Technology and Our Old Friend Foucault

It was wonderful having Dr. Burns in class and getting to stay late for our informal QA. One of the most interesting issues that we discussed last night was the use of technology. With the exception of word processing and PowerPoint, I had not thought much of the use of technology in the composition classroom. The introduction of blogging and web 2.0 platforms has introduced complications into the classroom. Emily's presentation regarding the audience of these kinds of platforms brought up an important issue. In his essay on free writing, Ken Macrorie writes about "Engfish," stilted academic English students believe professors want. It may seem that using Blackboard or another similar system that is patterned after a blog or social network would minimize this issues. Students are primarily interacting and writing for each other, so it is possible that they would write more naturally. I am not sure that this is the case. Even though the students may be directing responses and comments to their peers, they are still writing in an academic setting with the knowledge that their instructor is lurking. This set up calls Faucault's Panopticon in mind. Cynthia Selfe also draws this conclusion, stating that "although panoptic space differs from electronic bulletin boards...those who have conversed over computers will recognize how eavesdropping and watching are made easy through the architecture of electronic network." (42) Thus, even though we can replicate the casual style of social networking, students will still be writing for the illusive instructor who may or may not be watching.

One of the most interesting threads that ran through last night's presentations was an attack on foundational knowledge. This can be directly seen in Locke, but is also present the readings on Hume and Vico.
In his article on Hume, David Wooten discusses how Hume used source criticism to expose the party myths of Whigs and Tories. Each political party used an interpretation of historical events to establish their authority, to illustrate why they were the correct party. Hume believed that these myths should be "subject to impartial criticism." (288) In other words, Hume questioned the historical knowledge knowledge that formed the basis of party authority and "provid[ed] evidence that decisively undermin[ed] the rhetoric of political extremists." (288)
Locke questioned foundational knowledge in a much more direct way. By stating that people are "born into the world without any innate ideas," Locke takes direct aim at the concept of foundational knowledge. (425) Foundation knowledge implies that there is a one scheme of ideas that is correct and universal. How would these ideas be communicated if the "human mind acquires all its knowledge through experience?" (425) If each person experiences through senses, than each person much experience in a slightly different manner. Through this theory, Locke denied the existence of foundational knowledge, which had important political and religious implications.
Like Hume and Locke, Vico questioned foundational knowledge, but came to a different conclusion. Rather than undermine it completely like Hume and Locke, Vico implied that there was a need to adapt it to a modern scheme of education. His tree of wisdom theory seems to be based on the idea that a universal truth exists. If "human beings are excluded from direct knowledge posessed by the 'gods' and from the indirect or partial knowledge of the 'heroes,'" then there must some intangible truth for humans to be excluded from. Even though Vico did imply that some sort of foundational knowledge is necessary, he did make an argument for supplementing it with more modern sciences. Vico participated in a debate between contemporary and ancients scholars and found that "the inclusion of the study of new sciences and and arts would eventually bring the system advocated by his contemporaries to be superior to the methods of the ancients." (6). Thus, Vico states that some form of foundational knowledge exists, but that it is not necessarily the one that was espoused by the ancients.
Political power and authority was addressed in nearly all of the presentations, as was the importance of foundational knowledge. In order to change political power and opinions, Hume, Locke, and Vico attacked the beliefs that formed the basis of political authority.

Primary Research and Topoi

In his article "Recovering The Lost Art of Researching The History of Rhetoric," Richard Enos challenges his readers to attempt primary research instead of criticism. Enos sees that simply criticising a work that is in itself a criticism of another "has serious, detrimental consequences not only to the field in question, but for the entire temperament about research and what it contributes." (8). Using archeology as an example, Enos describes methods of primary on rhetoric such as reading original texts and studying Greek culture using more than the texts of the cannon. These ideas are well reflected in the 'Rhetoric and Praxis' essays we read. Each of them can be seen as a new kind of primary research in that they are taking classical ideas and reapplying them in the modern classroom.
The last group of readings in our Norton book focuses quite heavily on the need to refocus composition pedagogy from the finished product to the composing process. Edward Corbett also takes up this theory, arguing for a renewal in the use of topoi, which he defines as "devices enabling the speaker to find those arguments that would be most persuasive ina given situation." (45) These devices take the form of questions, freewriting, journals,and problem solving techniques (52-56) Corbett credits the abolition of topoi in the classroom as the source of the ideas that "all the writing teacher could do in the classroom was to teach the students some editing skill" (51)
The Corbett essay is interesting in connection with Enos. Corbet summarizes several other writers who are doing primary research to discover how the process of composition can be emphasised in the classroom. He takes the research of others and connects is to the classical concept of the topoi. The Corbett essay can be seen as the purpose of the primary research that Enos calls for. Corbett has used the new research and made and argument for the resurgence of topoi in the classroom, an idea that allows the teaching of composition to move in a new direction while still using classical ideas.

Pedagogy and Pre-Writing

In their essay on prewriting, Rohman and Wlecke "assumed that a person becomes a writer at the moment when the merely 'autistic' fantasies, day-dreams and reveries of normal mental activity become mobilized to some specific purpose." (218) This statement is very kind to students, but it implies that a person can become a writer without instruction. It assumes that writing is a natural rather than a learned skill. While is it true that people come into the classroom with the ability to think, it may not be true that a student will come into a classroom with the ability to write. Writing is complex skill that can be taught through practice and instruction. Some students may posses more natural ability than others or may come to the classroom with a greater knowledge base, but writing skills are not learned in a vacuum. If this were the case, the essay would not need to begin with the assertion that students are failing to write at an appropriate skill level. (216) Earlier in the essay, the authors state that "the two most common approaches to rigor in language training include assigning frequent writing and then correcting it intensively." (217) Rohman and Wlecke present this course of action as a negative, but it does not need to be so. If the assignments are well designed and the correction is constructive and given with a mind to global issues this approach can work.
One of the underlying questions that is presented over and over again in the Norton text is about the nature of writing. According to David Russell "writing was thought of, on the one hand, as a set of elementary transcription skills unrelated to disciplinary activity...or, on the other hand, as a belletristic art, the product of genius or inspiration rather than of the mundane social and professional activity of the disciplines." (152) The answers that we find throughout our text vary from Rohman and Welke's student-centered belletristic theories to the teacher-centered drills found in Katheryn Fitzgerald's essay on Wisconsin Normal schools. Each approach offers interesting insight in how composition is, has, and should be taught. From a pedagogical standpoint, most would argue that the truth in somewhere in between. Writing requires a great deal of inspiration, but it also requires a knowledge of form and grammar. If your ideas are not presented in a way that the world accepts and recognizes, then they will not be heard.