Rhetoric History and Theory | Research Colloquium
During this time I was also taking AL 805. The first two projects included here represent some of my work in Rhetoric History and Theory: the Chinese Writing Project a historical project and the Codex a theoretical project. The assignment for the Chinese Writing Project was to do a rhetorical analysis of the book "Bamboo and Silk," a book that traces Chinese writing through archeological finds. The project was interesting, and the website may look nice--but I'll be the first to admit that I didn't feel as though I learned much from this project, at first, beyond the fact that the Chinese were far ahead the Western world in writing--something ignored or overlooked often in history. But this led well into the rest of what we learned over the course of the semester, that Greco-Roman rhetoric is only one small part of the world's rhetorical story. So in conjunction with the other cultures we studied, this project does make sense and is important. While the book only looks at the material means of keeping documents and what they were used for, part of what makes it important is the idea of rhetoric existing in all means of communication, not just in formal speeches as Greek rhetoric would lead some to believe. So at the end of the semester, when we had to write a "patchwork essay" looking at various select elements of rhetorical theory, I chose to make a codex to represent the complex interweavings of the world of rhetoric (as explained on the back cover of the codex).
This course informed my teaching and my understanding of rhetoric in many significant ways. In the first place, I had never taken a course in rhetoric. Although one of the courses I took from CMU was titled "Composition and Rhetoric", the truth is that it was a pedagogy course, so we literally did not study rhetoric at all. When I began 805, I was completely ignorant of most rhetorical theories and its history. Ironically, I teach rhetoric yet it was something I knew little about. We talked about logos, pathos, and ethos--and that was about it. So as the semester progressed, the little light bulbs flickered and flickered in my brain until I really did understand this field. Rather than explaining here, however, in great detail what I learned in 805, it makes more sense for you to read my manifesto, one of our 805 assignments. Before 805, I had trouble even understanding the term "rhetoric" and how it was used. So when, in my manifesto, I give my definition of rhetoric and its various usages, what is important is that this was all very new to me, this understanding, and to be able to articulate this meant a lot. Truth is, I felt pretty silly at the beginning of the semester because I didn't understand this, wanted to hide my ignorance, and spent about a third of the semester pretending I understood, especially when I was reading. I went from feeling nearly illiterate to quite literate about the subject. So even though the emphasis in this course wasn't on Greco/Roman rhetoric and what is often considered "traditional," I feel that taking this course, especially when I did, was invaluable to my growth in the program. I finished the course with a deep sense that I could teach writing and rhetoric thoroughly. How this changed what I do in the classroom may not be very visibly evident, but when I teach argument now, I try to deemphasize dualistic thinking and help students to see that the most persuasive writing doesn't take a strong stand against others but a strong stand for what it believes. We work toward a mestiza consciousness, a way of thinking that includes rather than excludes.