"[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.