in the progymnasmata, but also in fully understanding the structure and concept behind these ideas. Ultimately, I feel that this article works as a strong addition for experienced scholars of rhetoric, but also works as a strong foundation for those of us delving into new arenas in the teaching of composition–specifically more developmental classes. I say this having spent three years teaching First Year Composition and feeling comfortable in my teaching style yet at a complete loss as to the necessary components needed for a developmental level class. Having read and fully understood Fleming’s article, I feel that it has provided me with a strong foothold for beginning to teach at this level.

Each semester, I get students who run the gamut of writing ability. My job, therefore, is to make sure that I help them improve their writing as much as possible. To this end, I begin by adding comments on student papers that focus their revision and future writing on areas they need to improve upon. My comments largely focus on the methods and research they use for their invention as well as the arrangement of the material. This proves relatively easy and amazingly Greek on the majority of my students’ papers. However, from the semester’s beginnings, I have strong writers who have a better grasp on invention and arrangement and, therefore, do not need as much guidance as others. I spent the entire first semester of my teaching grappling with how to add additional comments to their papers that would aid their writing improvement. I felt at a loss for feedback; I had begun to master adding comments that helped students with invention and arrangement, but after that I was at a loss.

As the semester progressed, I began reading comments both my mentor and I had left on student papers during the semester we worked closely on grading together. Studying his comments, I found a trend that I began to utilize in my own work. His comments on better papers focused on specific aspects of the writing with minimal comments on invention and arrangement. Therefore, I began to follow suit.

By the beginning of my second semester of teaching, I had a strong grasp on my commenting style. With weaker writers, I continued to focus my comments on their invention and arrangement. However, I finally found a method of working on improving the writing of stronger writers; for their papers, I focused my comments more on their style and made minimal comments to their invention and arrangement. When I focused on their style, I worked to provide comments that would allow them to see other weaknesses in their writing. I would make notes on repetitive sentence structure so students could begin to pay attention to these in their writing. I would add comments to their verb choice so they could see areas of weakness in these and begin to use words that are more powerful. Specifically, I would ask them to look at revisions to their “to be” verbs; I would ask them to seek out stronger verbs or revise their sentence to eliminate these words. As the semester progressed, my strong writers became stronger and I was able to see an improvement in weaker writers as they progressed through the revisions that I had asked for.

What I did not realize during these semesters, and would not realize until I ventured into the study of rhetoric, was that the methods I had been taught were not only rhetorical teaching styles, but evolved much as ancient rhetoric had. While the Greeks had begun working with the canons and stressed the importance of invention and arrangement in their canons, the Romans found themselves under tyrannical emperors who limited the invention and arrangement. Therefore, the Second Sophistics began to focus more on the development of eloquent speech and taught their students the importance of sentence structure and word choice. As grammar became more prevalent in the world of Roman rhetoric, so it had become more prevalent in the areas I emphasized in my strong writers.

As I continue to study rhetoric, I contemplate what other rhetorical methods I use without realizing. For my classes, I have found that the emphasis on invention and arrangement in the comments placed on weaker writers and the emphasis on style with my stronger writers creates stronger writers regardless of their placement on the spectrum of writing. I realize that the Second Sophistics were working from a different angle, but their focus on eloquence in speech advanced our comprehension of the canon of style. With the emphasis in many rhetoric classes on classical rhetoric through St. Augustine, it seems that focus lies more on the early rhetors and the Second Sophistic remains underemphasized. However, if it were not for their focus on the grammar and eloquence of a speech, I would probably find myself at a loss in commenting on the writing of my stronger students.

John Logie’s “I Have No Predecessor to Guide Me” (2003) asserts that Quintilian, contrary to scholarly opinion, was indeed an author of original material and not just a compiler of previous scholarship. Reviewing the current scholarship regarding the question of whether Quintilian was merely a compiler of previous rhetorical material or an author in the Romantic definition, Logie then takes an in-depth look into the material contained in the first eleven books of the Institutio. Logie provides the reader with ample background to the debate before beginning his own analysis of Quintilian’s work and examining how Quintilian mimics the structure of Roman education as he lays out the structure in the first eleven books. Logie concludes the article by delving into book twelve where Quintilian adds his own contribution to the field, calling it a “composition made possible by the program of dutiful scholarship duly detailed and duly followed in the first eleven books” (372), thus allowing him to be considered an author, not a mere compiler. With his in-depth look at the debate in scholarship, that surrounds Quintilian’s and the inclusion of the quotations he studies, Logie addresses an audience comprised of anybody with interest in classical rhetoric or Quintilian himself. Logie’s purpose is apparent in his article; he wants scholars to look at Quintilian in a new light—an authorial light.

Logie’s article is intriguing and thought provoking. During my first reading of Quintilian, I too was thinking that his material seemed rather repetitive and did find myself wondering if there was any new material in his writing. However, reading Logie’s text provided me with insight into the method behind the arrangement. His assertion that Quintilian’s invention lies largely in the arrangement and that this hidden invention leads commentators to see Quintilian’s work as largely compilation helped me to see the work in a similar way. After reading this essay, I have come to appreciate the work of Quintilian; it’s now easier to see the synthesis of classical rhetoric and to read Quintilian as a compiler and author instead of as a repetitive oratory scholar.

In the Institutio oratoria, Quintilian lays out seven specific aspects of Roman rhetoric which build from simplest to more complex as the students progress with their education.Respectively, these aspects are: reading aloud, master’s detailed analysis of the text, memorization, paraphrasing, transliteration, recitation and correction. If I understand these steps appropriately, the reading and master’s analysis of the text were intended to introduce the student to the methods they would later use in their own oratory skills. From these steps, the memorization, paraphrasing, and transliteration of the models was designed to aid students in committing the speeches to memory in order for students to more fully understand how a good speech was composed. Therefore, the recitation and correction of the paraphrase aided students in fully understanding what the orator was doing and in further solidifying the model in their mind.

Having taught First Year Composition for several years, I have worked from model essays to teach my students how to write effective essays, but I have not done this using the methods emphasized in Roman rhetoric. When I provide students with sample essays, I have always assigned them as reading for homework. Then, once the students have had a day or two to read the articles, we discuss them as a class. This way, I have thought, my students have a chance to demonstrate their critical reading skills in class and further solidify their own understanding of the style that each mode of essay demands. As part of our class discussion, I have incorporated aspects of the paraphrasing, recitation and correction of the paraphrasing that the Romans regarded so highly in their education. I do this by asking students to help me outline the essay by providing paraphrases of the main points. As they provide these paraphrases, I outline them on the board so students can see the format the essay takes. Generally, students commit this outline to their notes, but that does not mean they do anything to commit this outline to memory. I have, to this point, felt that what I was providing them in the class would suffice for the creation of their own essay. However, after reviewing the Roman organization of the orator’s study, I think that I am, in fact, failing them early on.

I feel strongly that, instead of sending students home with this work the first day, I should turn this facet of my units into a two-day discussion of the model arguments. For the past few years, this has been a single, in-class assignment that focused ont he paraphrase, recitation and correction aspect of the model essays. However, I feel that if we spent a significant amount of time, during the first lesson for each unit, reading and analyzing the essay aloud students would learn more about the models I value highly. Instead of reading straight through the essay, I could have students begin reading one paragraph at a time and stop them at the end of the paragraph to work with the analysis of the model. With a basic analysis of the essay’s strengths, weaknesses and significant parts explained, students could be assigned the paraphrase of the essay. This reinforces the entire analysis once again, and requires students to continue further study of the model essays much as the Roman rhetoric instructors did. By asking students to create the paraphrases at home, it requires them each to look at the model and study it. Previously, students volunteered answers. However, to stick with the Roman model, I need to work to correct the paraphrases. Only by requiring the students to complete the paraphrases as homework would I have the chance to correct these in class as we create the group paraphrase on the board.

Having students actively participating in the reading and analysis during the first day of class, I feel that I will be changing my clas structure enough to benefit my students. Since I have been requiring students to complete the reading soley out of class and then completing the remainder of the steps within the classroom, I feel that I have not demanded an active reading of the entire text. However, by completing a full reading and analysis within the classroom, I can better serve the active reading that my students need to complete to begin a further study of a model text. I hope that by completing this active reading completely within the class period I will accomplish two things. First, I will teach my students the methods required to complete an active reading and that they will, by the end of the semester, take these skills with them into the remainder of their classes and into the real world. Second, I hope to aid students in retaining the key concepts to “good writing” so that as they continue to write for classes they can continue to work from the models they have begun to commit to memory and use these to aid in the creation of their own writing.

Repetition is the key to teaching. I learned this last year when I began to teach grammar to my students, but I never realized the importance of repetition to a model essay. Though I am continually having my students repeat things that I feel are important, I had not used a lot of repetitiion within the model essays and I feel that, to some extent, I have been failing my students. However, when the fall semester begins late next month, I will be expanding on my reading and writing curriculum to add the my newly discovered facet–repetition.