A Light Comes On...(Fulkerson's "Composition at the Turn of the Twentieth Century")

Since I dived immediately into the articles - forgetting the link so kindly provided for us as an overview - reading Dr. Fulkerson's article "Composition at the Turn of the Twentieth Century" was my first over view of what we're tackling as composition theory.

Fulkerson's article certainly served as a nice introduction to the options.  I certainly found myself drawn most thoroughly to the rhetorical approach, despite having almost no training myself in the formal aspects of rhetoric.  The details of rhetoric, claims, pathos, ethos, logos, etc. are all very foggily placed in my mind.  My experience with rhetoric has never been direct.  It has always been indirect encountering the word as someone's rhetoric was discussed, or as political rhetoric was discussed, and there seemed to be two assumptions to every use.  One was that there was some agreed upon use of the word rhetoric to which generally well educated people subscribed (I finally settled on a vague persuasive communication/techniques of persuasive communication at this point), the other was that, many times, rhetoric seemed to be a dirty word, almost PC for spin doctoring.  This second attribution coming from the use of the term in statements like, "That was just political rhetoric" as if the label meant something cooked up to fill empty campaign speeches or pointless political point winning rather than serious intellectual discussion.  In this abusive usage, the word becomes a hinderance to open, honest, intellectual debate of the issues.  This week with the research into the term itself, and the pursuit of these readings I have developed a new understanding.   

Armed with this new, still shifting definition I found that the rhetorical approach described in this article seemed the one most relevant to me as a focus/theory for the teaching of composition.  The focus on claim and argumentation seemed most relevant to the experiences and assignments I've encountered in academe.  I was divided slightly between the different rhetorical approaches that Fulkerson describes, although I was most drawn to the third.  When considering which of theses rhetorical approaches I prefer I have to admit that familiarity, the third, textual based rhetorical approach, (that of introducing students to the "academic discourse community") which focuses in less detail on process even as it focusees on argument etc. seems closest to my experience.  That said I can delineate why I preferred the rhetorical approach to either of the others.  It seemed to focus most completely on the act of writing, and especially on the central act of academic writing, argument.

On the other hand the critical/cultural studies approach seemed to be focused most on political and social theory and interpretation of texts at the expense of focusing on the course of writing.  Politics aside, and, full disclosure mine don't lend to this approach, I didn't feel it was focused on the act of writing especially the act of writing in the academic setting as it was on shaking up the way students think about texts.  It seems a necessary course for the sake of forcing students to question their assumptions about texts and their political/social/cultural implications but not a writing course.  

Finally, expressive writing sounds wonderful, but seems to run the risk of teaching people to say nothing beautifully.  The best writers will always have a strong voice and show great personality in their writing, but this seems one element among many and, in my opinion, not the central one.