deep english rhetoric thoughts with amandine abraham...

I've been thinking about our earlier discussion of truth during the first class period. With writing, the sense of truth seems to be two-fold: the truth of the writer and what that writer is trying to express and the receiving end of how the audience interprets what has been written. I'm not well versed in technical writing but what it seems like Miller was trying to express was a sense of middle ground where information plateaus. What I mean by this is by reducing the metaphysical emotional aspects of expression that both parties are better able to decipher and understand a common language. Where this gets sticky is in the process: assuming the associations of a wide general audience. In this light, I can completely understand the psychological associations of language and what might be considered the human element of objectivity. Who defines this aspect of objectivity and why we're not taught to view emotions through language in a secondary stance is even more interesting (a possible paper topic for later, hmmm...)

I was particularly moved when Miller wrote:
"Good technical writing becomes, rather than the revelation of absolute reality, a persuasive version of experience. (616)"

In this description, it seems as though rhetoric would be theorized as a sense of honest persuasian. Where that honesty resides is multi-layered: wedged somewhere between personal experience associations and the ultimate goal of whatever piece of writing the writer is currently invested in. Every writer has their own set of agendas but the ones I find myself coming back to over and over again are those that are trying, with every association they have, to seek some kind of ultimate truth (with room for interpretation, heh...)

It's like I tell my freshmen when they stare up at me with that look that screams, "Tell me what to write!" I tell them that knowledge and its exploration is a very big stew each of them is creating that is meant to taste differently. A lot of what I notice of being lost in the work of my students--is a sense of personal identity as writer/interpreter/analyst. Somehow, this movement toward blanketed information has seemingly left its students without a sense of conviction (another vague but possibly interesting paper topic).

The sense of compliance described by Herrick, takes away from the individuality of questioning the nature of any document. I understand and appreciate rhetoric in terms of setting a kind of stage of argumentation but where I see problems in teaching writing is in who is setting the stage and what their ultimate intentions are.

Herrick mentions Deirdre McClosky who states,"persuasian has become astonishingly important (3)" to the economy.

Most of my training and learning has been in the aspect of creative writing (that which makes no money, HA). But where I see problems with this is in the American culture of passive consumerism and its extension into higher education classrooms. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a professor say, "Ask a question, you paid for it," to a dead-pan room of students who have no idea why they would need to ask a question to a person in authority outside of technical aspects (ie, when is this assignment due, how many pages do you want it) etc. Unless there is a sense of investment in the growth and development of the student, there is no room for guided persuasian into any body of knowledge.

Maybe I'm being a little too idealistic about teaching writing and rhetoric, but these are the larger questions I think about on a daily basis when considering lesson plans and in-class activities that attempt to harness a sense of genuine investment on the part of the student.

I'm learning...