What
is the thesis to your article for this course? What support will you cite to
help you make your case?
My
thesis to the article this course focuses upon examining how teaching
composition through creative writing is more effective for teaching audience
awareness than teaching composition through rhetorical analysis. My thesis is,
in its roughest stages: “Despite the contradicting views over the best
methodology for teaching audience awareness in the composition classroom,
utilizing methods that have their roots in teaching creative writing is more
effective than teaching audience through how to construct a rhetorical
analysis.” I believe that students are more likely to best understand how to
appeal to a certain audience by engaging in creative writing than they are
through writing an analysis of what rhetorical devices a particular author
uses.
To
support my claim, I will draw upon Will Hochman’s analysis of Richard Hugo’s
performance in the composition classroom. Hugo’s pedagogy revolves around his
ideas focused around teaching creative writing as a means of teaching students
composition. Hochman’s review of Hugo’s performance in the composition
classroom gives an in-depth account of specific techniques and strategies used
by Hugo to teach his students all that they are expected to learn from engaging
in composition.
I
will also use, to represent the alternative side of the argument, Bedford’s
article, titled “A Brief History of Rhetoric and Composition” to indicate the
method through which audience is taught through rhetoric. I also think that
examining Ede and Lunsford’s “Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked:
The Role of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy” will be useful for
indicating the importance that identifying audience in this classroom setting
holds. In order to establish the importance of considering audience during the
process of composition, I will use Ede and Lunsford’s article, and I will then
make my argument by redirecting my focus around the best way to teach this to
first-year students. I think that this
will be an excellent starting point for my essay, and that these article will
give me solid ground upon which to begin my research and engagement with the
topic that I’ve chosen.
I've heard a few creative writing people talk about using CW to teach composition, and I'm intrigued. As a tech comm person myself, I've always taken for granted that audience awareness must come from analysis and argumentation. The idea of "performance" in the classroom is interesting as well. It raises a lot of questions about the teacher's role, authority, student experiences, etc.... Cool topic! Looking forward to reading what you come up with.
ReplyDeleteI agree, whole heartedly. I don't think teaching pure rhetoric is best for teaching audience because rhetoric in itself is complicated. Yeah yeah, Aristotelian rhetoric deals with audience, but he also liked to play with boys decades younger than him, so how much should we really trust what Aristotle says? But seriously, I do think CW would be best to teach audience to comp students. I don't think we should just outright quit rhetoric, but I think the first few weeks of a comp class should be about creative writing. Doing a rhetorical analysis two weeks into a freshman's first year of college seems a bit ridiculous to me. That's like getting an 8 week old puppy and telling it to jump through a ring of fire. No, start simple. teach the puppy to sit first, teach the student that writing is enjoyable. then teach the puppy to lay down, and teach the student to write clearly and coherently. Then teach the puppy to come when it's called, and teach the student that they have different audiences. Then you teach the puppy to not crap on the carpet when you're not home, but to hold it until you take it outside; and you teach your students to say to themselves during their pre-writing process, hey, who do I want to read this paper? Do I want my friends to read it? Do I want my 8 year old sibling to read it? Do I want my parents to read it? Do I want the terrorists that attacked Paris to read it? Because I'm like 100% positive that if I wrote a story about getting wild and crazy at a party friday night, I'd want my friends (hypothetical) to read it, but I damn sure wouldn't want my parents. If I'm going to write about learning how to ride a bike, do the terrorists in Paris need to read it, probably not, but does my 8 year old sibling, yeah most likely.
ReplyDeleteTraining students to write and write well, is just like training a puppy. You've got to start with the basics first. You can't just throw them into the ring of fire and expect them to perform a beautiful rhetorical analysis when the only association with Aristotle they have is the naked guy statue in front of the library.
Good thinking here, Trevor. Find a way to narrow this. Can't tackle the whole of creative writing and composition; instead, what about some aspect of the course, such as voice?
ReplyDelete