Alternative Assignment: February 25, 2011

Everything You Know

You have spent a good amount of time reading the research surrounding your topic of interest. You have blogged about your research. You have written summaries of your research and created an outline. Now, it is time to pause, step away from your research, and take stock of what you know about your topic. It is time to re-invite your own voice into the conversation. Your job is to blog (500 words) about everything you know on your topic -- in your own words, incorporating your own thoughts. This is, in some ways, a way to reflect on what you are learning. Some of what you write may end up in your final paper, but that isn't the ultimate goal.


Your blog is due on Sunday at 9 pm. You must comment on two classmates' blogs by classtime on Monday. (Your comments must be at least 75 words.)

Upcoming dates . . .

We have just officially entered the zone of your first Major Writing Project. Here is the plan for the next few weeks:

February 16: In-class & Homework: A total of 8 sources on your topic (at least 3 must be academic)with rhetorical precis on your blog -- DUE on 2/18

February 18: In-class: Now that you have done the research, it is time for you to make a claim. Write your claim + reasons and create a thesis statement. Get my approval before class is over. Homework: Write an introduction, using your newly created thesis statement. Put your intro on your blog.

February 21: In-class: Collaboratively create an outline. Homework: Write on your blog a summary of the arguments about your topic -- at least 500 words.

February 23:In-class: Begin compiling paper and annotated bibliography. Homework: Work on first draft

February 25:NO Class: Everything You Know Blog, alternative assignment

February 28: First draft (at least 1000 words) due in class -- on blog and in hard copy! In-class: Peer Review. Homework: Revision.

March 2: Second draft (at least 1500 words) due in class. In-Class: Instructor/Teacher conferences, if necessary

March 4: FINAL draft due.

Citing Sources

Here is my favorite online guide for citing sources:

http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/legacylib/mlahcc.html#books

Another -- even better -- resource:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

A weekend for catching up . . .

My dear Comp102 students, you have the weekend to catch up your blogs. By Monday, at the start of class, you should have the following items done:

1) Set up blog on blogspot.com
2) Follow all of your classmates' blogs
3) Follow my blog: dawndiprince.blogspot.com
4) Have the following blog posts:
** 10-15 questions you have about your topic
** a Ted.com video (yes, it must be from Ted.com) related to your topic
** a Rhetorical Precis about your video (use the same format as you would for creating a precis for an article)
** a Rhetorical Precis about an academic article you found using Google Scholar AND the CSU-Pueblo library system

Please NOTE: Your questions, video, AND both Rhetorical Precis should be added to your blog. You do NOT need to bring a hard copy of your precis to class.

Have a great weekend! See you on Monday. If you haven't already heard President Mubarak stepped down from power in Egypt.

Blogging for Invention

As we have talked about in class, blogging can be used to incite protests, chat about football, give fashion advice or connect with other people. In ENG102, we will be using blogging for different purposes -- to invent. When I use the word invention, I do not mean to conjure up images of Thomas Edison or Bill Gates. Rather, when I see the word invention, I think instead of Aristotle. Aristotle created a step-by-step framework for rhetorical strategy. Aristotle's Five Canons of Rhetoric include: 1) invention; 2) arrangment; 3) style; 4) memory; and 5) delivery.

Invention, in my opinion, is the most important and can be the hardest part. Invention is where you begin, it is putting words on the page, and it is finding something to say. Aristotle also states that invention is "discovering the best available means of persuasion."

In ENG 102, invention will also include research. For academic papers, research is how we find what to say. We must first consult what others have said, written and argued on a topic. Only after we listen to what is currently be said and written can we insert ourselves into the academic conversation. Here is a metaphorical description of what you will be doing:

"Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress " (The Philosophy of Literary Form 110-111).

Your blog is where you will prepare to enter the conversation; it is your place of invention. There will be required assignments, but I encourage you, as scholars, to do more than the required. Your blog will be where you collect your ideas, your thoughts, your words and your research.

Good luck! I will be blogging with you.

Reclaiming Sophistry?

The Sophists have been much maligned – at least in my years of learning. The Sophists were portrayed as amoral, money-hungry manipulators of rhetoric. I am grateful for the more nuanced version of this story from Bizzell and Herzberg in The Rhetorical Tradition. The authors indicate that this bad reputation stems from an ancient and incomplete description of the Sophists in comparison with Plato. The Sophists and Plato disagreed on one foundational idea – the quest for truth. Plato sought (and thought attainable) absolute truth, while the Sophists did not believe in such truth. They advocated for a conditioned truth – one influenced by kairos rather than something definitive and divine. Isocrates, a Sophist, valued education and knowledge necessary for current affairs, tangible immediate needs – not just lofty transcendent pursuits. He, and other Sophists, sought to acknowledge cultural difference and tolerance. Rather than uniting around absolute common ideals, Sophists had “a common recognition that humanity could express itself in many ways and was not subject to an absolute standard” (Bizzell 25).

Plato, and our love affair with him, emphasizes our desire for one right answer. Through Plato, we have developed an educational desire for convergent thought. Yet, one byproduct of convergent thinking is “annihilation” of dissonant ideas, thoughts, methods, and ways of learning. The Sophists, instead, valued diversity of expression and that expression was possible through education for “all comers” (Bizzell 25). Can we connect the Platonic quest for absolute answers to current trends in standardized education, which also values convergent thinking despite an evolving global economy that thrives on divergent thought?

In my composition classes, we are practicing writing and the analysis of argument by reading and listening to a variety of current arguments. On Monday, my students and I found inspiration from a video presentation by Sir Ken Robinson titled, “Changing Education Paradigms” where he talks about how we should change the old model of education that is based on industrial models of production, standardized thinking and anesthetic approaches to learning. While clearly Isocrates and Plato lived long before the industrial revolution, I could not help but think about them within the context of Sir Robinson’s presentation. The industrial model of education, which we continue to cling to with Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Obama’s Race to the Top, values one right answer and one path to truth and knowledge. Our current education system seeks to unify and standardize knowledge. And, this all sounds like Plato. The industrial model of education goes further, translating its quest for absolute-ness into terms of productivity. As David Russell writes, we measure educational success by “the number of errors reduced per dollar invested, and students [can be] tracked and taught according to their deficiencies” (154). Furthermore, our industrialized education system thrives on  what Paolo Freire’s has defined as the “banker model of education,” where the “right” knowledge is deposited by teachers into students.

More pointedly, this Isocrates-Plato distinction also relates to the “invention tension” that faces composition classrooms. Composition classrooms have an obligation to teach students academic forms, methods and vocabulary. Composition instructors must guide students as they “invent the university,” as Bartholomae describes this process of academic assimilation. As we, composition instructors, help our students assimilate, we are placing them on the path to knowledge, much like Plato. This invention and assimilation is very much steeped in right-way formulas and convergent thought. Yet, I believe, our job is also to encourage divergent thinking and diverse modes of expression, much like the Sophists. We must navigate the tension between helping students “invent the university,” while also enabling them the freedom of invention in writing and identity.

Beyond that, Isocrates advocated for education that prepared students to rhetorically tangle with current affairs. Composition teachers have a duty to acknowledge the ancient Greek roots of rhetoric, but like Isocrates, we must juxtapose it within a relevant, real-world realm.

When we think about the Sophists like this, should we rescue them from their reputation as subtle and manipulative tricksters?

* * *

Bizzell, Patricia and Bruce Herzberg, ed. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. Second Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2001.

Russell, David. R. “American Origins of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Movement (1992).” The Norton Book of Composition Studies. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2009. 151-170.