compositional-minded

In reading, it seemed like there was an interesting point of intersection between Booth’s engagement of discussion as a pedagogical tool and the defining principles of rhetorical situation in Bitzer. Specifically, the question that it brought up for me was how exigence can be introduced into the classroom with regard to the literary text. The examples cited in the Bitzer essay–international/global turmoil, change in government, etc.–possess, in an overt way, that “defective” or anticipatory quality which clearly situates them within the scope of the author’s notion of rhetorical situation. (As a sort of aside: in the textbook from which I taught a couple lessons, there was a similar quality to the subjects–school violence, ecological crisis, etc.–with which their example essays dealt, which i found somewhat, in some ways, a little narrow) For the teacher of composition, there would seem to be a pretty sizable stake in portraying (at least in some instances/assignments) the moment of literary criticism as bearing a comparable amount of urgency, obstacle and anticipation. And I feel it true that the situation surrounding literary criticism is exigent in that the individual critic locates defects in thinking and treats his/her work as an interpretation that, in Bitzer’s words, is “waiting to be done.” And likewise I feel it true that the discourse surrounding a literary text is rhetorical in that is aim is often to alter the active approach to thinking about the text in question (and moreover, it communicates this aim to an audience at least theoretically open to the possibility of alteration).

Still, on a very basic level, how does one communicate to the introductory composition student that his/her essay on James Dickey’s “Cherrylog Road” shares a formal space with “The Gettysburg Address.” And one way, it would seem, would be to communicate the idea of audience, to communicate, particularly, how there is an analogy that goes something like essay reader:text as citizen:state (and where the presence of an essayist and orator, respectively, mediates the reader and citizen’s understanding of defects that may exist with regard to interpretations of the text and state). There also, however, seems to be a way in which the in-class work of Booth’s empowered students–the ones who feel respons-ibility for the education of their classmates via discussion–can be valuably cast as the work of the rhetorician. The simple explanation that the classroom discussion is a (civil) forum for revising thought away from a pattern that the individual student feels is defective/flawed could serve to infuse an idea of urgency into the act of literary criticism. Applying the terminology of Bitzer to the model put forth by Booth might more clearly establish the stakes of criticism in a way that not only underscores the potential of the field in its most evolved sense but likewise transfers that spirit of the discussion to the written form.

And, perhaps, in the creative writing classroom, this might require a gesture counter to what Bitzer argues on page 8. Rather than treating the  poetic audience as invested in the aesthetic experience, one might need to treat them as invested in the fate of the form (as there can exist crises within a form that require address). The poem should be approached as part of and reflecting a network of literary-historical contexts and, as such, should be regarded as susceptible to both defect and the perception of defect. The poet, then, becomes a force that can alter defect by creating historical context, a lofty idea, for sure, but one to which you could conceivably build a slow, and effective, approach.

There seems to be a tidy sequence that emerges from the act of dismissing (or at least disengaging) the pedagogical idea of “conveying information” or “covering material”: when the teacher instead facilitates the active engagement of material s/he becomes superfluous insofar as each student shares in the authority role that is defined by an unpacking and explication of the assigned material. It is, it would seem in Booth, this assumed responsibility for “what is going on now and what will go on next week [and next week and so on]” that is a key determinant in whether the student continues study in the field.

I wonder, though, if there’s not an even more evolved iteration of this idea of student responsibility? I’m thinking, in particular, of a predictive element.  Now (in Booth), it seems that responsibility is confined to the classroom and to, more specifically, classroom discussion: “I will continue, each week, to engage the material in a manner that likewise engages my classmates.” What if, however, this responsibility and this notion of “next week” was directed at the text itself, so that the student’s thought process more resembled: “given my understanding of form ‘x’ that we just examined, what will we be studying next week; what is the logical next (higher?) step for this form ‘x’; within the field of [for example] composition what does it become?” If there were a pedagogical tool that could introduce this technique of prediction to the student (and perhaps there is), would it treat ‘advancement’ less in the sense of a transition from lower-level to upper-level courses within a given field and instead equip the student with the desire and at least acquaint them with the baseline capability to advance the field itself/forms within the field?

Thinking beyond this, I’m also curious as to whether an introduction of this idea of the predictive and its implications on advancement of forms (again, how does/might a given form evolve) might situate a student more firmly within their own cultural moment. Under these circumstances, would they be more inclined to view things with which they are uniquely familiar–for example, a technology that is available to them but not to the authors/critics who they are studying–as potentially being able to contribute to the dialogue within their particular field? Essentially, if steeped in the idea of the logical advancement of forms, will they be more likely to innovate?

One other question that came to mind is whether or not there is a missing link (verb) in the evolutionary sequence that is: covering material –> engaging material –> advancing material. Specifically, I wondered if the missing verb-phrase (situated between engaging and advancing material) was producing material. Perhaps even more particularly: What would Booth say about what could be gained from the mimetic. If one end-game of engagement was for the student to be able to reproduce the form with which s/he was engaged, would it be lazy (at best) and dangerous (at worst) or would it be the sort of natural bridge that would lead them to predicting the next form?

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