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Read in Mirror!
The professor's blog for English 4304, the Writing and Culture Capstone Course for English Majors, Spring 2008. The topic for this capstone course is "Rhetoric(s) of Information, Reading, and Writing in a Digital World."
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Read in Mirror!
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2008
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- ALT Chapters on Speaker and Text
- Flynn on "Composing as a Woman"
- Feminist Criticism
- Next Week in Dr. Rollins' Class
- Bush Video Compilation
- Your midterm will be "open-book."
- Order for Thursday
- ALT Overview, Context, Audience (Catherine)
- Continental Criticism (Patrick)
- Rhetoric is BAAA-AK (Lillian H)
- Political Criticism (Eagleton) by Leah C
- Doing Rhetorical Criticism (Amanda D)
- The Nature of Rhetorical Criticism (Lacey)
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2007
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6 comments:
Disclaimer: I am currently very heavily medicated, as I am trying to ignore the migraine I’ve had for most of the day, so please excuse me if I don’t make sense. I’ll try to rely mostly on key quotes from the reading to make my points.
Chapter 1:
-“The critic of rhetoric focuses his or her attention on human efforts to influence human thought or action” (6). Learning to interpret texts critically is a crucial skill for anyone who wants to better understand the ways in which people attempt to influence others. The variety of media used in discourse is constantly growing and developing, but “the beginning critic, like generations of rhetorical critics, can exploit productively the symbiotic relationship between speech texts and the vocabulary of rhetorical analysis” (6-7). Speech is still a major method of discourse (ALT use Bill Clinton’s speech as an example)
-“Rhetoric resides not in handbooks or textbooks but in the rhetorical texts themselves” (7).
-“To respond critically to a message is to be able to distinguish what is relevant and what is irrelevant in the message” (8). The critical listener must ask questions to analyze what is going on in the text. What subject position does the speaker want us to take? What point is the speaker trying to make? And so on…
-Criticism can be used to uncover cultural, historical, and social functions.
Chapter 2:
-The impact of social and cultural values in rhetoric: it is important for the rhetor to understand the social and cultural values that might affect the way an audience reacts to a text. Likewise, it is necessary for the critic to understand the values and history that influence the rhetorical choices the speaker makes.
-“Once the critic can master the swirl of events and perceptions of events and can discern some pattern of conflicting and complementary forces – the rhetorical imperatives – that bring matters to a rhetorical head, then the critic needs to turn his or her attention to the emerging issues as they are molded, shaped, distorted, or sharpened in public debate” (29).
-Key point: Remember the audience! (40-45)
Chapter 3
-The speaker’s ethos is the composite perception an audience has of the speaker (48). “Of course, neither set of perceptions is likely to be entirely true in any objective sense” (52).
-“Part of the critic’s task is to understand as fully as possible the ethos a speaker brings to a speaking situation. Yet it is also essential that the speaker search for and explicate the ways in which the speaker both uses and creates ethos in his or her speech” (57).
According to ALT "speech is the main method of rhetoric;" thus, are we reverting back to the oritorical culture of Plato and Aristotle? The greats of Greece supported a culture of oration and denied forms of writing. To these critics the writen word was scary; it is somewhat like the opinion of online communication. There were elements of writing they did not trust, but progression occurred anyway. (It is amazing to think that the Odyssey was passed down through generations without written forms.)Now with so much attention on political leaders abilities to move, persuade, and affirm followers, America is paying more attention to their oritorical abilities. Comparing G.W. Bush to M.L.K. is laughable regarding the art of speech making. But why are we, our culture, so consumed with oratory? I believe this resurgence of focus on the spoken word is due to the lack of face to face communication as a result of the popularity of online media. Chat rooms, blogging, and Facebook reduces the need to communicate via real time and in person. Also, because of these cultural favorites some have lost their abilities to communicate effectively once removed from a computer screen. If our culture follows the trend of politicians putting more and more effort on oral communication we will be much better off. Being able to communicate face to face allows the listener to read the facial expressions and hear the tones of the speaker. I know it seems odd to want our culture to revert back to the beginnings, but I believe that Plato and Aristotle had the right idea.
The Bush clip shown was a perfect example to illustrate the points you pointed out in Chapter 1. You say, "Learning to interpret texts critically is a crucial skill for anyone who wants to better understand the ways in which people attempt to influence others," and this is so true. I think the compilation that you used applies more to political analysts. Firt we can assume the producer of that clip wants to evoke certain feelings from the audience, but I think it is important to see this and look at it analytically (rhetorically). I think the importance of analyzing situations rhetorically is important because the conclusions we come to shape the person we become. For instance, in the clip shown we can form our own political opinions, but what is interesting is that these opinions we form will most likely remain with us for a while.So, we see Bush giving these speeches (and obviously he seems challenged when speaking in public) and in turn we can relate that with the Republican/ Conservative party. I think this is a great intro for chapter two because the two seem to coincide with one another. It seems like you must understand culture before you can understand politics (just one example).
please excuse the spelling errors
Stream of consciousness during discussion: Subject position in the audience at a speech contest? Standardized ways of moving, gestures. "Performance," as opposed to a lecture. Pay attention more. Powerful moment of silence (awkward if you are the speaker). Obscure jokes can make a point, too--reveals something about different groups in the audience. Symbols and gestures (U.S. OK sign will be disastrous in Nigeria.) ALT quotation on 6-7 unrealistic in the light of the continental critics we'll look at next. Ethics of representation. Video of interview with Bush on zombies. Funny to most of us, no matter how we feel about the Presidency, but maybe not funny at all if shown to 4th graders. Power to the media producers in a convergence culture. Can anyone go too far?
Stream of consciousness during discussion: Subject position in the audience at a speech contest? Standardized ways of moving, gestures. "Performance," as opposed to a lecture. Pay attention more. Powerful moment of silence (awkward if you are the speaker). Obscure jokes can make a point, too--reveals something about different groups in the audience. Symbols and gestures (U.S. OK sign will be disastrous in Nigeria.) ALT quotation on 6-7 unrealistic in the light of the continental critics we'll look at next. Ethics of representation. Video of interview with Bush on zombies. Funny to most of us, no matter how we feel about the Presidency, but maybe not funny at all if shown to 4th graders. Power to the media producers in a convergence culture. Can anyone go too far?
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