Cultural Studies and Composition

The relationship between Cultural Studies and Composition is clearly a hotly debated topic, and frankly, makes me a little nervous. I found myself agreeing pretty strongly with Hairston's critque. It seems that the debate centers around the question of what is the goal of a Composition course? The simple answer seems to be to teach students how to write well (well meaning any variety of other adjectives/adverbs: clearly, well organized, thoughtfully, etc). I cannot understand how political or social activisim fits in with this goal.

The main reason the connection between politics, specifically a certain stance within politics, and the teaching of composition makes me nervous is because it can breech on an abuse of power. Part of teaching composition seems to be teaching how to think, or at least how to express one's thoughts so that another may understand them. Mixing in a political agenda would seem to change the outcome from teaching students how to think to teaching them what to think. Aside from the potential ethical issues with this situtation, I know from experience that this is a great way to turn off many students.

I can recall as an undergraduate (and even at times now as a Graduate student) being so irritated at a professor for using his/her classroom as a political soapbox. Regardless of the slant, I found it offensive and ultimately lost respect for the professor and the course. I think that recognizing and grappling with difficult or even uncomfortable cultural, historical, and political issues can be good exercises within a class. However, doing so with a specific political agenda seems flat out unethical. There is a difference between admitting biases as a professor (and a human being) and using the fact that bias is inevitable as an excuse to promote a specific political agenda. There is merit to admitting bias but still attempting to be fair in the presentation of material and topics.

Rhetorical Pedagogy Response

"Do I know what rhetorical means?" - Homer J Simpson (I must admit this quote was the first thing I thought of when I saw we were studying rhetorical pedagogy)

I've always thought that rhetoric is the study or mastery of the spoken word, specifically in regard to argument. It seems that I am not far off from the classical definition of the word. Within the readings, I was intrigued with Booth's concept of balance. I specifically liked how he draws a connection between the classical and modern conceptions of rhetoric in writing about a writer's voice. Near the end of his essay he writes, "What makes the rhetoric of Milton and Burke and Churchill great is that each presents us with the spectacle of a man passionately involved in thinking an important question through, in the company of an audience" (170). A writer's mastery of his or her own voice seems to directly correlate to his or her own mastery in writing. By mastery in writing, I mostly mean being comfortable with and not intimidated by writing. Giving structure and encouraging expression seems to be a good combination of pedagogical approaches to writing.

Expressive Pedagogy Response

Throughout the readings over expressive pedagogy, I kept returning to the idea of audience. Elbow's idea that disregarding audience would lead to better writing in which the writer has a clearer, more authoritative voice, intrigued me. Reflecting on the many academic papers I've written for various classes in high school, undergraduate, and graduate school, I seldom recall considering audience (except for my one creative writing class where I was convinced my professor hated me, but that would lead me off into a tangent). However, I think I considered audience subconsciously. My writing within this blog is very different from my writing for my history research papers, and yet is different from my writing in my journal, and is different also in the thank you note I just wrote to my Grandpa. How does my writing differ? Most clearly in two ways: how honestly and unabashedly I express myself and how much attention I pay to grammar. My journal is certainly more revealing than my research paper, but is it more expressive? I think the answer to that question revolves around another question: what am I trying to accomplish with my writing?

Of course, the answer is different in each scenario mentioned above. Within my journal, I'm mostly trying to express myself, record events, and allow my brain to process events and thoughts through writing them on the page. I feel successful at some times more than others; however, I do not know how much this has much to do with consideration of audience. The audience of my journal is me, or my future self, I suppose.

For more public writing, papers and thank you notes, I have specific goals that mostly involve communicating my thoughts and feelings to an outside audience. Now being probably the first time I've really thought about my consideration of audience, I'm fairly certain it's subconscious (for me). However, I'm not sure that being aware of my audience makes me less expressive or effective in my writing. If my goal is to communicate to my professor or my Grandpa, how could I be more effective in doing so if I disregarded them?

I think that while some have to be encouraged to consider audience, it would be an interesting exercise for me to intentionally disregard audience. I do not know if I could. In just thinking about it, it seems that I would revert to my journal writing style. Would that be better or more expressive? I suppose I would have to try to find out.