Teaching Rhetoric: Or Why Rhetoric Isn't Just Another Kind of Philosophy or Literary Criticism

## Citation

Hauser, Gerald. “Teaching Rhetoric: Or why Rhetoric Isn’t Just Another Kind of Philosophy or Literary Criticism.” *Rhetoric Society Quarterly*, vol. 34, no. 3, 2004, pp. 39-53.

## Abstract

"At the conclusion of the Evanston conference, the groups that had been working on Pedagogy affirmed the position: 'What makes rhetoric rhetoric is its teaching tradition.' The formation of an alliance among the various scholarly societies with a self-identified interest in rhetoric offers a unique opportunity to advance a collective assertion of what rhetoric scholars study and teach, what binds our several traditions together as a disciplinary practice, what are its disciplinary strengths in the development of our students' capacity (*dunamis*) as individuals, and why this mode of education is valuable for a free society. Three pedagogy groups developed far-reaching proposals for the ways we might reassert rhetoric education's centrality in the modern university. Spanning these was their call for ARS (Alliance of Rhetoric Societies) to commission a *manifesto recovering the value of rhetoric education as central to civic education*. (39)

## Summary

Jeffrey Walker makes the argument that it is not Aristotelian thought that binds rhetoric together throughout its history, but rather its teaching tradition, and without that teaching tradition, "'rhetoric is not rhetoric, but just another kind of philosophy or literary criticism.'" (39, quoting Walker's talk)

### Athens and Berlin

*Paideia* in ancient Athenian rhetorical education - "The teacher's efforts were focused on 'capacitating' the individual student to lead the life of an active and responsible citizen." (40) This gets displaced in 19th century Berlin by a model of education that focuses on orderly, disciplined critical research (*Wissenschaft*) and professional education. Creates a master-apprentice relationship of knowledge and power between teacher and student. A similar tension exists in 20th- and 21st-century America, with rhetoric committed to both the Athenian and Berlin models - "One of these grows from the subject matter of rhetoric as a practical discipline, the other from the mission of the institutions in which future teachers of rhetoric are prepared for that undertaking." (40) Two different, irreconcilable understandings of excellence. And to go back to the ancients once more, a similar tension between Socrates and Gorgias in *Gorgias*, where the sophist recognizes the philosopher's ideal of pure reason to be a pretension.

These days, "Rhetoric Studies pays particular attention to its status as a critical theory for interpreting historical, cultural, and social consequences of discourse. This self-portrait comes at a price. When Athenian commitments to *paideia* are subordinated or even cleansed from rhetoric, its centrality to society's ongoing negotiation over how we shall act and interact - to politics - is either lost or ignored. This is the place of rhetoric in education that must be recovered." (41)

The ARS call for a manifesto that would restore teaching tradition to a place of centrality in rhetoric would have the effect of reasserting the importance of capacitating students' performances rather than the discovery of knowledge. Yet the importance of the Berlin model is that it allows for quantifiable, measurable outcomes. The ancient *paideia*, per Jacqueline Jones Royster, is "more than transmitting information or skills. It is based on beliefs that inspire self and students to excellence, or what the Greeks would have called *arete*. At the same time she advanced the empirical norm that the test of our teaching practices is in their outcomes, not the models or moral codes they espouse." (42)

Isocrates' defense of rhetoric in society - language as a distinguishing human feature, which enables humans to live in community; **Isocrates not just as scholar, but as activist:** "His activism took the form of his own compositions *and* his pedagogy. He taught pupils the agonistic and seductive arts of speech, but also to aspire beyond teh pugnacity of the *agon* and the dazzle of seduction, to seek *arete* through rhetorical practices aligned with the narratives of their intellectual and moral traditions. He taught them to be *public* speakers, which means his pedagogy taught them to be externally oriented as intervenionists for change." (42-43)

Invocation of Arednt's conception of the public to argue for rhetoric (public speaking and writing)'s centrality in civic life. Need for a manifesto that affirms rhetoric's importance to civic life, in the past and present and future, while also acknowledging its contingency and possibilities of being misappropriated. "We need, therefore, to empower students to analyze the ethical dimensions of rhetorical situations. **The test of rhetoric is not its ideological commitments [...] but its consequences.**" (44)

### Sustainable Structures

ARS as an institution that exists for purpose of "fostering ideas exchange and cooperative ventures among its member organizations." ARS can serve to encourage discussion between its member organizations and societies, providing "structures of organizational interface." (44) But at the same time, "Its function is facilitative; it does not provide the pedagogical structures needed to preserve and promote the integrity of rhetoric education." (45)

### Information Gathering Structures

Need for structure(s) that can "collect and facilitate dialogue on models of courses, course sequences, and modes of instructing." (45) As the world changes and rhetoric moves with it, a central place is needed to gather and provide curricular resources for teachers. This would be a form of *pedagogical capital*, similar to social capital that increases as it is shared. At the level of the college or university, ways to bring together rhetoricians that have been scattered across departments - for example, the need to collect and develop "models for integrating or sequencing the first-year speaking and writing courses, of communication across the curriculum, and of rhetoric courses supporting majors housed in different academic units." (46)

Here, we encounter the Athens-Berlin tension all over again; departments with rhetoric courses typically treat them as cash-cows for the department and are loathe to relinquish them (FYC and FYS, respectively); "This often means that the rhetoric faculty's Athenian commitments of instructing for *paideia* are in an uncomfortable relationship with the unit's Berliner commitments of instructing for *wissenschaft*." (46) At the same time that cross-department promotion and cooperation should be facilitated, like the Mt. Oread Manifesto, we want to avoid the potential collapse or elimination of resources, as well as disregard for the disciplinary histories and expertise of rhetoric faculty housed in disparate departments.

### Cross-Tradition Dialogue

Need for "sustainable structure sof cross-tradition dialogue on rhetoric courses, curricula, and pedagogy." Invocation of Kenneth Burke on "trained incapacity" of terministic screens that expertise imposes; for example, "one of the conference's Pedagogy groups [realized] that their respective experiences in meeting the significant differences between the way a student is capacitated for speaking or writing had led them to quite different assumptions about the necessary concerns of the basic rhetoric class." (47) For example, the role of revision versus performance in the writing and speech classrooms, respectively.

### Pedagogical Development

"A third need is for sustainable structures that foster collaboration among the member organizations of ARS for pedagogical development across traditions." Need to see scholars at CCCC, NCA, and RSA, and space for panels on pedagogy that don't disproportionately emphasize writing instruction and where speech instruction is absent.

### Assessment

The need for ARS "to issue a statement that identifies the concrete outcomes of rhetoric instruction." Evanston conference started this: "Certainly the outcomes include the specific skills associated with first-year speaking and writing courses. The first-year class helps students to grow as critical thinkers." Some additional skills include:

* Language awareness
* Analytic skills
* Performance skills
* Learn the attributes of character through encounter with each other's *otherness* and also "take the threat out of difference"
* Development of deliberative skills, in classroom as proto-public sphere
* Develop heightened awareness of the consequences of rhetorical performance in and outside of classroom

Possible forms of assessment:

* Students' *formative assessment* - personal reflection on questions like "What is the worldly use of my discourse"" and "Is it practically wise?"
* *Ecological assessment* of "how our teaching fits into and affects systems and contexts - tracking its consequences"
* *Summative assessment* that "should focus on the rhetorical outcomes of our instruction, or the vary powers that capacitate our students. These include the student skill sets enumerated above that are developed in the first year speaking and writing class and that carry forward to subsequent work in rhetoric and the rest of the undergraduate curriculum." (49)

(On this last point - the advantage of my terminology of FYR and its focus on the first-year writing and speaking classrooms is that they are practically staples of a general education or core curriculum. But what other courses are common enough to be written about in a similar way? Business/professional writing and speaking? What else?)

### Teaching as Scholarship

The need "for sustainable structures to promote understanding of teaching as involving scholarship, to validate research on teaching, and to promote research that will advance our teaching as essential to civic education." (50)

Paucity of rhetoric in K-12 education; either it is entirely missing, or its civic education function has been marginalized.

### Conclusion

"Capacitating students to be competent citizens is our birthright. It has been ours since antiquity. Modern education has stripped us of it. We need to reclaim it." (52)