CCR 601: *Rhetoric Review* and Rhetorical Analysis: Danisch, Eubanks, Ritter, and Elliot

601 Notes

10/28/09

Rhetoric Review

Each of these articles are from RR, Vol. 27, No. 3, 2008

Features

• Obviously the focus is rhetorical studies / rhetorical analysis
• Short abstract of argument
• Argument laid out up front and often restated
• Review of lit is on rhetorical traditions/definitions usually provided
• Sometimes organization of article laid out
• Sometimes methods of analysis defined
• Key passages from texts are used for analysis
• Other scholars used as framework and evidence for analysis
• Concludes with a call for new ways of analyzing the terms in question
• Endnotes and works cited (MLA)
• Topics in this issue (rhetorical analysis of…): rhetorical features in the rhetorics of law; rhetorical features in the rhetorics of globalization and government; student public discourse online meets classroom practices; Jewish laws and morals (midrash) as applied to democratic culture and literature when analyzing an author’s work

ROBERT DANISCH

“Aphorisms, Enthymemes, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. on the First Amendment”

• Investigates how Supreme court justice Holmes uses aphorisms for enthymematic reasoning
• Some of his moves:
• Introduction: outlines his argument, reviews some rhetorical traditions of analyzing law, defines aphorism and enthymeme, restates his thesis in most paragraphs
• Application: provides key passages from these texts for the reader before analyzing them, analyzes Holmes calling on sources (Morson, Lerner, Menand, Posner) and in later sections argues how enthymemes and aphorisms are alike (in the ways that they persuasive through audience’s held assumptions and how they leave interpretations going).

PHILIP EUBANKS

“An Analysis of Corporate Rule in Globalization Discourse: Why We Need Rhetoric to Explain Conceptual Figures”

• Investigates how metaphors (specifically the metaphor Corporations are Government) work to influence linguistic choices and the ideologies depended upon to interpret evidence. Applies conceptual metaphor theory to argue rhetoric works to create metaphors that cognitively reshape “political and ideological commitments” (237).
• Some of his moves
• Introduction: outlines his argument, defines key terms (conceptual metaphors) by drawing on Lakoff and Johnson and then providing examples, explicitly signals his argument (“I argue that…”),
• Provides a method of analysis section (part of a larger case study, reviews his selection process) and overviews the organization of his argument (in 3 sections)
• His analysis: provides historical context of globalization and his texts under analysis, points to common metaphorical phrases in these texts for analysis, provides key passages from these texts for the reader before analyzing them, cites sources as evidence for his analysis (Karliner, Hightower, Perkins, etc.)

KELLY RITTER

“E-Valuating Learning: Rate My Professors and Public Rhetorics of Pedagogy”

• Placing rhetoric as public discourse and civic resistance, Ritter investigates how RMP works as a way for students to engage in public assessment of pedagogy, thus leading teachers to think in new ways about classroom instruction focusing on civic engagement and online communication.
• Some of her moves
• Historicizes student evaluation, provides a framework of rhetorical studies; defines terms (public discourse, rhetoric as resistance); Cites Berlin, Enos, Couture, Crowley, Giroux, among many others; organizes under major claims (we value evaluation, pedagogy and civic engagement is going public in online discussion forums, we should bring RPM discourse in the classroom); provides clear examples of the online text

NORBERT ELLIOT

“A Midrash for Louise Rosenblatt”

• Analyzes Louise Rosenblatt’s Literature as Exploration to argue that literature works to shape democratic culture and citizenry.
• Some of his moves
• Provides context of Rosenblatt and argues that she’s hugely under-recognized in the field; likens Rosenblatt’s philosophies to the New Deal; defines “midrash,” contextualizing how rabbinic literature contributes to woman studies and lit theory; organizes analysis under the three steps for midrashing: parable (her bio), paraphrase (summary of her works), and prophecy (what she foresaw in the discipline); uses a dramatic monologue to illustrate liberated expression; ends with the words of Louise

(Rhetorical) Analysis

• Collin’s answer: when performing RA, we are performing some kind of separation (opposite of synthesis). Break down layers or scales of a particular object. Differentiating the reality from what is perceived or looking at new scale to alter our perception of a particular event or text or phenomenon. For the purpose of noticing things that we hadn’t noticed before.
• We start with a site or text or something we want to investigate
• Framework of investigation that you take a closer look at a common thread
• Subjective Purpose

CCR 691: Moss, Kirsch, Cushman (Ethnography)

CCR 691 Notes

10/29/09

Moss, Beverly J. “Ethnography and Composition.” Methods and Methodology in Composition Research. Eds. Gesa Kirsch and Patricia A. Sullivan. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Seeks to answer two questions:

1. What do comp studies need to know about ethnography?

a. “ethnography in composition studies is generally topic oriented and concerned more narrowly with communicative behavior or the interrelationship between language and culture” (156).

2. What challenges arise when we investigate communities through which we are a part of?

Some principles of ethnography

· Often participant-observer

· Context is crucial

· Usually a hypothesis or focus and a conceptual framework, but new interests should arise and old questions should be revised (157).

· You must negotiate access and interact with community according to that community (158)

· Fieldwork: gather as much info/data as is available, such as interviews, recordings, artifacts, notes, questionnaires (159)

· Data analysis is designed to discover patterns or interesting observations (160)

· Writing the report is usually in a narrative, story-telling fashion (160-161)

· Insiders must work to make the familiar unfamiliar: interrogate assumptions, find interest in the mundane, be cautious about not ignoring or overlooking patterns or significant connections (164-167)

· Insiders must acknowledge the effects of their own roles and participation in the community (165). Work to reflect on ethnocentrism and bias (168).

· Insiders must be cautious about how to present the material so that they are fair, accurate, critical, and loyal, while not going overboard in the opposite direction either (169).

Kirsch, Gesa E. Ethical Dilemmas in Feminist Research: The Politics of Location, Interpretation, and Publication. New York: State University of New York Press.

· Basically, she’s discussing how in feminist research, our goals are to become very close to and collaborate with our participants, but this is problematic since our findings and interpretations may be offensive or disempowering to our subjects. She suggests that we enact in dialogic interactions with participants and allow them say in how data are interpreted and presented.

Cushman, Ellen. The Struggle and the Tools: Oral and Literate Strategies in an Inner City Community.

· It’s ethnographic, but she has a “activist methodology” (x), where she investigates literacy on a class and race level.

· Wants to look at both the politically-infused struggles individuals experience and the coping strategies/tools individuals call on (these individuals being inner-city residents, mostly women and children)

· Looks at “linguistic abilities and political insights” (xi) individuals have for negotiating “institutional language” (xii)

· Data gathered (tapes, artifacts, field notes) (xi)

ETHNOGRAPHY

Possibilities

· Not being held to “false consciousness.” Looking within our social worlds (TJ).

· Co-interpretation: process is fluid (Cushman and Eileen).

· Explore what is present (TJ).

· Empower your people; reciprocity; expose power (Justin)

· Strategic essentialism (Amber, Steve, Eileen, Melissa)

· Activism

Limitations

· Ethics: message you send out is not what you observe, cuz participants are not performing the truth that they claim (Justin).

· Co-interpretation: material limits, time, space, connection/understanding

· Representing negotiations in your text (Eileen)

· What are you giving back? (TJ)

· High stakes! Intervention vs. access (Eileen)

· Insiders: remember to make the unsurprising surprising (Eileen/Moss)

Ethical Dilemmas

· Views and positions of participants and their “claim” to inhabit (false consciousness) (TJ).

· Participants “hurt” by your study (when you interrogate institutions, for example)

· Co-interpretations: disagreement, what do you do?

· Theoretical framework: using a lens doesn’t allow the participant to define themselves (Justin)

· Framing your subject in the deficit: how do you push against it without romancing it? (Amber)

· Intervening: helps right then, but maybe not helping others in the future? (Melissa)

CCR 691: Heath (1999) *Ways with Words*

Heath, Shirley Brice. Ways with Words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: University Press, 1999.

Quick overview of Method:

· What and when: As described in her “Prologue,” Heath conducted ethnographic research during a time post-school-desegregation in the 1960s. Heath collaborated with numerous fellow teachers and graduate students on gathering and comparing recorded (field notes or audio tapes) and interpreted data of communication occurring in two populations during this time.

· Where: The sites she investigated were communities in the Piedmont Carolinas: one town consisting mostly of black farm families new to the working-class (Trackton) and one consisting mostly of long time working-class white folks (Roadville).

· How: Data consists of recorded communication occurring at school, at home, or at the textile mills, where most of the families from both towns work.

· Why: Based on their cross-cultural comparisons of communicative trends in Trackton and Roadville (both of children and teaching practices), the collaborating researchers worked to answer the following research question: “For each of these groups, what were the effects of the preschool home and community environment on the learning of those language structures and uses which were needed in classrooms and job settings” (4).

Some notes on Heath’s “strategies” for an ethnographic approach:

· 9 years! (1969-1978)

· Entered the community naturally, through acquaintances

· Acted as a participant-observer (did the work and knew and respected the town, the people, and the ways)

· Upfront with her focus: the physical boundaries, other communicative limitations, patterns of choice, and values associated within the socialization of language (5-6).

· Considers herself an anthropologist

· Acknowledges that her study is not a model for methods of other ethnographic research, admitting that it shouldn’t and likely won’t be replicated by other researchers (7-8).

· Defends her methodology by arguing that quantitative data approaches don’t account for social and cultural contexts (8).

· Acknowledges that participants “are the products of their history and current situation” and that her focus is on cultural, not racial, influences (10).

· Repeatedly refers to this account as a “narrative” or “story”

· Acknowledges that she affected the “social reality” of how classrooms were conducted at the time: “From ethnographer learning, or coming to ‘know,’ I have become ethnographer doing.”

· Acknowledges that these stories are incomplete (13)

· Conceals names of people and locations (13-14)

· Tries to capture the varying dialects as they naturally occur in speech (15)

Some questions/challenges/interesting topics:

1. I found great interest in Heath’s approach to being “responsible” to the community she researches, whether that be through the ways she entered the community, avoided generalized comparisons of race or socioeconomic status in her findings, used only equipment already accepted by the community (audio recorders), or sought to be respectful and considerate of her influence and presence at all times. Based on our conversations in class, I imagine others may have considered these acts of “responsibility” as answers to earlier calls for researchers to have the best interests for their participants when doing ethnography. Being “responsible” to our participants has been an unsettled issue for me all semester, though, since I suspect some of my research goals may not be perceived as well-intentioned (like when we wish to “infiltrate and assess” an institutional department, for example). I consider my aims to be aimed at positive action for some communities, but the actual community I seek to investigate may not see it that way. If our conclusions lead to arguments that our participants won’t be content with, I’m still unsure about how that complicates our responsibilities to our participants.

2. Heath acknowledges that “educators should not look here [in her book] for experiments, controlled conditions, and systematic score-keeping on the academic gains and losses of specific children. Nor should psycholinguisitics look here for data taped at periodic intervals under similar conditions over a predesignated period of time” (8-9). It’s hard not to respect her approach to using long term ethnographic participant-observation to make claims about how some individuals communicate. Still, having just read Chris Anson’s “The Intelligent Design of Writing Programs: Reliance on Belief or a Future of Evidence,” (where he argues that the discipline of college composition needs to perform research in the field that provides actual evidence, not just our own practical theories and story-telling) and based on our numerous conversations in 691 regarding our discipline’s call for evidence-driven research, I’m interested in thinking about how ethnography can be aligned with other methods to provide such results that Anson calls for. How might have Heath approached the study differently to accomplish this? How might we design a multi-method approach for our future ethnographic studies?