check out: The Patriot News, your mail, and your bank statement
Because communication in "terms of discourse" requires a writer, reader, and a text the student must be encouraged to critically examine "who writes", "how they write". "to whom they write", and "why they are writing" is a skill that I believe has a place in the pedagogy of rhetoric and composition.
check out: Armed Forces Recruitment Posters and Democratic Election Posters.
All of our readings allow for an look at what happens to the purpose of the discourse when someone outside the intended audience brings their own point of view to the interpretation of the text.
check out: Letters to the Editor in Sunday's New York Times.
As an older student, I am excited to learn that Kinneavy connects the old liberal arts tradition and the new interdisciplinary humanities tradition that "coalesced into the trivium of of grammar, rhetoric, and logic or dialectic. . . " as the "study of literature, the study of persuasion, and the study of scientific and exploratory discourse" (Villanueva 138). This connection allows "writing across curriculum" to expand our first hand experiences and opens our imagination to unlimited possibilities. What we write for ourselves connects with what we write for others. Education offers students and teachers to "experience" life outside out immediant community.
Berlin's exploration of the today's composition pedagogical theories centers around "teaching a way of experiencing the world, a way of ordering and making sense" (Villanueva 168). One method he describes promotes the "making connections with others in dialogue and discussion" (Villanueva 255). I believe that our knowledge of the past adds to the reality that the encoder is trying to explain The decoder as the audience brings a connection to different public, private, and political connections.
Check out: Archeology Magazine, Langston Hughes' poetry, and The Saint James' Bible.
"Discourse-language in use-that acknowledges the power of rhetoric to help create a community's worldview, knowledge, and interpretive practices" (Bedford/St. Martin 9). I suggest that Composition Theories as taught today requires a new commitment to the student outside the "average". Teaching that is inclusive and not exclusive requires a commitment beyond the teacher into domains of public education and political funding. ESL is not just for Mexicans. Speech limitations do not equal mentally challenged. Learning Disabilities are not only related to intelligence. All these students need to integrated into our communities. Teaching so many different personalities with different learning requirements is a burden with large class rooms and limited resources. Our commitment to providing access to the tools of communication requires more than State testing and Federal rhetoric. For the students outside the average there is a lack of access to the tools they need to communicate within their communities.
Check out: Your school's budget for Special Needs, Gifted, and other challenged students
Landmark School, Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts.
My last observations for this week are on new technology. The use of short concise communicationof instant messanger and cell phone texts are an abnomalty to educatioin in rhetoric and compostion when applied to living language. Subgroups to a community increase. Not only are the foundations of language changed, but traditional revisions and proofing no longer exist. We can no longer take back the words. The tradition of face-to- face has been weakened. Media makes us believe a strange, ever-changing TRUTH. What remains consistant in even this strange rhetoric and composition is the who, how, why, and to whom. The new technological writer, audience, and text developed a new grammar, vocabulary, and structure that includes as well as excludes.
Check out: Your last two text messages, one voice mail, and an e-mail.
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