Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Rhetoric and Affect Post #2

Quandahl was who I started with this week, and I was glad because her language seemed to be a bit more accessible. She seemed to explain her ideas better (at least for me). We see the word pedagogy again. Q. quotes Worsham when she says pedagogy is "the whole social education of members of a culture." Okay, I 'm with you there. In the first paragraph, I'm thinking that the question is "What are the things going on in the classroom beside the surface interactions?" The reason I'm trying to relate it to the classroom is that Donna said that he interest in affect and rhetoric began in the classroom where they discussed Ebonics. (By the way, I wish you, Donna, would blog about this. I keep thinking when I understand that situation and how it led you to affect and rhetoric then I can begin understanding it better.)

Quandahl says that emotion is "not merely an individual or natural phenomenon, but is rather culturally and historically shaped, and closely linked with discourse." I believe this. Emotion is not merely individual. Let's think of some examples. I'm thinking mobs, group mentality, panic, looting. Epistemologically, I lean toward the social constructivist camp and wouldn't they say that knowledge is culturally and historically shaped, so why wouldn't emotion be the same. When she says emotion is linked with discourse, I think I understand. Discourse can cause emotion. Right? But I'm afraid that may not be what she is speaking of.

On page 12, she explains her point: "What I wish to show is that not only the account of emotions in the Rhetoric, but also its location in the domain of ethics is significant for what it reveals about current themes--and silences--in pedagogy." In this use, does pedagogy mean a way to look at knowledge and how it is constructed? I'm interested in what she says here, especially about the silences, but I don't ever see this fully developed. She does say on p. 19 that "Worsham's argument that Composition pedagogies--now which routinely claimm to empower students--have been naive, often by variously focusing on individual passions and experiences as fundamental." Slam. What's funny is that as I read this article I really felt like underneath all of these articles that they were suggesting that you needed to ignite people's passion and emotion because it has been silenced in schooling (wouldn't that be Worsham). When you want people to find that emotion, you have to do that through individual choice and finding personal connections (these two things are pedagogical, for me). When I think of first year comp in some universities, especially if they are rhetoric-focused, aren't they taking the emotion out of the writing by focusing on "reasonable" and "rational" arguments?

I am seeing this huge difference between what I would call composition studies and rhetoric. Is composition studies concerned more with the writer and rhetoric concerned more with how you say something?

I'm onto this comp versus rhetoric idea, and I did a google search, just out of curiosity. Who do I find but Donna and Marcia's friend Collin? I'm completely taking his words out of context, but he makes a reference to pedagogy, and I want to share it. In blog etiquette, do I have to ask him if it is okay if I link him or share his words?
Collin writes, "I find it no accident that the method Fulkerson uses tends towards the latter model of envisioning the field, because he himself is one of the most active contributors (along with Berlin, Faigley, et al.) to that model. Tate et al. write in their preface that the word "pedagogy" is widely used and poorly defined, and while that may be true, I'd argue that "composition pedagogies" have seen a great deal of definition and explication, enough so that the weird flattening of the term that appears in the Guide doesn't merit a mention. In some chapters, it refers to particular sites, in some places to specific techniques or approaches, in some places to philosophies. The end result of this is that, for me, at least, "pedagogy" feels a lot like "excellence" as Bill Readings describes it, an empty term that can be infused with whatever seems appropriate. "

I am now announcing to the class that I created my very first blog link. Thank you. Thank you very much.

1 comment:

Keri said...

I feel flattered that you posted to my site. I've heard so much about you in class. You're famous. I'm glad it was okay. It seemed like such a small blogworld when I searched on Google and found you.

By the way, Donna posted your reading and organizational strategies from your blog. Very helpful. Except. Then I went to 43Folders and other sites to read about organization when I should have been doing something on my to do list. I can never quite balance everything.