"Sorry to hear that, but those are my mentors."

I walked in to Dr. Eskew's office thinking we would have to interview him about all aspects of his academic career and professional life to find the people he had interacted with and who had provided the most influence for him. That turned out not to be necessary. Doug was very definite about who had made the biggest contributions for him: his dissertation directors. He had even done some research of his own to discover who their mentors had been, and he presented us with his findings based on acknowledgments in published works by his dissertation directors. It was anticlimactic really, as we'd expected to have to begin this on the basis of our own research. Oh, but that was coming. It became clear early on that there were seemingly infinite ways to go, just based off of two people. The research was complicated by the fact that you had to infer whether someone was merely in the same sphere as your subject, or if that person had made a significant enough contribution to be another link in your chain. Toward the end of the chain, around the 1700s, it became an exercise just to find someone who had been in the same physical space at the same time.

What does that say about influence? It's clear to me that we are influenced academically in many ways by many different people, not just those we consider to be our direct mentors. The books we read for papers, the emails we send to prominent or not so prominent theorists, our classmates, our professors, our class interaction all have the power to provide ideas and theories that influence our pedagogies. I do admire Dr. Eskew's conviction on his own influences, though. At one point we contacted him for additional names as the ones we had were looking like dead ends stuck in turn of the century Czechoslovakia. His response was, "Sorry to hear that, Erin, but those are my mentors." That is a man who knows where his ideas came from.

It was pleasure working with Jennifer and kimi on the project, though we did most of our work independently and only then came together to discuss and plan. I suspect that my attitude about the project was more linear in that I wanted to find one clear line with prominent names and stick with it. Jennifer and Kimi came with many more names and directions and wanted to incorporate them in the final project. As it turned out, that would have possible and would have shown all the extra work. It was a good lesson for me in the limitations of linear thinking on a project like. This project had the potential to shoot off in many different directions, interconnected and highly collaborative. We achieved some of that, though I think we had to tone down or discard much of the work we did due to time and space restrictions. We could have spent a whole semester doing this project and still had things to add.

Thank you, Dr. Souder, for the opportunity to see the communities we are a part of!

The Questioning

The Elbow/Bartholomae debate packs an awful lot of debated pedagogy in a few pages: the role of the author, authority in the classroom, the merits of expressive writing vs. academic writing, writing "space," and still others. These particular articles, summing up the arguments on both sides of the issues, have enormous relevance for our pedagogy statements and our current and future careers regarding how to teach composition and what you teach. I particularly appreciate the actual questioning that both men pursue, not only of their opponent's position, but also their own. Too often scholars seem married to their position and unwilling to examine the merits of their opponent's argument. In this debate, Elbow and Bartholomae attempt to answer questions Wayne Booth sees as central to rhetoric: "How can I change your mind?" and, perhaps more importantly, "When should I change my mind?" Neither seems willing to give up their positions in the end, though the attempt to see both sides serves them well.

It seems clear, though, that their theories have the same goals: to teach students to exercise control over their writing, to make them aware of the impact of culture on their writing, to think critically about their own and others' writing. The central question of their debate comes down to the method of teaching composition students. Are beginning writers best served by allowing them to immerse themselves in their writing and make it authentically personal, or by enabling them to see culture's influence and the difficulties of achieving authenticity? In the first method, the writer must be made to see the culture's influence and encounter doubt in their own authenticity, in the second, the writer must fight distrust of language and attempt to achieve authenticity in spite of the culture. Either way, the student writer must confront the same issues, just in a different sequence.

The question is, as Elbow puts it, "whether I should invite my first year students to be self-absorbed and see themselves at the center of the discourse - in a sense, credulous; or whether I should invite them to be personally modest and intellectually scrupulous and to see themselves as at the periphery - in a sense, skeptical and distrustful." And Bartholomae asks, "Are freshmen ready to think first and primarily about the problems of writing when they write?" and "Is it the job of college English to teach students to learn to resist and be suspicious of writing and the text?" Elbow worries about crushing the spirit of the beginning writer, about instilling distrust too early before the writer has had a change to gain confidence in their writing. Bartholomae questions the wisdom of allowing students to believe in their authentic voice, when that voice is actually the product of culturally produced language and situation.

There is no winner here, but also no loser. There is no right answer to this question. There can't be, because writing is not a black and white, mechanical process that works the same for every writer. In reality, some student will respond better to Elbow's method, some to Barholomae's. The important thing is to keep asking these questions, to keep seeking the answers. And perhaps we can ask our students these questions and have them weigh in as well. This is a discourse in which the more voices that participate, the better chance we have at discovering how writing works and how it should be taught to achieve the best results.

Saussure! No, seriously, Saussure!

Today we connected Dr. Doug Eskew to Ferdinand de Saussure. The elation I felt at that point was ridiculous in its quantity and object, of course, but that's the beauty of being an English graduate student. It's not our stopping point, I hope. And it wasn't the direction we first started in either. At one point we were lost in turn of the century Czechoslovakia, which is never a good place to be. So we retraced our steps and looked for another name. And there are many of them, as I'm sure you're all finding in your own research. To imagine that there is only one line of learning is outrageous hubris or naivete, but I must say I rather saw it that way when first imagining how this project would turn out. We would find out Doug's mentor then connect him to this one guy who in turn connects this other specific guy. But there are many influences on a single person's academic and personal growth. Influence is also such a nebulous term, including people you've had direct contact with and others you've read or heard, and still others who influenced those you've read or heard. There are literally infinite ways we could trace this project.

What I think we will learn, at the end of this, is that we are not so far removed from major theorists we read about every day. That we are connected to each other and every person who has even begun to think critically about the broad and bloated field of English. That through us, our students are and will be connected. That the ideas of these people we are researching are connected just as the physical bodies are connected, passed on, carried down, growing and evolving. That literature theorists are connected to linguists are connected to rhetoricians. That learning, knowledge, and ideas are viral. But we already knew that. I'm interested to see if and how we manage to coherently connect all this.

As McLuhan said, the medium is the message, so what form will this project ultimately take? I still do like the traditional tree, for its simplicity and inherent metaphor, but I also appreciated all of my classmates' suggestions on spider webs, celestial constellations, etc. The constellations especially would be interesting to see depicted. As for multi-media, I think incorporating on the board would be impractical. But I like the idea of creating video and uploading it to a facebook page, as Autumn suggests on her blog, and other locations. It's an excellent idea to connect this class, as well as future Dr. Souder classes who might participate. If we're going to be a part of this connection, let's start now by creating new media forms to celebrate it.

"[The] suspense is likely to be somewhat painful"

The scholarly community seems to want to find one single process method that will explain the notion of writing in a clear cut and logical manner that can be applied to everyone, student and professional alike, with predictable results. Our readings and theorist presentations have proven that this has been and continues to be an ongoing debate. Does this stem from a desire for scientific certainty, or merely the need to make sense out of our own actions? Whatever the reason, perhaps trying to define one comprehensive method for writing is not what best serves the writing community and composition classroom.

In our Norton readings, both Faigley and Berlin offer comparisons of the Cognitive, Expressive, and Social process theories of writing, while Brand compares cognitive and expressive theories. The cognitive theory focuses on the mind as the center of activity relevant to writing and proposes that writing occurs in a logical process that can be analyzed by contemporary cognitive science. Expressive theory is portrayed as everything from a Romantic notion that writing occurs as a result of Divine Inspiration to the notion that “good” writing is the result of individual expression. Social process or social-epistemic theory sees society as being the source of the writing process and the individual is merely analyzing and interpreting social discourse. Faigley argues that the Social process theory is the superior of the three, while Berlin attempts to prove that each theory has an inherent rhetoric that should be acknowledged. Brand clearly favors the expressive theory and strongly criticizes the cognitive theory. “What the cognitive models suggest is not so much that there are different composing styles but that one is better than the other. Nothing could be further from the truth” (710).

Is that not what all the theory proponents are arguing?

Dewey can perhaps offer a little perspective on the subject. Dewey proposed, as one of the underlying principles of progressive education, that education should reflect society, just as society reflected education. School is for “learning…certainly, but living primarily, and learning through and in relation to this living” (Dewey, School and Society). Each theory process is something that we experience and perform in society: logical processing, individual expression, and analysis of social discourse. Should we not then incorporate each of those processes in our learning to make it truly reflective to what we do outside of the classroom?

Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy also supports this. If a theory has practical application and relevance, then the theory is “true.” And all of these theories are relevant. Each of them successfully examines a portion of the overall writing process. But only a portion. I would argue that all writing contains an element of logical processing, individual expression, and analysis of social discourse. To focus on one alone as the sole determiner of writing process is to define writing as a limiting and limited exercise of relevance and practical application.

The point is that there seems to be this desire to choose one idea, and one alone, as the answer to all of the writing community’s questions about process. If the proposed theory can’t answer those questions, the community decides it must be criticized and discarded while a new answer is sought.

Dewey defined critical thinking as maintaining an open mind and a little healthy skepticism while analyzing the relevant information. "Reflective thinking, in short, means judgment suspended during further inquiry…and suspense is likely to be somewhat painful" (How We Think). We may be uncomfortable with not having the answer to this question of writing process, but that’s okay. That is part of the process of learning, seeking out answers. And it is okay if we make mistakes and propose theories that don’t hold the answers to all of the questions. “Socially as well as scientifically the great thing is not to avoid mistakes but to have them take place under conditions such that they can be utilized to increase intelligence in the future” (Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy).

The Unending Conversation

“Coleridge’s great metaphor for composition is the journey outward from the center of the self in order to embrace diversity and bring difference into harmony with the self. Such a journey requires an active mind and a perspective of composition that welcomes each act of composition as an attempt to explain something to yourself in such a way that others will want to join with you in composing” (Veeder 22).

For Coleridge, knowledge and truth are created inside the self through a process of examination, judgment, and questioning that leads to the development of personality and self. It is a constantly evolving process that requires some flexibility of mind to adapt to the changes that experience and facts necessitate. However, the learning process does not end with the self. Collaboration with others is necessary to test the self’s knowledge and develop a sense of the self’s role in the whole of society. The testing wasn’t for the purpose of convincing an audience, but rather to inform the composition author of the validity of the self’s truth. Composition then has both a very personal beginning and a collaboratively social polishing stage. “Coleridge’s philosophy of composition fundamentally asserts that composition is both dialectic and dialogue, dialectic being the discourse of reason and understanding and dialogue being the social equivalent of that discourse” (Veeder 23).

Coleridge’s view of composition seems rather prescient in light of modern teaching pedagogy, and Kenneth Bruffee would likely agree. Bruffee’s article, Collaborative Learning and the “Conversation of Mankind,” discusses collaborative learning and the social approach to classroom teaching. It began because students were unwilling or unable to take advantage of traditional university-sponsored tutoring and counseling programs by graduate students and teachers. An alternative to the traditional social structure of the classroom was proposed in peer tutoring. In the classroom, collaborative learning manifested as the teacher assigning a problem and the class collectively working on the solution. The students learned from each other, providing and receiving help in a social context far removed from the traditional teacher-centered classroom.

Bruffee argues that thought begins as external social conversation which is then internalized as reflective thought. Much as Coleridge theorized, we take what we see outside ourselves, internalize it, and then process it. Also like Coleridge, Bruffee believes the process of developing knowledge does not end there. “If thought is internalized public and social talk, then writing of all kinds is internalized social talk made public and social again” (Bruffee 550). Once the knowledge, the truth, is processed, it must be tested in public. Collaborative learning provides the setting and structure to pursue that testing through social interaction in an educational environment.

In The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind, Michal Oakeshott argues that “what distinguishes human beings from other animals is our ability to participate in unending conversation” (Bruffee 548). Coleridge would perhaps, as an active participant in the unending conversation, agree with that notion. And as teachers, we are actively engaged in perpetuating that conversation and enabling our students to be able participants as well.

The Role and Responsibility of the Audience

When does rhetoric become manipulative? When the orator deliberately misleads or unfairly takes advantage of weaknesses in the audience? Or, perhaps, when the audience is ignorant of the methods and goals of rhetoric and is easily swayed by the orator, however well intentioned? That is a very distinct difference, but can both situations can lead to manipulation of the audience? If that is the case, what is the role and responsibility of the audience in rhetoric? That question is not addressed specifically in many of our readings, but some conclusions can be made based on them. For example, how would Mary Astell and George Campbell see the audience and their responses through the lenses of their respective rhetorical theories?

Mary Astell appealed to her audience through ethos and encouraged her audience to do the same in their own rhetoric. Astell believed, along with Quintilian, that eloquence was not possible with immoral discourse. She was primarily concerned with educating her audience, mainly "fashionable" but uneducated women. "They have a responsibility to improve their minds" (Sutherland 148). She clearly views her audience as becoming motivated by her words and their inherent responsibility to educate themselves and participate in rhetorical discourse. "She expects women to engage in serious intellectual discussion and controversy" (Sutherland 150). She does not direct A Serious Proposal to the Ladies to the working class, however, who would not have had the time or finances for "partying, gossiping, and gambling." She expected them to have knowledge of societal structure and the topics that constitute intellectual discussion, as well as basic reading and writing. Manipulation would not have been thought possible by Astell with her focus on ethos and her audience's effort to educate themselves.

George Campbell, on the other hand, was concerned with appealing to pathos and the means and ends of rhetoric. "The vehement passions, e.g., hope, ambition and anger 'elevate the soul and stimulate to action,' are useful for persuasion" (Walzer 76). Campbell also believed that appealing to reason was important because it would help to rouse the passions. But, only if the appeal to reason was concealed. For Campbell, rhetoric was "an art that conceals art" (Walzer 81). So he was concerned with eliciting the desired response from the audience, through the passions, and concealing the art of the appeal. However, the passions were not emotion without reason. "For Campbell, the passions (as emotions) do not obscure judgment but enable action" (Walzer 76). For a Presbyterian minister and professor of divinity, it's not likely that Campbell would endorse manipulation as a rhetorical method. His audiences would also have consisted of educated men, many of whom were learning the very rhetoric he proposed.

These two rhetoricians, though with very different approaches, expected their audiences either to be educated or to educate themselves regarding the theory of rhetoric. Perhaps that is the key element that is missing from modern rhetoric. A larger portion of the population has voting rights and access to education. But there has been a corresponding lowering of standards and expectations in modern education, hence the absence or reduction of rhetorical theory. Today's population isn't trained to understand the methods or goals of rhetoric and so is easily manipulated by it. The audience actively participates in rhetoric by educating themselves to understand and counterbalance it. Without that aspect, rhetoric does become manipulation, regardless of the intentions of the rhetor.

Balancing scholarship with experience

What kind of value can we place on personal experience when used as evidence of argument in a classroom? The answer, judging by the instruction and admonishments from our graduate instructors, seems to be very little. The reasoning seems to be that personal experience, anecdotal evidence, is simply unreliable and specific to a small cross-section of human experience. Would Locke and Vico support such a view of knowledge and education today?

According to Locke, in his tabula rasa theory, we aren't born with innate knowledge. Rather, humans develop knowledge through their experiences. Everything we know and understand, then, is dependent on personal experience. "The mind gets its ideas of particular, concrete objects through one of the five senses; it gets all other ideas by reflecting on its own operations." When we attempt to strip away that personal experience from the learning process, are we doing a disservice to students? In composition classes, we as teachers attempt to wean students away from depending on anecdotal evidence to prove arguments. But it is possible that we impede learning and make the process of writing a dry and empty process rather than a rich, fulfilling experience in and of itself. Perhaps we should seek to expand and encourage personal experience. As Corbett says in his essay on Locke, "If our students sometimes fail in doing our writing assignments, their failure may be due, not to the malfunctioning of whatever heuristic system they may have used but rather to the narrowly circumscribed range of their experiences." And if we go to all that trouble to encourage experience for the sake of learning, does it then make sense to stifle that expression of experience completely?

For Locke, experience was knowledge. For Vico, self-discovery was knowledge. What is experience if not self-discovery? "[Vico] also wanted to start a movement of autonomous self-development in the student. The latter must rediscover his soul himself, and must seek the connection between human nature and the Divine. The study of the classics and their expressive formulas becomes a mean of intellectual development and not an end it itself." He respected the classics and saw their value for a well-educated individual, but learning the classics wasn't the end. As we learned from both the article on Vico and the presentation, he believed strongly in sending his students out into the world to utilize their hard-earned knowledge for the sake of their people and society. Again, there is that emphasis on experience and utilizing that experience for productive means.

I don't advocate a progressive form of education that focuses entirely on self-expression to the exclusion of research and presentation of authoritative sources. To do so would be to disregard the rationality and wisdom to be found in scholarship. As Maiullari says of Vico's theories, "The interest and primary aim for every man must be to achieve a balance between his own nature and his own actions, between theory and action." I would suggest that such a strong exclusion of experience is a detriment to the knowledge and development of our students and that we should seek a balance between scholarship and experience.