Textbook Review: ENC 6339

Matthew McBride and David DadurkaNov. 8, 2010

Integrating Classical Rhetoric in a Writing about Writing Curriculum

A Review of Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (4th ed.) and Ancient

Rhetorics for the Contemporary Students (4th ed.)

Benefits of Incorporating Classical Rhetoric into WAW

• Draws attention to historical roots of composition studies

• Establishes foundation for understanding of contemporary uses and studies of rhetoric

• Useful heuristics for invention• Compliments and balances focus on

academic writing with attention to other social and political concerns

Student Learning Outcomes For ENC 1101 at UCF

1. understand how writers construct texts persuasively (or not);2. understand how readers construct meaning(s) from texts;3. understand the concept of the rhetorical situation and be able to apply it to writing and

reading situations;4. understand writing and research as processes requiring planning, incubation ,revision, and

collaboration;5. understand how language practices mediate group activities;6. understand how and why discourse conventions differ across groups (including groups

within the university);7. have acquired a vocabulary for talking about writing processes and themselves as writers;8. have acquired strategies for reading complex, college level texts;‐9. have acquired tools for analyzing the discourses and genres of various communities

(including within the university);10. have acquired tools for successfully responding to varied discourse conventions and genres

in different situations (including different classes);11. be able to actively reflect on their own writing processes and practices and adjust them as

appropriate to rhetorical situations.

Two Textbooks to Consider for Use in ENC 1101

• Written by Edward P.J. Corbett and Robert J. Connors

• First published in 1965• Last updated in 1999

Key Features

Feature: Handbook-Style Reference Guide

• Makes finding specific items easy

• Most helpful if you know what you are looking for

• Suggests use as a Reference

Feature: Survey of the History and Theory of Rhetoric

• Brief but useful background for instructors

• Seems to present a linear and progressive narrative

• Leaves out early women contributors

Feature: Introduction

• Exposes readers to the basics

• Presents rhetoric as a scholarly analytical tool

• Might not engage students

Feature: Progymnasmata

• Lists 14 ancient exercises

• Adapts them to create 8 exercises appropriate for modern writers

• Independent section in the back of the book

Feature: Bibliography

• Divided into six sections: 1. Bibliographies2. Primary Texts3. History of Rhetoric4. Theories of Rhetoric5.Collections of Articles of Rhetoric6.Style

• Useful for instructors and students

• No entries were written in the last 11 years

Observations and Criticisms

Observations and Criticisms: Illustrative examples

• Belletristic• Dated• Authors’ writing

may seem stilted

“Literature and Science” by Matthew Arnold

“Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor

Observations and Criticisms: The Canons

How many canons?

1. Discovery 2. Arrangement3.Style4. Memory 5.Delivery

Observations and Criticisms: The Canons

DiscoveryArrangementStyleMemory Delivery

• Limited largely to logical appeal

• Useful for analysis• Larson’s plan is valuable• Incomplete discussion

of status theory

Observations and Criticisms: The Canons

DiscoveryArrangementStyleMemory Delivery

• Formulaic• May seem limiting

Observations and Criticisms: The Canons

DiscoveryArrangementStyleMemory Delivery

• Core of the book• Provides a stilted

argument for style• Useful for teaching

meaning with sentence variety and construction

Observations and Criticisms: Presentation of Rhetoric

Aristotelian• A collection of discrete

pieces• Rhetoric as an abstraction • Assumes a largely uniform

audience• Logic as the primary

appeal

• Written by Sharon Crowley and

Debra Hawhee• First edition authored

together 1999 • Last Updated in 2009

Key Features

Feature: Introduction

• Not called an introduction• Begins with what readers

are likely to know already• Casts rhetoric as human

action, not just rules• Illustrates contemporary

examples of rhetoric

Feature: Progymnasmata and Rhetorical Activities

• Integrated in the text

• Thorough explanations

• Additional rhetorical activities

Feature: Glossary

• Increase ease of use• Terms are bolded in the text

proper• Glossary descriptions are

useful but not exhaustive

Feature: Bibliography/Suggested Readings

• Concise• Up to date

Feature: Signposts

• Ancient Rhetoric as its scope

• Brief• Provides limited

context

Observation and Criticism

Observation and Criticism: Invention

• Treatment of Invention takes up over half the book

• Entire chapter devoted to rhetorical situation

• Emphasizes the roles of kairos• Gives adequate attention to all three

appeals: logos, ethos, pathos

Observations and Criticisms: Illustrative Examples

• Generally engaging• Tied to mostly to civic

concerns• Timely• Left leaning

Observation and Criticism: Heuristics

• Heuristics for invention• Rhetoric as a heuristic

Observation and Criticism: Presentation Rhetorics

Isocratean and Kairotic

• Associated with human action

• Contingent

Recommendations

• Best if used as a reference• Could be used by instructors

for brushing up• Heuristics for invention and

some sections regarding style can be used in class

• Not recommend as core text

• Excellent for training FYC instructors with little experience studying rhetoric

• Many chapters could be used as readings for students

• Recommended as a complimentary text for WaW curricula

Ways to Compliment WAW with Classical Rhetorics

• Incorporate classical modes of discourse in a discussion of genres

• Consider the classical concept of partition with Swales’s CARS Model

• Pair C&H chapter on rhetorical situation and kairos with Grant-Davie’s “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents”

• Pair C&H’s discussion of grammar and style with John Dawkins’s “Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool” or Joseph William’s “The Phenomenology of Error”

Ways to Compliment WAW with Classical Rhetorics

• Include C&H’s discussion of ideologies with the study of discourse community

• Include the teaching of the five canons as a contrast to contemporary conceptions of the writing process

• Introduce modes of appeal into discussion of types of evidence valued by different communities

• Provide heuristics to students for inventing arguments

ReferencesCorbett, Edward P.J., and Robert J. Connors. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. New York:

Oxford UP, 1999. Print. Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. LOCATION:

Longman, 2009. Downs, Doug, and Elizabeth Wardle. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Boston: Bedford/St.

Martins, 2011. Print. Fulkerson, Richard. “Four Philosophies of Composition.” College Composition and Communication

30.4 (1979): 343-348. JSTOR. Web. 7 Nov. 2010. Haskin, Ekaterina V. Logos and Power in Isocrates and Aristotle. Columbia: University of South

Carolina Press, 2004.Welch, Kathleen E. “Appropriating Plato’s Rhetoric and Writing into Contemporary Rhetoric and

Writing Studies.” The Contemporary Reception of Classical Rhetoric: Appropriations of Ancient Discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1990. PDF. UCF WebCourses. Web. 8 Nov. 2010. 93-111. Print.

Welch, Kathleen E. “Appropriating Competing Systems of Classical Greek Rhetoric: Considering Isocrates and Gorgias with Plato in the New Rhetoric of the Fourth Century B.C.” The Contemporary Reception of Classical Rhetoric: Appropriations of Ancient Discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1990. PDF. UCF WebCourses. Web. 8 Nov. 2010. 113-141. Print.