Berlin's "Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories"

I enjoyed the Berlin reading for this week and found myself attempting to classify which school of thought I fall into in regards to teaching rhetoric as I read through Berlin’s explanation of each area. What I found out is that it’s very hard for me to place myself since I’ve never actually taught before. Of course, I can pick the area that I feel is the most logical, looking at it from a student view point, but, having no experience teaching, I have really no idea which type of approach would be the best. I think the most impactful moment in Berlin’s argument is when he states that college English teachers “are teaching a way of experiencing the world, a way of ordering and making sense of it” (776). Likewise, at the beginning of the article, he says “To teach writing is to argue for a version of reality and the best way of knowing and communicating it” (766). Both of these quotes exemplify the importance of teaching writing and show the magnitude to taking the time to figure out the best way to go about helping students learn; it means more when you understand that these are not just skills they will take to their writing but to all aspects of their lives.

There are aspects of all the theories that I have problems with, but the one I think I have the most issues with is the Current-Traditionalists view, which I’m assuming is in conjunction with the Common Sense Realism, though Berlin was not completely clear on that terminology. Berlin explains that the Current-Traditionalists believe:

“Common Sense Realism denies the value of the deductive method- syllogistic reasoning- in arriving at knowledge. Truth is instead discovered through induction alone. It is the individual sense impression that provides the basis on which all knowledge can be built…The world is still rational, but its system is to be discovered through the experimental method, not through logical categories grounded in a mental faculty” (769).

Why is that a legitimate problem? That was the question I kept asking myself when I first started reading this section. However, Berlin does a great job of clearing up any uncertainties with his readers. At the end of the article, Berlin says that “Current-Traditional Rhetoric views the rhetorical situation as an area where the truth is incontrovertibly established by a speaker or writer more enlightened than her audience” (777). This whole idea that there is one truth known by someone who is of a higher intelligence than the rest of the world is actually very Platonist, which is interesting to me why it is not at issue in the Neo-Platonists theory, and by using this argument to try and teach writing to students, the outcome would be a lot of elitist young writers going out into the world believing they understand more than anyone who will ever read what they have to say. In this way, the Current-Traditionalists close down any kind of debate or conversation about the argument being presented by the speaker or writer, which brings me to ask how can this method be taught? If the instructor of the course is teaching that there is no truth other than the one being presented in writing, the instructor most likely already has a constructed truth of what they believe. I think this type of teaching and writing could be destructive to students who do not have a strong background in writing because if they do poorly on a paper, they will begin to question if they understand the truth instead of questioning the way they went about attempting to convince their audience.

Berlin wraps up his article by saying “The test of one’s competence as a composition instructor, it seems to me, resides in being able to recognize and justify the version of the process being taught, complete with all of its significance for the student” (777). As an instructor, not only is it beneficial to be able to understand what you are teaching, but also to understand how the students will understand what you are teaching. In this way I think it is a great idea that graduate students, students themselves, are teaching the freshman composition course since we are still in a position of being pupils and we can understand why a method may or may not work. This is also important when explaining to students why they have to sit through a composition class, as we discussed in class last week. If we can understand what we are teaching and how it will help them interpret the world and speak the truth, they will be more likely to pay attention and take something away from the class. 

Richard Lanham's "The 'Q' Question"

            Because the reading for today was confusing to me at points, and I had a hard time following all the ideas, I decided to latch onto an idea that I liked and began developing in a previous rhetoric class and then try and explore how this information can be helpful when teaching or creating curriculum.

            Before the article begins, Lanham prefaces it by explaining what the Q Question is, which is a question that “emerges every time technology changes in some basic way” (154). I suppose the Q Question is constantly being brought up in today’s classroom because it seems as if technology is constantly changing and every time it does we have to step back and orientate ourselves with a new system. All of this means that there is always a changing form of rhetoric and ways that rhetoric can reach others. There are new mediums for conveying ideas and arguments. Along with any argument, however, there is a version of truth that needs to be arrived at. With Lanham’s article, I wanted to see if I could fit the ideas of Classical truth and more modern truth in with the thoughts brought up in the article.

In my first semester of grad school, I became very interested in the truth, or Truth, what truth really means, how to deal with it in language and/or writing, and now, how it applies when dealing with rhetoric, more specifically, teaching rhetoric. In Richard Lanham’s “The ‘Q’ Question,” instead of designating truth and Truth, he designates the Weak Defense and the Strong Defense. These Defenses are immediate reactions to rhetoric and often shape how we perceive the arguments of others, and the Defenses sounds very similar to differing views of truth which I attempted to understand last semester.

The Weak Defense is what would be considered a more Classical view of truth: “The Weak Defense argues that there are two kinds of rhetoric good and bad. The good kind is used in good causes, the bad kind in bad causes. Our kind is the good kind; the bad kind is used by our opponents” (155). Lanham points out that this is a Platonist view, and it also a very Platonist way to approach truth; there is truth and lies, what philosophers believe is truth, and what rhetoricians believe are lies. This is problematic with the truth question as well as with the Weak Defense of rhetoric. Where is the line drawn here? If you take this example of “I am right, others are wrong” and apply it to life, no one is ever wholly good or bad because they are always both; you believe you’re right, someone else believes they are right, so you are also both wrong. How can rhetorical discussion or argument take place in this situation? It cannot, which is why Lanham correctly identifies this as a Weak Defense.

            On the opposite side, we have the Strong Defense which “assumes that truth is determined by social dramas, some more formal than others but all man-made….In its world, there is as much truth as we need, maybe more, but argument is open-ended” (156). This Defense fits in with a more modern view of truth where there are multiple ideas of truth, and that truth changes depending on the circumstance. Truth, or rhetoric, moves away from being good or bad, black and white, and moves into a gray area.

            Lanham moves out from these Defenses and gives examples of situations where the Q Question was asked and what kind of Defense was given in each situation. I have to admit that I think he used too many examples and because of that it was easier for me to get lost while I was reading. However, what I took away from Lanham’s article was when constructing curriculum for the humanities, much like when arriving at a more contemporary version of truth, one which isn’t black and white, we must approach rhetoric as something positive as well as something that is multifaceted. As much as I love the idea of looking for what truth is and what it means, perhaps there is no truth here when we break it down. There is not ultimate truth when teaching rhetoric because it is created by each individual. Each writer or speaker is giving a Strong or Weak Defense and it is left up to the audience, or teacher, to decide what kind of Defense is given. I think that at the end of the article, Lanham was basically calling for a more varied structure when it comes to what is being taught in the humanities departments. There is a lot of caution against hesitation to going toward this varied system, and Lanham seems to believe it is essential to the educational system to adopt these methods.