We've Come a Long Way, Baby

I found the Brereton excerpts fascinating. Although I knew the field(s) of rhetoric and composition have had to fight for a place, a respected place, in academics, I must have assumed that no one would question the value or validity of writing. After all, a writer must think critically about aspects of the subject being presented; a good writer considers the audience addressed and “the available means of persuasion.” While some could argue that writing is not necessary for every part of life and, therefore, expendable for some, the exercises involved in composing—critical thinking, analysis, synthesis, consideration of audience—underlie all effective communication, making composition and rhetoric indispensable.

Apparently, not everyone felt that way.

The introduction section helped me appreciate the history behind rhet and comp as we know it (in the university setting) today. The author points out that the German university model “stressed research, the creation rather than the transmission of knowledge” (5). My first thought when reading this: “Why does one supercede or exclude the other?” Ideally, creating and transmitting knowledge should be balanced. Right?

Once universities emphasized research, the prestige and rewards associated with it made it difficult for anyone in the setting to recognize teaching’s value. And for some reason, composition and rhetoric were not considered researchable (or research-worthy) fields! Hindsight shows what a mistaken idea that was. But I think I still see results of that kind of thinking in secondary and post secondary schools today.

So the early teachers of comp &/or rhetoric lacked prestige because they were perceived as being in a field which generated no research questions. They also, God bless ‘em, found themselves trying to bring new students’ skills up to university level—the teachers’ work was viewed as remedial: move to the bottom of the totem pole. Seems far removed from the respect given Quintilian’s “good man skilled in speaking.”