Lockeing it down!

The presentations this week were very efficient and great for the purpose of covering a great deal of rhetoric in a small period of time. The presentation that Johanna gave on Vico was especially good as I wanted to understand more about his three stages of "nature, manners, law and the government: the ages of Gods, Heroes, and Man" (Maiullari 2). I do, however, see how another one of our rhetoricians, Locke, and Vico would have absolutely gone to battle over the ideas of human knowledge according to the ages, and Locke's "blank slate" ideal.

According to Vico, humans are predisposed to a particular knowledge and we can only rarely access the knowledge of the heroes. How then, do heroes become heroes? Are they predisposed to a different realm of understanding? Did Odysseus know more than the average human, and can he then access the knowledge of the Gods on rare occasion? We are privy to certain information just because of our birth. Knowledge such as survival, reproduction, and defense is in my mind, bred into our brains, and it is built upon through experience.

Locke believed that humans were born with a blank slate and everything we learned was through experience. If this is the case, then how do people who have never been stuck in the snow come out alive? There has to be some predisposed knowledge on survival. What about someone who has never fought. I, for one, have not been in a fight, but my first human instinct is to cover my pretty face and protect my vital organs from hits. Is there an experience that teaches us this? According to Locke, we would use our senses to determine these reactions. I, personally, would prefer to avoid getting punched before deciding whether or not to experience it again.

We are privy to certain information because of our nature, and we are then supposed to build on this base as we go -- through reflection? Through the senses? I'm not sure how we all grow in our knowledge base, but we surely do. We do, however need to be wise in our learning because, according to both, wisdom is key in obtaining knowledge.

Unless of course you use a syllogism...

Hey kids, this school thing is TOUGH! Get used to it!

In class we spent a good deal of time discussing rhetoric in research and reasoning behind the essential lack of primary sources. After coupling the Enos article with the Moss article, I have more than realized that our students (and ourselves as students) are relying on computers and their "magic" too much. And I truthfully believe computers are magic -- I have NO idea how they work, all I know is they are amazing.
Corbett is convinced that composition teachers are "much more sophisticated that teachers of composition were even fifteen years ago" (45). The term "sophisticated" makes me wonder -- what is sophistication exactly? Intellectually appealing is one definition, but I highly doubt we are being judged on how intellectually appealing we are. The most likely definition he is refering to is to be ahead in development. But, he continues to examine how far we've come in sophistication...whatever that is.
He touches on computers and their lack of logic and inability to utilize topoi. By spending time analyzing this sophistication that we have as composition teachers and allowing more of our time to be used teaching and acting on different topoi through logical formats, we can turn the talk of rhetoric into action. Take away the computer for an assginment -- see what happens. It's kind of fun!
In this article he also makes the observation that computers cannot analyze the written letter B and recognize that it is a part of the alphabet. This is out of date.
So, in order to better teach our students, they need to analyze more primary sources and find a place to rhetorize, or, as Dr. Eskew and Kenneth Burke would say, find a place to "put in their oar."

Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

The essay by Rohman and Wlecke begins wonderfully with what is perceived as the "problem" with educating English composition. The problem boils down to one word for these two scholars and that is "Quality" (216).
The quality in educating students in composition has been waning since the beginning of composition studies, and will continue to be a topic of discussion as long as it exists (ideally forever). With this in mind, on page 217 Rohman and Wlecke begin to provide solutions by first of all pointing out that there are two types of teaching -- one of which I will address: Expositional mode. This mode of teaching is teacher based which I believe is the best as the one person who truly understands what is occurring in the classroom is the one standing, giving direction, lectures, and organizing activities for the students be it elementary or graduate school. The article, however, recognizes that we all have weakness that is inherited as opposed to formed. These weaknesses, according to Rohman and Wlecke are unfixable, but I disagree.
Using the "Archetype of the Plant" on page 222, and the first metaphor of, "planting a seed" I address grammar as the seed -- the most basic piece of composition needed, as we discussed, to confer a basic thought and hold basic communication. If composition begins at grammar and builds to argument which will "unveil a perspective as best we can that has not become ordered on a public map," then we can discuss those developmental/reticent writers.
These writers need repetition and experience that "discovery" as discussed on 225 in order to see success with the basics in order to move to the argument.
Assessment will be based on the argument and grammar, and technology has its place, but as the article did not address technology in pedagogy, I stand by what I said in class and reaffirmed as I was working on my blog -- I'm a pencil to paper guy!

Dear World,

I hit the wrong "follow" button when I followed you last week. I am following you twice -- oops!

Dave

To continue the discussion we had in class, I would like to bring in the piece by Kitzhaber (257). In this piece, it assesses the "present" (it was published in 1963) state of freshman comp. As we started discussing with the Brereton piece, when English was first being introduced, there are still many flaws in the program. Kitzhaber cites many reasons such as syllabuses going out of date rapidly, "confusion in purpose, content, and organization; inexpert teaching; poor textbooks" as explanation as to the unrest in freshman comp (258). He also makes the note, almost obviously, that these reasons are the same the professors themselves are blaming high school composition teachers for the unpreparedness of college freshmen.
Brereton's subjects knew that the programs they were developing were sub-par, but they were merely getting started, so why, after almost 70 years (the programs he examined began in 1895) are there still these problems? Is it the constant change of the language as we discussed? Is it truly inexperience of professors and teachers? If so, how do we assess these changes and "fix" this problem. Are these issues that are seen at CSU-Pueblo? How are they being addressed?

FIRE!!

I guess it had been a while since I had had a history class, but I had forgotten that the London fire of 1666 had been the possible beginning of the Victorian age. The near destruction of the largest city in The Empire would be a devastation and would have to initiate a change an age of history.
Starting the Industrial Revolution was an inevitable response to this tragedy as the technology was available to make everything from weapons to textiles more efficient and automated. Unfortunately the nearly immediate effects of the Victorian Age are sometimes overlooked. The institution of child labor, poor wages for difficult work, and the rise of middle management are often frowned upon, but the age demanded these difficult effects. Had it not been for child labor and the poor conditions, many of the labor laws we have today would not be in place. The same is true for wages and the institution of unions and competition for wages and placement in companies in general.
The Victorian Age gave us much more than great literature and rhetoric. It began the proverbial snowball that has escalated to many of today's largest debates about wages, age, and appropriate placement for employees within a structure.

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