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.