Week 3: Introductory Comments on Rhetoric and Composition Readings

From the readings for this week you should be able to derive a brief introduction to the field of composition and rhetoric studies as it has developed in the U. S. academy. Roughly, in terms of the preparation and orientation of the faculty, the teaching of writing in the U. S. academy can be characterized in three periods: (1) the nineteenth century rhetorical and oratorical tradition in which classical Greek and Latin models were emphasized; (2) the first two-thirds of the twentieth century in which writing was taught as an incidental complement to literary studies; and (3) the period from the early 1970s to the present in which Rhetoric and Composition studies has struggled to develop its own professional identity in the academy, emphasizing its difference from its predecessors by rejecting the assumption that writing is secondary to literature and by developing writing theories, pedagogies and rhetorical strategies focused on expressive individualism and the empowerment of the student rather than classical traditions or "rule"-governed approaches (as would have been the case in nineteenth-century writing pedagogies).

Lunsford's essay from the Gibaldi text narrates the history of the field from the early 1970s to the early 1990s that should give you a general sense of the scholarly and pedagogical issues in the field as it continues to evolve in the present moment. As a professional sub-discipline, Rhetoric and Composition studies is really quite young. Though its history can be traced back to the nineteenth century in some ways, it's more accurate, at least in terms of thinking about Rhetoric and Composition studies in its current form, to locate the emergence of the field in the early 1970s, as Lunsford does. The nineteenth-century rhetorical scholars who Graff and Berlin talk about had quite a different framework of reference and institutional-professional status from contemporary Rhetoric and Composition faculty.

Faigley's essay covers the same period as Lunsford's essay, though from a different perspective--one more influenced by literary theory and more skeptical of the expressive humanism that has informed Rhetoric and Composition studies for most of the last 30 years. Faigley will also be of interest to you, I think, for his attempt to account for the abandonment of linguistics by Rhetoric and Composition scholars and teachers after a moment during the early 1970s when it might have seemed as though linguistics and writing were positioned to make common cause against literature in the general struggle for intellectual and institutional prominence in the U. S. academy. I would also recommend, if you are interested, Faigley's first two chapters (the book on reserve at Milner Library) for their historical account of political and intellectual trends in the U. S. academy after 1968--a watershed year in which student protests in the U. S., Mexico and France had significant effects on subsequent developments in many university disciplines.

I've included the essay from Susan Kates's book, on "Elocution and African American Culture," for its passing references to nineteenth-century rhetorical training, but, more importantly, because it demonstrates the abiding link between the teaching of rhetoric and political empowerment of oppressed citizens that has been a distinctive feature of Rhetoric and Composition studies since the 1970s. The point I want to note is that there were a nineteenth- and early twentieth-century century rhetorical training practices that also focused on political empowerment, though the mainstream academic establishment did not. These efforts were carried on in the Freedmen's schools and traditional black colleges, in the workers' schools sponsored by labor unions and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the 1930s, etc. Kates' book presents historical accounts of several examples of this sort in addition to the one that I've placed on electronic reserve for you here.