From Aristotle to Persephone: A 2400 year odyssey

"All that is necessary for ignorance to prevail in our discipline is for historians of rhetoric to forget their primary job of doing history." ~Richard Enos

In "Recovering the Lost Art of Researching the History of Rhetoric" Richard Enos paraphrases Edmund Burke's famous quote to relate his argument about the importance of conducting primary research to the ways scholars actually conduct research. Enos bemoans the fact that so much of research is more commentary than digging and that most of the information uncovered is truly secondary information. He recommends that scholars should "get their hands dirty" and not obtain their information from transcribed documents that have been "corrupted by generations of well-intentioned scribes and the unsympathetic ravages of time" (13). He also recommends that we seek interviews with living rhetoricians when possible. In our rhetorical family-tree project, we were able to do just that when Erin, Jennifer, and I interviewed Dr. Eskew. Interviewing Dr. Eskew was a highlight for me. I have not yet taken any of his courses, and I am looking forward to his teaching. Dr. Eskew told us about his influences and dissertation co-directors, Wayne Rebhorn and Frank Whigham, whom he refers to as "a yin and yang of Renaissance studies," in his dissertation acknowledgement (vi). The odyssey that began after our interview seemed to run into a wall in Czechoslovakia, but with further digging, we were able to trace paths to the Prague Linguistic Circle to Kant, to Marx, and discover amazing connections along the way. One of the more interesting connections of the project was finding (according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) that some of the great linguists and philosophers of all time were contemporaries and friends, such as Humboldt, Schlegel, and Goethe, and these gentlemen together discussed Kantian philosophy.

One of the more personally meaningful aspects of the family tree project was speaking with and listening to Dr. Hugh Burns - Dr. Souder's link in the rhetorical family tree. He has had a profound impact on me and on my pedagogy. His history with computers is phenomenal, and what he has done with multi-modal composition is inspiring. And in his "Four dimensions of significance: Tradition, method, theory, originality," Dr. Burns provides us with a framework for research that I am using in conjunction with my final paper. He writes, "I ask where is the originality? How does research demonstrate creativity and even courage? Tradition, method, theory, and originality: I claim that our community can weigh the potential significance of scholarship on these four scales" (2). Utilizing the questions Burns asks in his article effectively guides research. Meeting Dr. Burns was an honor, and speaking with him after class reminds me about Richard Enos's admonishment about conducting live interviews. When we met with Dr. Burns, we met with, as Dr. Souder said several months ago, "a real, live, rhetorician."

And where is Persephone's branch in the tree? Persephone, a student of mine who happens to be named for the Greek goddess of the underworld, is one of the younger members of this long and growing, living rhetorical family tree. Aristotle began our rhetorical tradition, numerous others perpetuated it, our professors continue with and sometimes debate it, and with the help of Dr. Burns, Persephone learned rhetorical methods of persuasion and created a 21st century multi-modal composition, 2400 years after Aristotle planted the seed.

A Radical Proposal

Reading Lynn Bloom's "The Essay Canon" in Norton is to take a walk down the memory lane of undergraduate English studies. Most English majors have likely read most of the essays Bloom discusses in her article, and many are memorable for shaping life or the way we read or write or for creating pedagogies. It is understandable why the "canon czars" (947) select the essays they do. Although Jonathan Swift wrote "A Modest Proposal" in 1729, his writing holds value today, evidenced by its inclusion in Readers as "the most widely reprinted essay" and is the "subject of thirty-eight critical or pedagogical works in the past twenty-five years" (947). Bloom delineates Readers as "anthologies intended for freshman composition" (945). "Modest Proposal" adheres to a canon czars' criteria of teachability (956), and the aesthetic qualities of form - "Is the essay a good rhetorical model" - and of "technique" (957). As far as to what is included in a canon, Bloom relates that "Teachers have more influence over the canon than they may realize" (947), but does that mean that teachers and canon czars are correct in their selections of essays?

While the powers who are responsible for selecting essays for inclusion in various works have good intentions to satisfy literary, political, rhetorical, multicultural, and gender-related representation, teachers are responsible for what students read. The results they hope to obtain, however, are not always achieved. Consider Barbara Schneider's "Uncommon Ground: Narcissistic Reading and Material Racism." Despite Schneider's best intentions to use essay models from bell hooks and Mike Rose as "entry points for a discussion" (about racism) (921), what the discussions resulted in was not what she had hoped. Her students divided themselves along color lines, and the essays created "affective barriers to learning" (924) instead of the bridge she had hoped to build.

What if students were to play a role in choosing what is read in a freshman composition course?

Teachers have traditionally been responsible for what is read in their composition courses. If the goal is to have enriching discourse that enhances or alters the ways students think about their world and critically reflect new ways of thinking in their writing, could they possibly have a say in at least a portion of their own reading? While there are variances in what students bring with them to a freshman composition course, most students have studied great literary works. The canon is not only for college anthologies and Readers. Students hear Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech in elementary school, and they read it and "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in middle or high school. They also read Emily Dickenson, Langston Hughes, e.e. cummings, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Frederick Douglass, Robert Frost, Thoreau, N. Scott Momaday, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Shakespeare to name a few. Secondary students now read many of the essays that are included in collegiate texts. Students are so well-versed in internet research by the time they get to college, they could very well be able to find texts that will foster the kinds of discourse composition teachers desire.

Peter Elbow, in "Being a Writer vs. Being an Academic: A Conflict in Goals," relates that he sometimes feels "a conflict about what we should read in the first year writing course" (489). Elbow's goal, of course, is to help students become writers and academics. Perhaps if students have a measure of authority in selecting some of their readings in a first-year composition course, teachers and students might attain their goals of useful discourse that will enhance student writing and eventually create academic writers.

Interconnectness

Dawn's humorous quote from The Elegance of the Hedgehog spurs me to think about my changing pedagogy. A few years ago, I taught my middle school students (in isolation) about subordinate clauses, participial and prepositional phrases, adverbial clauses, and other grammatical functions that only grammar divas like me appreciate. A few students asked me why they needed to know that information, and I probably responded "It's on the test." I hope I did not cause any permanent damage to those students.

I no longer teach grammar in isolation. Although I constantly refine my pedagogy, it has never changed as rapidly as it has in the past few months. Reading about the history and theories of writing has seriously altered my thinking about teaching writing. For this knowledge, I am eternally grateful. I am especially grateful to people such as Mina Shaughnessy who taught us so much about basic writing. I am also grateful for Dr. Hugh Burns. My students are creating multimodal compositions - something that might not have happened had we not had Dr. Burns visit CSU Pueblo. Thank you to Dr. Souder, and thank you, too, for your insights, your mentorship, and your teaching.

The presentations by our classmates have been a wonderful way to get to know the big names in our rhetorical tradition. But I'm not simply grateful for the knowledge imparted; we've enjoyed great presentations. I am a true-blue teacher. I will borrow and steal from others, and I've learned from my classmates how to make my own presentations better.

Reading the articles and essays in our comp books has been informative and entertaining. I've been entertained because the rhetoric of differing schools of thought is often so quarrelsome. Discovering connections among our authors has also been informative, but not especially surprising. It seems only natural that Aristotle should be our antecedent.

Researching Dr. Eskew's history has been fascinating. A striking number of professors, who through other professors eventually influenced Dr. Eskew, taught at Yale, and many have concentrations in Renaissance literature and rhetoric. A large number have backgrounds (or created) comparative literature. I'm curious to know if others of us have found those kinds of similarities. I have been delighted to find that some of the connections go back to Shakespeare, because any time Shakespeare is involved, I'm happy. Researching has allowed me to get reacquainted with Marxist and Cartesian philosophies.

We truly are all connected in an ancient and contemporary global rhetorical family. The ancients and those more modern influence me, my teaching, and my students.