CONCEPTUALIZING COMPOSITION:

HOW COLLEGE-WRITERS (AND INSTRUCTORS) USE FIGURATIVE THINKING TO

CONCEPTUALIZE, ACQUIRE, AND ENACT LITERACY

A dissertation submitted

to Kent State University in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of Doctor of Philosophy

by

Jason A. Sharier

May 2020

© Copyright

All rights reserved

Dissertation written by

Jason A. Sharier

B.A., Kent State University Stark, 2011

M.A., Kent State University, 2014

Ph.D., Kent State University, 2020

Approved by

______________________________, Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. Sara Newman ______________________________, Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Dr. Derek van Ittersum ______________________________ Dr. Keith Lloyd ______________________________ Dr. Lori Wilfong ______________________________ Dr. Miriam Matteson

Accepted by

______________________________, Chair, Department of English Robert W. Trogdon ______________________________, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences James L. Blank

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................ III

DEDICATION ........................................................................................................................................... VII

LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................................. VIII

LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................................... IX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................................... X

CHAPTER 1: A PROPOSAL FOR WHY METAPHOR MATTERS FOR THE COMPOSITION

CLASSROOM ............................................................................................................................................... 1

OPENING REMARKS ................................................................................................................................... 1

APPLICATION TO THE FIELD ...................................................................................................................... 4

A METAPHORICAL LITERACY ................................................................................................................... 6

THE NEW RHETORIC OF METAPHOR ......................................................................................................... 8

METAPHORICAL DISCOURSE ................................................................................................................... 16

EARLY RESEARCH ON COMPOSITIONAL METAPHORS ............................................................................ 18

CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE AND SIGNIFICANCE ................................................................................. 21

RESEARCH QUESTIONS: MOTIVATIONS, DIFFICULTIES, NEW DIRECTIONS, AND RESOLUTIONS ........... 28

STUDY OVERVIEW: CHAPTER SYNOPSES ................................................................................................ 31

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................... 33

A BRIEF HISTORY OF METAPHOR THEORY IN THE RHETORICAL TRADITION ........................................ 33

A REVIEW OF METAPHOR ANALYSIS IN COMPOSITION STUDIES ........................................................... 45

CALLS FOR RESEARCH ............................................................................................................................ 50

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND METHODS ................................................................................. 56

EPISTEMOLOGY ....................................................................................................................................... 56

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METHODOLOGIES .................................................................................................................................... 57

METHODS ................................................................................................................................................ 63

DATA-COLLECTION ................................................................................................................................. 66

DATA-REDUCTION AND REPRESENTATION ............................................................................................. 73

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION ................................................................................................. 75

CHAPTER 4: SARA’S TEXT AND TALK DATA ................................................................................... 84

SARA’S WRITING QUOTE ANALYSIS ....................................................................................................... 86

SARA’S LITERACY NARRATIVE ............................................................................................................... 90

SARA’S PEER-TO-PEER MARGINALIA ..................................................................................................... 95

SARA’S REFLECTION MEMO AND REVISION LETTER .............................................................................. 99

SARA’S OPEN-ENDED SURVEY .............................................................................................................. 103

SARA’S CONFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 105

INTERPRETATION ................................................................................................................................... 108

CHAPTER 5: DAVID’S TEXT AND TALK DATA ............................................................................... 111

DAVID’S WRITING QUOTE ANALYSIS ................................................................................................... 113

DAVID’S LITERACY NARRATIVE ........................................................................................................... 115

DAVID’S INSTRUCTOR MARGINALIA .................................................................................................... 117

DAVID’S REFLECTION MEMO AND REVISION LETTER .......................................................................... 119

DAVID’S OPEN-ENDED SURVEY ............................................................................................................ 121

DAVID’S CONFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 123

DAVID’S ARGUMENTATIVE RESEARCH ................................................................................................. 124

INTERPRETATION ................................................................................................................................... 127

CHAPTER 6: METAPHOR INVENTION EXERCISES ......................................................................... 129

AN ANALYSIS OF SARA’S MIES ............................................................................................................ 130

AN ANALYSIS OF DAVID’S MIES .......................................................................................................... 134

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AN ANALYSIS OF JASON’S MIES ........................................................................................................... 137

COMPREHENSIVE MIE RESULTS ........................................................................................................... 140

CHAPTER 7: METAPHORICAL PROFILES ......................................................................................... 156

ALIGNMENT WITH CURRENT PRACTICES IN THE FIELD ........................................................................ 156

CHAPTER REVIEWS ................................................................................................................................ 158

THE INSTRUCTOR’S IMPLICIT THEORY OF LITERACY ........................................................................... 160

SARA’S IMPLICIT THEORY OF LITERACY .............................................................................................. 164

DAVID’S IMPLICIT THEORY OF LITERACY ............................................................................................ 166

CONTRIBUTIONS: RESEARCH AFFORDANCES ....................................................................................... 168

LIMITATIONS: RESEARCH CONSTRAINTS .............................................................................................. 172

IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ................................................................................................ 172

REFLECTING ON MY EXPERIENCE ......................................................................................................... 173

APPENDICES ........................................................................................................................................... 176

APPENDIX A – SARA’S WRITING QUOTE ANALYSIS RESULTS .......................................................... 176

APPENDIX B – SARA’S LITERACY NARRATIVE RESULTS .................................................................. 177

APPENDIX C – SARA’S PEER-TO-PEER MARGINALIA RESULTS ......................................................... 180

APPENDIX D – INSTRUCTOR FEEDBACK FOR SARA RESULTS ............................................................ 181

APPENDIX E – SARA’S REFLECTION MEMO AND REVISION LETTER RESULTS .................................. 183

APPENDIX F – SARA’S OPEN-ENDED SURVEY RESULTS .................................................................... 185

APPENDIX G – SARA’S CONFERENCE RESULTS ................................................................................. 186

APPENDIX H – DAVID’S WRITING QUOTE ANALYSIS RESULTS ........................................................ 194

APPENDIX I – DAVID’S LITERACY NARRATIVE RESULTS .................................................................. 195

APPENDIX J – INSTRUCTOR FEEDBACK FOR DAVID RESULTS ........................................................... 196

APPENDIX K – DAVID’S REFLECTION MEMO AND REVISION LETTER RESULTS ............................... 198

APPENDIX L – DAVID’S OPEN-ENDED SURVEY RESULTS ................................................................. 201

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APPENDIX M – DAVID’S CONFERENCE RESULTS ............................................................................... 202

APPENDIX O – DAVID’S ARGUMENTATIVE RESEARCH RESULTS ...................................................... 206

APPENDIX P – SARA’S MIE RESULTS ................................................................................................ 209

APPENDIX Q – DAVID’S MIE RESULTS .............................................................................................. 212

APPENDIX R – JASON’S MIE RESULTS ............................................................................................... 215

REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................... 219

WORKS CITED ....................................................................................................................................... 219

WORKS CONSULTED .............................................................................................................................. 229

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DEDICATION

To my moon and stars— my wife, Tonya

and my little ladies, Emma and Ella. And to God—the greatest metaphor of all.

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LIST OF FIGURES

1.1 – Charteris-Black’s Discourse Model of Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

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LIST OF TABLES

1.1 – Archetypes and Meta-narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

1.2 – Beginning-of-the-Semester MIEs: Comprehensive Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

1.3 – End-of-the-Semester MIEs: Comprehensive Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

1.4 – Perceived Attitudes and Metaphorical Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

1.5 – Beginning-of-the-Semester MIEs: Archetypal Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

1.6 – End-of-the-Semester MIEs: Archetypal Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my entire dissertation committee for their expertise, dutiful commentary, and mentorship, without whom this document would not be in the refined form it is today. Thank you . . . Sara, for your caring presence. I always feel amid family when we converse. Derek, for your critical voice. Your critiques often mirror those I hold of myself, making them both intimidating and honest. Keith, for your longstanding friendship. Without your guidance and inspiration, I may have not pursued becoming a scholar. A special thanks for assigning the article, “Metaphors We Live By.” It forever changed the way I see the world. In addition, I would like to thank my students for their participation, for teaching me many more things about metaphor than they know. I am immensely grateful for, and indebted to, the sacrifices that my wife and parents have made so that I could pursue this calling. Metaphors be with you.

Jason A. Sharier

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Words were originally magic, and the word retains much of its old magical power even today. With words one man can make another blessed, or drive him to despair; by words the teacher transfers his knowledge to the pupil; by words the speaker sweeps his audience with him and determines its judgments and decisions. Words call forth effects and are the universal means of influencing human beings.

—Sigmund Freud from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis

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CHAPTER 1: A PROPOSAL FOR WHY METAPHOR MATTERS FOR THE COMPOSITION CLASSROOM

I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they’re going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there’s going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have, they find out as it grows. And I’m much more a gardener than an architect.

—George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire

Opening Remarks

My qualitative study applies Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) to the pedagogy and

activity of the college composition classroom by means of collecting and analyzing instructor

and student metaphors for literacy1. Inspired by Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) seminal publication

1 Often there is a temptation to subscribe to a reductionist view of literacy, that is, as the skillset or ability to read or write. Instead, I designate that it comprehensively refers to the activities of reading and writing. Literacy itself has indeed become a short-form metaphor for the acquiring of knowledge or proficiency of any type. I subscribe to a more open, expansive definition:

• All people are capable of acquiring literacy. • Literacy is a human right and is a fundamental part of the human experience. • Literacy is not a trait that resides solely in the individual person. It requires and creates a connection

(relationship) with others. • Literacy includes communication, contact, and the expectation that interaction is possible for all

individuals; literacy has the potential to lead to empowerment. • Literacy is the collective responsibility of every individual in the community; that is, to develop meaning

making with all human modes of communication to transmit and receive information. (Keefe & Copeland 97)

Furthermore, literacy researcher Sylvia Scribner (1984) offers three useful metaphors for literacy: Adaption (i.e., to become a contributing member of a culture), Power (i.e., to enact social change), and State-of-Grace (i.e., Self-Actualization; to engage in self-development, virtue, and the attainment of post-conventional wisdom). As with Brandt’s (1998) literacy sponsor, Heath’s (1982) literacy event, and Barton et al.’s (2000) literacy practices, the emphasis in literacy research has been to detail the activity system that situates an act of reading and writing, positioning it as integral to generating social interaction and interpretative meaning. The study of literacy is about

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Metaphors We Live By, my research explores: What are the metaphors we read and write by? To

do so, I investigate how college-writers write about writing and talk about writing. If, for

instance, one writer conceptualizes WRITING AS IMAGINATION2 and another WRITING AS

IDENTITY, what do each of these conceptualizations tell us about their implicit theories3 of

writing? How might their metaphors help us reimagine composition theory and pedagogy? What

do student metaphors have to teach us about literacy?

While other researchers (i.e., Tobin (1989), Miller (1993), Hart (2009), Neaderhiser

(2009), Paulson & Armstrong (2011), Dadurka (2012), and Shaw & Mahlios (2014) have

pursued similar lines of inquiry, these studies have either focused more on instructor

observations and instructor-generated documents or have used writing prompts that ask for

students’ explicit metaphors as opposed to researching their naturally-occurring metaphors—as

they might appear in thought, speech, and text—or have pursued generalizability over detailed

student case-studies.

the “use” of reading and writing within specific meaning-making contexts more than a mere general description of an ability. Each conceptual shift re-emphasizes issues of role, access, and use as essential to the study of literacy. In addition, Friere’s (1968) critical literacy also broadens what we talk about when we talk about literacy. This includes knowing how to participate in, engage with, analyze and deconstruct texts, not only produce or process them for information. 2 Conceptual metaphors are accentuated by all-caps to distinguish them from other figures (see section “The New Rhetoric of Metaphor” for a definition and explanation of conceptual metaphor). 3 V. Job in “Implicit Theories About Willpower” recounts,

Implicit theories are ‘people’s basic assumptions about themselves and their world’ (Dweck, 1996, p. 69). Similar to scientists who develop theories to explain phenomena in the world, laypersons hold theories and beliefs . . . . In contrast to scientific theories, laypersons’ theories are often implicit in the sense that their holders are not aware of them and how they affect their behavior. . . . / The study of personal beliefs goes back to Jean Piaget who argued that children develop so-called meaning systems that guide their behavior (Piaget, 1964; Piaget & Garcia, 1991). Likewise, George Kelly (1955) proposed that each individual has a unique set of conceptual representations that he or she uses to construct meaning in their world. (204, my emphasis)

Cataloguing these conceptual representations is precisely what my research is after, so that we can understand how people use literacy to construct particular meanings about literacy itself.

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Though there has been a substantial amount of work to advance metaphor research in

other disciplines over the last few decades, the importance of conceptual metaphor in rhetorical

education, however, is still underutilized in composition research and classroom practice.

My study is designed to incorporate multiple writing samples from a variety of genres to

create a well-detailed, descriptive metaphorical profile of each participant. While other studies

have solely focused on elicit or solicited metaphors, meaning that students/instructors were asked

to respond to a prompt, my study incorporates implicit, naturally-occurring metaphors as they

appear in both talk and text. Furthermore, I employ archetypal analysis to account for how

metaphors project, situate, and establish identities. My work contributes to the study of metaphor

analysis in the college composition classroom and suggests ways to further identity research in

Rhetoric and Composition.

I take both an ethnographic (i.e., researching my own classroom) and autoethnographic

(i.e., researching myself) approach, examining in detail the practices of two first-year college

writing students, as well as myself, the instructor, investigating how we utilize figurative

thinking4 in our conceptualizations of reading and writing. The aim of each case-study is to

catalogue the participant’s metaphors to reconstruct a metaphorical profile. This requires

conducting close metaphorical analyses of classroom exercises: reflecting on professional quotes

on writing, inventing personal metaphors for writing, composing literacy narratives, practicing

peer-review marginalia, exploring self-evaluation and self-criticism, answering essay questions

about their composing process, and conferencing. The main pedagogical objective of the study is

4 Among these rhetorical figures are: archetype, symbol, synesthesia, paradigm, syncretism, trope, analogy, metaphor, simile, personification, metonymy, synecdoche, kenning, allegory, parable, proverb/riddle, idiom/aphorism/colloquialism, hyperbole/litotes, pun, cliché, euphemism/double entendre, parallelism, and paradox (e.g., change is the only constant), etc. Paraphrasing rhetorician and literary theorist Kenneth Burke (1969), wherever we encounter one figure we will most likely encounter another.

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to suggest future implementations for teaching college-writers to become increasingly cognizant

of the conceptual metaphors that impact the way they conceptualize their literate activity, to

encourage them and their instructors to consciously develop, explore, and problematize the

metaphors we read and write by. My research seeks to develop and extend Rhetoric and

Composition’s understanding of how researchers and practitioners can use CMT to investigate

college-writers’ implicit theories of literacy.

Application to the Field

Because metaphor is a (often unconscious) naturally-occurring phenomenon in our daily

use of language, instructors teach through metaphor and college-writers compose using

metaphor: “We utter about one metaphor for every ten to twenty-five words, or about six

metaphors a minute” (Geary 5). Different metaphors offer different affordances or constraints.

They may limit our understanding or they may open us up to new knowledge or possibility.

For example, the field of Rhetoric and Composition has influenced classroom practice by

promoting certain ingrained metaphors—the most obvious being: WRITING IS A PROCESS.5

Educational policies, textbooks, course designs, and academic research all influence the way

metaphor shapes researchers’, instructors’, and students’ experiences with literacy. Likewise, the

metaphors researchers, instructors and college-writers use to describe and define writing reveal

how they conceptualize, acquire, and enact literacy in their lives. I, therefore, propose to

demonstrate how college-writers conceptualize, acquire, and enact literacy by constructing

metaphorical profiles of each participant. The profiles are interpretations of the metaphorical

themes associated with each participant’s figurative language usage across the data, giving

expression and unity to their emerging literate identities. Each profile characterizes the implicit

5 Compositionist James Seitz (1991) remarks, “‘[P]rocess’ itself can be approached as a ‘worn-out’ or ‘forgotten’ metaphor, one that we might ‘revive’ in order to examine its limits” (291).

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theory of writing dominant in the participant’s thinking about literacy and how that affects their

identity as a writer over the course of the semester. Nonetheless, the profiles are limited in scope

because they only reflect a snapshot of the participant’s literate activity, detailed as they may be.

Each profile is limited by the data-collection and time constraint of the study, as these factors

control what type of profile is possible.

Just as a majority of composition discourse is dominated by the PROCESS-metaphor,

college-writers themselves may have adopted, at one point or the other, the conception WRITING

IS A CHORE. (As an aside, writers may not simply be motivated by a single, dominant

conception; they are more than less likely to be influenced by subordinate or simultaneous

conceptualizations, which are dependent upon a variety of contextual factors, such as genre,

purpose and intent.) To problematize the CHORE-metaphor, however, the concept of “work,”

when it gains prominence, may influence a person’s interactions, as writing may continue to be

perceived as an obligatory, superficial act instead of a desirable, creative experience.

Conceptions like this may even taint the actual experience of writing because it becomes more a

matter of work than freedom of expression, which is why English educator Patty Strong (2002)

admonishes, “You must see that writing is not duty, obligation, and regurgitation, but

opportunity, exploration, and discovery” (34). “Chore” and “work” are not only metaphorical in

the linguistic sense, they actually influence and alter the very experience and act of writing, as

every student (and scholar), I surmise, could attest.6

6 Research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience has advanced that the words we use to define and describe our experiences in turn affect the actual experiences themselves. This position rests on three propositions: 1) Language influences thought; 2) thought influences experience; and 3) experience influences behavior. Neuro-linguist Lera Boroditsky (2009) asserts that differences in cultural concepts are relative to the “patterns of metaphor” that construct and substantiate those concepts. The rhetorical power of language is “central to our experience of being human, and the languages we speak profoundly shape the way we think, the way we see the world, the way we live our lives” (para. 26).

Along similar lines, Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer (2017) posits that a psychology of possibility means “to learn conditionally; to see the world as ‘it would seem that’ and ‘could be’, which is very different than ‘it is’” (qtd.

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If, for instance, instructors desire college-writers to see beyond the chore of writing, they

need to provide the possibility of seeing writing as something other than work, like play, art, or

personal transformation, to contend with negative connotations wrought by limiting

conceptualizations. If a college-writer can invent a metaphor that empowers them to find

themselves as a writer, they participate in a new discourse for experiencing writing, finding

power and identity they hadn’t before, due to their exposure to alternative metaphors. What is

often the most persuasive thing about a metaphor is the motivation for holding that metaphor. I

may not be motivated by “work” in the same way I am motivated by “personal growth.”

Conceptual issues such as these are what my study aims to reveal.

A Metaphorical Literacy

Unless you are educated in metaphor, you are not safe to be let loose in the world. —Robert Frost from “Education by Poetry”

Although Aristotle claimed that the gift of metaphor cannot be taught, English educators

Sherry Booth and Susan Frisbie (2004) disagree, as do I: “[A]pologies to Aristotle, we can make

metaphor part of rhetorical education. For what rhetoric offers students is the knowledge of how

to ‘read’ a metaphor and thus to understand better how language operates” (175, emphasis in

original). They proceed to call for a metaphorical literacy: “Sustained and careful attention to

in Thompson, para. 7). Evidenced by her research in Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, Langer’s theory of mindfulness demonstrates that substituting different metaphorical assertions, like substituting “play” for work or “exercise” for labor have not only led to changes in thinking but changes in behavior and physiology as well.

Additional arguments and insights for how metaphor shapes our experiences come from the 2011 study “Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning” by Paul H. Thibodeau and Lera Boroditsky, where crime was implicitly conceptualized as either a virus or a beast in two different versions of the same article. Audiences who read the article containing the VIRUS-metaphors expressed a need for “social reform” and confronting “the spread of the disease” (Inglis-Arkell paras. 3 & 4). Audiences who read the essay with the BEAST-metaphors expressed a need for “penalties” and catching and imprisoning (Inglis-Arkell paras. 3 & 4). In another study conducted by researchers Chen-Bo Zhong and Katie Liljenquist, they demonstrated that after participants were asked to recall either a moral or immoral act from their past, those who recalled immoral acts were more likely to accept the participation gift of disinfectant wipes—MORALITY IS (PHYSICAL) CLEANLINESS. (Sapolsky para. 16) Each of these studies posits ways metaphor not only affects our thinking, but our behavior too.

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metaphoric language at various levels can enable students to be critical readers and writers of

texts of all kinds” (178). Knowledge of how to read and control metaphor in writing is a crucial

component to understanding how our ideas, concepts, and texts are in the deepest sense framed

by metaphor. For instance, “[t]he major premise of framing theory is that an issue can be viewed

from a variety of perspectives and be construed as having implications for multiple values or

considerations. Framing refers to the process by which people develop a particular

conceptualization of an issue or reorient their thinking about an issue” (Chong & Druckman

104). Metaphors are frames that categorize and organize reality, promoting particular definitions

or interpretations of activities, experiences, events or social issues.

In composing any message, certain metaphors may be more adequate, appropriate, or

conducive for persuasion. A metaphorical literacy, therefore, involves teaching college-writers to

code-switch or metaphor-switch, to learn for themselves which conceptualizations are

insufficient or appropriate as they weigh a metaphor’s rhetorical applicability, usefulness, or

effectiveness. For example, “evolving” a piece of writing versus “fixing” the writing—deciding

between WRITING IS ORGANIC or WRITING IS MECHANICAL. Metaphorical literacy is the practice

of sensemaking and sensebreaking. Sensemaking, in the sense that metaphor is a “continuous

effort to understand connections” (Kolko 11) and sensebreaking because metaphor may be used

“to convince or persuade others that their current understanding of experience is inappropriate”

or insufficient (Kramer 6).

Booth and Frisbie add, “Metaphor acts like a wormhole, moving readers to a new

understanding” (172). The process of creating and analyzing metaphors teaches students to

develop their own knowledge around the practice of reading and writing, giving them the agency

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to define and redefine literacy for themselves. Compositionist Philip K. Arrington (1986) puts

forth,

[I]f we can lead students to realize the figurative basis of ideas and concepts, and the attitudes they imply, we may then be able to claim that we have taught them the poetic nature of thinking and the conceptual nature of poetry. They will be able to see how discourse in the various sciences is ‘literary’ and how literary discourse is also ‘scientific,’ a way of knowing and acting. Then we might not worry over whether writing is an ‘art’ or a ‘science.’ We will have found a common ground for uniting these opposing terms. We will have made rhetoric, its study and practice, central to education once more. (335)

To be able to assess ‘the poetic nature of thinking and the conceptual nature of poetry,’ one must

acquire a metaphorical literacy.

There is a term in art discourse that demonstrates what is meant by a metaphorical

literacy: bricolage. A bricolage, in essence, is when you create something new from a diverse

array of available materials or items. As educators, the best thing we can do for our students is

point them to the available means of metaphor-making, so that they can learn to generate

metaphors for reading and writing that will enrich the meaning and application of literacy to their

lives. Like a bricolage, you can always take apart previous metaphors and combine them to

construct new ones. Knowing how and when to do this is a metaphorical literacy.

The New Rhetoric of Metaphor

I am therefore I frame. —Noam Shpancer, author of The Good Psychologist

The leading approach to studying the cognitive processes involved in metaphoric

conceptualization is Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT; see Lakoff & Johnson, Metaphors We

Live By). CMT defines conceptual metaphor as understanding one discourse domain in terms of

another, such as LIFE in terms of a JOURNEY. The working premise of CMT provides that “[o]ur

ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally

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metaphorical in nature” (3). Before the ‘conceptual turn’ there was a longstanding philosophical

tradition that treated metaphor as a matter of poetry (i.e., aesthetically elevated language) or an

economy of style (i.e., a linguistic shortcut), whereas Lakoff and Johnson have evidenced (while

it is both of these) it is, first and foremost, a fundamental cognitive feature, hence conceptual.

We may come to know more about the thoughts and actions surrounding literacy by mining the

figurative meaning occurring in writing-about-writing and talking-about-writing. While Lakoff

and Johnson’s examples in Metaphors We Live By are largely acontextual, meaning they are

pulled from general nomenclature instead of from specific data-sets, I propose to advance work

in CMT by focusing on the discourse domain of writing.

What is Metaphor and How Does it Work?

Metaphor is the reciprocal transference of meaning from one term to another, resulting in

the emergence of a new meaning. Aristotle first used genus and species to describe this

transference: METAPHOR IS TAXONOMY. Analytic philosopher Max Black (1955) uses frame and

focus to determine the lexical meaning of metaphor: METAPHOR IS PHOTOGRAPHIC

COMPOSITION. Frame refers to the context of the sentence in which metaphor occurs, and focus

refers to the grammatical element carrying the figurative meaning. Literary critic and rhetorician,

I.A. Richards (1937) defines

the two terms and the relationship between them as the ‘tenor’ (today often called the ‘topic’), of which something is being asserted, the ‘vehicle,’ the term being used metaphorically to form the basis of the comparison, and the ‘ground,’ namely that which the two have in common. The dissimilarity between the two terms being compared determines what is called the ‘tension.’ (qtd. in Ortony 45)

Tenor in the rhetorical sense refers to the general meaning of something, like the tenor of an

argument. The tenor is the word being transformed and the vehicle is the figurative expression

doing the transforming. Richards’ terminology suggests, along with the original etymological

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meaning, METAPHOR IS TRAVELING. Argumentation theorist Chaïm Perelman (1969) in The

New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation describes analogy in a similar manner. The theme

(i.e., A is to B) is the unfamiliar relationship—“the object of the discourse”—and the phoros

(i.e., C is to D) is the familiar relationship—“by which the transference occurs” (92). To use an

analogy, PHOROS is to THEME as TENOR is to VEHICLE. Perelman’s terminology combines the

discourses of narrative and economic transfer, with theme being the unifying convention of a

narrative and phoros being that which bears or carries over meaning from the theme.

In CMT the identifying terms are source domain and target domain; the target is the

word being transformed, and the source is the figurative expression doing the transforming:

METAPHOR IS (A SPATIAL) TRAJECTORY. CMT emphasizes the importance of metaphoric

entailments too, the metaphorical warrants that develop an extended domain for a conceptual

metaphor. Entailments are essentially a metaphor’s underlying assumptions. For example, if LIFE

IS A STORY, then portions of it are CHAPTERS and people are CHARACTERS and purpose is PLOT.

Entailments lead to new metaphors. A metaphor’s entailments, like analogical proof,7 “can serve

as [a] starting point for detailed development and argument, just like an unquestioned fact”

7 An analogy expresses an interdependent relationship between two metaphorical assertions. Analogies make relational claims through proportionate or functional propositions. A proportionate relationship may relate that Coffee : Brazil :: Cocoa : Ivory Coast, stressing the shared property of goods production. Even comparing previous rulings in court cases, to assert that the current case should follow a similar course of action, is a common way analogy is used in courtroom argumentation. An example of a functional relationship, in terms of highlighting a specific function or feature, may relate that Fin : Fish :: Wing : Bird, stressing the shared property of mobility. ‘The manta ray soared through the gentle waters’ is evidence of a conceptual metaphor based on analogical proof. Analogies argue for conceptual equivalency on the basis of two metaphorical assertions, on grounds of a shared property: A is proportionate/equivalent to C and B is proportionate/equivalent to D, based on shared property E, such as Citizen : Nation :: Inhabitant : Earth, based on the shared property of group membership. Consider science-fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. LeGuin’s analogy: “As you read a book word for word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence of the music.” If we adapt LeGuin’s analogy to the basic format, we have: Reading : Imagining :: Playing an Instrument : Making Music, based on the shared property of participation. A and B make up the theme, and C and D make up the phoros. Essentially, analogies are extended metaphors because [A and B] is [C and D], producing the following inferential metaphorical premises: (1) Reading is Playing an Instrument, and (2) Imagining is Making Music. By themselves the theme and phoros are literal entailments. All analogies are metaphors.

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(Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca 402). In other words, we encounter a conceptual metaphor

because its entailments are embedded in the discourse. We can even create new discursive

meaning by suggesting a novel metaphor for something, such as Writing Is Design. If Writing Is

Design, then Writers Are Designers; Texts Are Designs, so on and so forth.

These are the terms that constitute how metaphorical meaning is made:

• Tenor/Target – the familiar term, what is being reconceptualized.

• Vehicle/Source – the unfamiliar term, what is doing the reconceptualizing.

• Grounds/Entailments – shared meaning, ways that metaphorical meaning emerges.

• Tension – contested meaning, where the metaphorical meaning does not apply or

begins to break down.

The contemporary, conventional definition treats “[m]etaphor [as] a device for seeing

something in terms of something else. It brings out the thisness of a that, or the thatness of a this”

(Burke 503, emphasis in original). In other words, “metaphor . . . involves a transference of

meaning from one kind of element to another kind” (Martin & Rose 103-104, emphasis in

original). According to CMT, however, metaphor is not strictly a matter of a single word-for-

word or phrase-for-phrase substitution—like referring to the thesis as ‘the heart of a text.’

Instead, entire cognitive-semantic frames or associative networks are activated, applied, and

mapped onto one another, causing a symbiotic interaction between multiple discourse domains

or neuro-linguistic networks. As with the thesis-example, the domains of TEXT and ANATOMY

interact to form the conceptual metaphor TEXTS ARE ANATOMICAL.

While it might be poetic to refer to the purpose, intent, or thesis of a text as its heart, this

is only part of the frame, or clue, as to what the root conceptualization is: TEXTS ARE

ANATOMICAL. We talk about the body of a text; it has a header and a footer, even an appendix, at

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times. We, therefore, in part, conceptualize texts by means of anatomical discourse. Head, body,

foot, and heart are all metaphorical linguistic expressions (MLEs) that substantiate the

conceptual-key: TEXTS ARE ANATOMICAL. This is the thought-structure other expressions stem

from. Conventional and conceptual metaphors are only different inasmuch as conceptual

metaphors are the unstated warrants that conventional metaphors stake their claim in: Because a

text is a body, it therefore has a heart, etc. Though all metaphors are conceptual, conceptual

metaphors are representative of how metaphor structures thought, which in turn structures our

use of language. This is the new rhetoric of metaphor.

English grammar, like many other languages, implicitly utilizes figures of containment

(e.g., “put in writing” or “take out of the text,” or “talk someone into something”), routing (e.g.,

by, through, or way), objectification, and personification. Each converts abstract concepts or

things into containers, routes, objects/tools, or personages. Often these figures appear as natural

linguistic features, such as prepositions, as opposed to the intentional invention of a language-

user. The discourse of writing exhibits two basic examples of containment: form and content.

Form conceptualizes writing as a container and content as the objects of that container.

In the rhetorical sense, metaphors are enthymematic because their meaning is derived

from making inferences; their premises are, in most cases, implied instead of stated outright.

Rhetorician Michael Osborn (1967) inquires, “Does an image[/metaphor] embody some tacit

enthymematic structure and function as a demonstration itself, or does it serve more to

dramatize, illustrate, and reinforce a logical structure made explicit elsewhere in the speech?”

(124). As I will detail, conceptual metaphors are by-products of syllogisms. As others have

noted, “[A]nalogy . . . . has the same rigorous, austere, and precise flavor as Aristotle’s logical

syllogisms” (Hofstadter & Sander 552).

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Consider the concept of voice in composition. Generally, when we talk about voice,

instructors are usually referring to what gives writing character or makes it distinguishable. The

metaphor of voice is the product of two rhetorical syllogisms:

1.

a. Bodies have voices. (unstated explicit, literal claim)

b. TEXTS ARE BODIES. (conceptual, metaphorical assertion)

c. Therefore, texts have/are voices. (metaphorical entailment)

2.

a. Speech is the product of voice. (unstated explicit, literal claim)

b. WRITING IS SPEECH. (conceptual, metaphorical assertion)

c. Therefore, writers have/are voices. (metaphorical entailment)

Together these rhetorical syllogisms form the analogy Texts : Writing :: Bodies : Speaking.

Texts are equivalent/proportionate to bodies and writing is equivalent/proportionate to speaking,

based on the shared property of transmission.

Because speech precedes writing, we conceptualize the discourse of writing through the

discourse of speech. The ancient paradigm was that writing was a medium meant to be recited.

Rhetorically, writers call for or speak out/against, and readers listen and respond. Literacy is

conceptualized in terms of orality: WRITING IS SPEAKING/CONVERSATION. Along similar lines,

we may refer to how ‘a passage spoke to us’ or how an ‘author says something,’ where speaking

or saying stand in for communication and meaning-making in general.

Thus, voice is symbolic or metonymic, in that, it stands in for the writer: the writer is

their voice. Important literal and metaphorical entailments include (see “What Do We Mean

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When We Talk about Voice in Texts?” by Peter Elbow and “The Rise of a Metaphor: ‘Voice’ in

Composition Pedagogy” by Darsie Bowden):

• Voice is the sound of the text.

• Voice is the felt presence of the writer in the text.

• Voice is the dramatic character or persona of the writer.

• Voice is the emotive response of the writer.

• Voice is the tone, mannerisms or style of the writer.

• Voice is the distinctiveness of the writer.

• Voice is the authenticity of the writer.

• Voice is the authority/agency of the writer.

• Voice is the spiritual dimension of the writing, that which inhabits the intangible

space between words and sentences.

• Voice is the “I” the writer discovers while writing.

To further elucidate the relationship between discourse and metaphor, let us return to

Burke’s definition, where the discourse of technology (i.e., device) gets mapped onto the

discourse of language (i.e., metaphor), constituting the conceptual metaphor LANGUAGE IS A

TOOL-BUILDING/TOOL-USING TECHNOLOGY. Burke indexes metaphor as a ‘seeing device’ and

this establishes an important point about defining metaphor or generating discourse around

metaphor: we invent metaphors, such as a ‘seeing-device,’ for the purpose of defining metaphor.

This is a basic example of meta-metaphor,8 defining metaphor using metaphor.

8 In “White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy,” philosopher Jacques Derrida first coins the term meta-metaphor: “Concept is a metaphor, foundation is a metaphor, theory is a metaphor; and there is no meta-metaphor for them” (23).

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Another important meta-metaphor Burke uses is perspective (see A Grammar of

Motives). Rhetoric and argumentation can be understood in terms of perspective-taking, of

various ways of being, seeing, and doing that exist in the world. To hold a position involves

constructing a particular sense-making frame.9 When we argue, we most likely desire others to

see our perspective, our metaphor for the world. As mythologist Joseph Campbell (1988)

astutely observed, “If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” A

change in perspective is essentially a change in metaphor. In other words, “‘metaphor [is] central

to the task of accounting for our perspectives on the world: how we think about things, make

sense of reality, and set the problems we later try to solve’ (Schön, 1979, p. 254)” (qtd. in

Tomlinson 58, emphasis added). Metaphor can change writers’ and readers’ wor(l)ds10 per se.

Like metaphor, writing itself allows us to put “down our thoughts [so] we can put them aside and

9 According to Frame Semantics, each word evokes a particular association, activating the semantic meaning of a word as related to other words within the same frame or discourse. For example, the concept of “money” evokes the semantic frame for seller, buyer, owner, goods, resources, and transaction, etc. Money itself is even a metaphor for assessing value and worth; it is a frame that we view our livelihoods through. Frames generate and sustain complex concepts, beliefs, narratives, and metaphors: “WE HOLD A NUMBER of beliefs about the world that color our interpretations of people and events. These ‘frames’ are there, whether we are aware of them or not, . . . changing the way we view the world and our place in it” (Nussbaum 25.17%). In addition, frames consist of a combination of schema.

In psycholinguistic terms, conceptual metaphors combine and blend schema—knowledge of a subject/topic—and generate scripts (Schank and Abelson (1977)—stereotypical scenes embedded within a particular schema. Metaphors are produced when schema/scripts are juxtaposed. For example, I may want to argue that READING/WRITING ARE MAGIC. Literacy represents one schema and magic the other. “Composing an essay” or “performing a spell” are common scripts associated with each schema. Each script may be broken into scenes. A writer may start by conducting research; a mage may acquire a spell by learning an incantation. The goal of the writer is to inform and persuade. The goal of the mage is to enchant. A verb like “conjure” combines the scripts of both magic and imagination, where a mage conjuring a spell is analogous to an author conjuring an image. This exemplifies how metaphors create or sustain mythemes, transforming the archetypal identity of the writer to mage. 10 Educational philosopher Paulo Freire (1985) describes our interaction with the word-world (or logosphere) as follows:

The act of reading cannot be explained as merely reading words since every act of reading words implies a previous reading of the world and a subsequent rereading of the world. There is a permanent movement back and forth between ‘reading’ reality and reading words—the spoken word too is our reading of the world. We can go further, however, and say that reading the word is not only preceded by reading the world, but also by a certain form of writing it or rewriting it. In other words, of transforming it by means of conscious practical action. For me, this dynamic movement is central to literacy. (18)

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come back to them with renewed critical energy and a fresh point of view. Writing helps us stand

outside ourselves” (Elbow 38).

Metaphorical Discourse

As discourse analyst Jonathan Charteris-Black (2004) asserts, “[M]etaphor is a prime

means by which people . . . create discourse” (253). Metaphor opens us up to different word-

worlds. Identity, ideology,11 and habit constitute the threads of discourse12 as a particular way of

being, seeing, and doing in the world. How we conceive of something influences how we

perceive it, and those perceptions influence how we act and interact. How we conceive literacy

influences how we perceive literacy, and therefore influences how we experience reading and

writing. Metaphor is fundamental to the conceptualization process, coloring our identities,

ideologies, and habits—metaphors of being (i.e., existential), metaphors of seeing (i.e.,

philosophical), and metaphors of doing (i.e., praxis).13 Comparative rhetorician George A.

Kennedy (1998) remarks, “The earliest, most natural, and most universal tropes are metaphor,

synecdoche, and metonymy. . . . Its great rhetorical importance is that, unlike other tropes, it can

carry emotional value and is thus an important manifestation of rhetorical energy” (229).

11 Compositionist and rhetorician James Berlin (1988) defines ideology as “a set of tacit assumptions about what is real, what is good, what is possible, and how power ought to be distributed” (492). 12 In the sociolinguistic sense, discourse is language-in-use—the intersection where ideology becomes identity-in-action: “When we speak or write we simultaneously say something (‘inform’), do something (act), and are something (be). When we listen or read we have to know what the speaker or writer is saying, doing, and being in order to fully understand” (Gee 1, “Discourse, small-d, Big D”). Elsewhere, educational literacy researcher James Paul Gee (2012) elaborates, “Discourses are ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking, believing, speaking, and often reading and writing, that are accepted as instantiations of particular identities” (3, Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses). Discourses may also be simply understood as a domain of knowledge about something, like business or sports, where the way people talk and the words they use to define their interests set their discourse apart: “A discourse is a configuration of knowledge and its habitual forms of expression, which represents a particular set of interests” (Cazden et al. 75). A lexicon that develops particular to any discourse may very well serve as a means for generating metaphorical discourse when carried over to another discourse domain, such as using sports-metaphors to talk about business, etc. 13 As outlined in Michael Halliday’s Functional Linguistics, we can apply the metafunctions of language to the discursive functions of metaphor: “[T]he metafunctions of language in social activity: the interpersonal metafunction to enact relationships, the ideational metafunction to represent experience, the textual metafunction to organize text” (Martin & Rose 6, emphasis in original).

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Metaphor frames how we see the world, creates discourse, and gives force and power to

language.

Inasmuch, without the Stage, Product and Process Models of writing, it is almost

impossible to sustain any type of discourse around composing, substantiating Charteris-Black’s

point that metaphor generates discourse. In “Tropes of the Composing Process” compositionist

Philip Arrington explores, from Plato to Burke, dominant discursive evolutions for

conceptualizing composition: Composing as Dramatic Speech, Step-by-Step Process, and

Organic Growth. The relationship between metaphor and discourse reveals how metaphors are

discursive and how discourses are metaphorical: “Discourses not only represent the world as it is

(or rather is seen to be), they are also projective, imaginaries, representing possible worlds which

are different from the actual world, and tied in to projects to change the world in particular

directions” (Fairclough 124). Metaphors, in the creative sense, represent “possible worlds” or

selves (i.e., identities, ideologies, and actions) which have the potential to rhetorically act upon

us “to change the world” and our self from what is to what might be. The discourse of

“[c]omposing . . . [, then, is] the intersection of context, text, self, and society. But then too

composing is simultaneously the active (if partial) (re)constructing of these discursive universes

of context, text, self, and society” (Zebroski 5). Like metaphor, composing is the rhetorical

writing and rewriting of the world and our place within it. The ends of discourse are the ends of

metaphor: to sustain interaction, to influence attitudes and behaviors, and to present information

or offer explanations.

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Early Research on Compositional Metaphors

Lad Tobin’s (1989) “Bridging Gaps: Analyzing Our Students’ Metaphors for

Composing” was the first publication to collect data on college-writers’ metaphors. He proposes

that metaphor is an untapped discourse of power between instructors and college-writers:

Once any metaphor becomes dominant in an individual’s mind, in a classroom, in a university, or even in a society, it influences, limits, and controls subsequent actions. For that reason the metaphor itself needs to be examined and debated and, ultimately, negotiated by the group. Metaphors in the composition classroom are valuable to the extent that they establish connections for and between writers. (451)

He mentions how instructors and college-writers, at times, work from different metaphorical

assumptions, such as metaphors that reinforce writing as linear versus nonlinear (450). Tobin

advises that instructors need to open up a line of communication that allows college-writers to

raise “insightful questions about a teacher’s metaphor, of extending it, even of offering one more

appropriate for their own composing experience” (456). Through this back and forth, give and

take “metaphors can help us learn what we need to teach,” he adds (456). If we want to become

better at our craft, then we need to meet our students where they are, which involves encouraging

“students to question, criticize, or develop our metaphors, or, more importantly, to develop their

own” (446). Learning from students’ metaphors should be an important dynamic exercised in

composition classroom pedagogy.

Tobin’s data-collection involves conducting metaphor invention exercises (MIEs) over a

2-year period, where he “collected roughly 500 student metaphors for composing from . . . 120

freshman composition students”—“one in the first week of the course, one in the last week, and

at least one more around midterm. In each case the student was responding in writing to . . . :

‘Writing is like . . .’” (447). Moving from analysis to interpretation, he claims:

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I have attempted to pay particular attention to how metaphors change at different stages of the process and different stages of the course. At the beginning of the course, most of my students use metaphors that are fairly predictable . . . . They think of writing in terms of cooking, building, or manipulating objects, but often as the result of these activities rather than the activities themselves; that is, writing as a pie rather than baking, a house rather than designing or constructing. (447-448)

He concludes, “What is the metaphor telling us about the student’s conception of and attitude

towards the process (as well as the student’s conception of and attitude towards the teacher’s role

in that process)? And what are we doing to contribute, positively or negatively, to that

conception and attitude?” (455). His study is the essential starting point in the history of

researching college-writers’ metaphors for composing.

Overall, Tobin’s research reveals how college-writers’ metaphors for composing are a

rich, insightful area for Rhetoric and Composition to develop theory and practice, but only a

handful of scholars have ventured beyond these initial insights. I expand this body of research by

analyzing ‘collections of writing’ from individual participants instead of solely relying on single

exercises or overgeneralizations, to consider how metaphor not only frames a composition but

also manifests particular archetypal, literate identities across various writing samples.

Another early study of college-writers’ compositional metaphors is Hildy Miller’s (1993)

“Metaphoric Components of Composing Processes,” where she focuses on abstraction and meta-

cognition, researching the emergence of non-textual metaphors as they occur in real-time

writing. Her research explores the paradox “of comprehending how metaphorical thoughts

produce nonmetaphorical texts,” investigating, by means of thought-sampling,14 how college-

14 “Thought sampling is a self-report technique in which subjects respond to a prompt by reporting the last few seconds of thought. After a written thought sample is taken, subjects immediately resume the activity that was interrupted. As a technique for capturing near concurrent thought, it has a strong record showing that it causes minimal interference with ongoing cognitive activity (Klinger, 1978; H.R. Pollio, 1984; Pope & Singer, 1978). Unlike think-aloud protocols that are more often used to study cognitive processes of writers, thought samples are better suited to capture the simultaneous rich mix of half-conscious verbal and nonverbal thought” (Miller 87).

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writers conceptualize the act of composing (81). She addresses that “little research has been done

on [metaphor’s] role in cognitive processes in writing” (79). Her research posits:

What would these [generative, structural] metaphors look like if we could see them? What relationship would these ideas have to those in the emerging text? How would the writers themselves describe the overall role of metaphor in their writing and in the rhetorical context in which they work? (86)

In its entirety, Miller’s data-representation consists of three case-studies taken from a sample-set

of 148 undergraduates from a variety of writing courses. The task was to compose an essay

around “how they learn best” (86):

Throughout the 45 min. writing task, writers were interrupted three times at irregular intervals and asked to fill out written thought sample questionnaires. Two open questions were asked: / 1. What was the last thought you had in your mind just before you were interrupted? Be as detailed and accurate as you can; work backwards to other thoughts if you want to. / 2. What, if any, connection do you think the thought had to your piece of writing? (86)

Metaphors drawn from her case-studies include: searching, floating, projecting, imagining,

jumping, shifting, and “moving back and forth” (89, 90, & 92-3). Most, if not all, of the

metaphors are spatial-relation metaphors, conceptualizing WRITING AS THINKING as WRITING AS

MOVEMENT. Miller’s work advances that metaphor is not only something that appears in a text;

it is a cognitive activity ever-present behind-the-scenes, occurring in the thoughts of writers as

they compose, giving shape to the text but not always explicit in the text itself. An important

limitation of her design, however, rests on not putting the findings in conjunction with additional

writing samples from the same students, making it difficult to construct conclusive case-studies

from a single exercise. The metaphors elicited by the thought-sampling, again, only reflect

metacognitive metaphors, meaning they primarily reflect conceptions of thinking as they occur

during writing.

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Contemporary Relevance and Significance

To demonstrate the contemporary relevance and significance of my work, I now turn to a

handful of studies that have made advances in metaphor research since Tobin and Miller’s initial

studies. In Paulson and Armstrong’s (2011) split study “Mountains and Pit Bulls: Students’

Metaphors for College Transitional Reading and Writing” they research transitional college-

writers’ metaphors for literacy and education. While their study is a replication of Tobin’s (i.e.,

of whom they make no mention), it develops new insights and corroborates previous data,

emending deficits in previous research by analyzing metaphors for reading too, reminding us that

composition involves teaching and researching “ways to read” as well. We cannot propose to

research literacy without inquiring into the whole dynamic of literacy because reading inspires

writing and writing inspires reading. Paulson considers the affect or pathos of each metaphor,

coding for students’ negative or positive connotations, recognizing that “[m]etaphor is

evaluative;” it “‘convey[s] an attitude or mood’” (Averill qtd. in Maalej 149).

The main inquiry of the study addresses “what educators and researchers in the field can

do with the rich conceptual information that is embedded in students’ metaphors for academic

literacies” (494). They explore “students’ conceptualizations of reading and writing [to] help

teachers meet students where they are and guide them to where they need to be” (494). While

this seems commendable at first, it is a misnomer to assume that students’ metaphors, to some

degree, are already misguided. We should be careful how we frame our students’ roles in the

classroom. Instead, my approach considers what college-writers have to offer our curriculums

and course designs. Our students are often using literacy in unique ways that we are sometimes

unaware of. Meeting them where they are at does not necessitate that we know where they need

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to be; they may very well be able to direct us and others in directions we all should be exploring

together.

In the first part of the study, Paulson administered an open-ended survey to collect the

data, “using a ‘complete the stem’ statement. The elicitations [are] as follows: / • College writing

is like _______. How or why? _______ / • College reading is like _______. How or why?

_______ / • The writing and reading class I am enrolled in at the [Center] is like _______. How

or why? _______” (496). To process the data, they use “open coding (Glaser & Strauss, 1967),”

“analyzing participants’ MLEs for evidence of conceptualizations of academic literacies as

inhabiting either of the two parts of a traditional dichotomy in the field: literacy as a product, or

literacy as a process” (497). Categorical representations include: READING IS A JOURNEY/SPORT,

WRITING IS GAMING/EXPRESSION, and THE COURSE IS A LEVEL/RELATIONSHIP (499). Like

Tobin, Paulson too concludes that “there were significantly more product ones, indicating that

some students may hold a deeply engrained [sic] conceptualization of academic literacies as a

passive transmission of an object” (497-498).

The second part of the study details Armstrong’s classroom observation, which involves

facilitating conversation around metaphors for reading: “In [her] college transitional reading

courses, students’ metaphors for reading are solicited on the first day of class. . . . . [T]he

metaphors provided are read aloud to the entire group without identifying the authors” (501). In

terms of interpretation, metaphors from the beginning and mid-semester are reviewed at the end

of the semester “and students are prompted to think about whether their views . . . have changed.

This conversation always includes not only whether views have changed but also, importantly,

why and how” (502). Her pedagogical approach fulfills Tobin’s key admonition that metaphor is

a useful way for instructors and students to communicate and negotiate meaning together.

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Metaphors of note include: “Reading is like going somewhere with no directions” and “Reading

is like water. Even if you don’t like it, it’s essential” (501-502).

Overall, Paulson and Armstrong’s research constrains itself by the process/product frame

for coding, and, like Tobin, they do not explore conceptualizations as they occur across a variety

of genres or different exercises. One type of data can only tell one type of story.

Before Paulson and Armstrong’s published study, however, Gwendolyn A. Hart’s (2009)

dissertation “Composing Metaphors: Metaphors for Writing in the Composition Classroom” took

an observational approach to researching educational metaphors in the composition classroom.

Her data-collection and methodology include conversational data and case-study work around

the experiences of four college writing instructors.

Hart’s study researches metaphors for writing from the instructor’s perspective, centered

around the pedagogical possibility of students and instructors deliberately engaging each other’s

metaphors for the purpose of theorizing how metaphor can be a useful tool for teaching writing.

She accomplishes this by facilitating metaphor workshops conducted over the timespan of four

class visits. The visits are followed by interviews with each of the teachers to discuss their

metaphors and their reaction to their students’ metaphors. Inspired by Tobin’s admonition to

research metaphor as a means for making meaningful connections between student and

instructor, she describes, “Tobin identifies metaphor production as a way of uncovering students’

and teachers’ tacit beliefs about writing, and advocates using dialogue about those metaphors as

a way of improving relationships between students and their writing and between students and

writing teachers” (39-40).

Hart argues for a metaphorical literacy as the ability to recognize, critique, and invent

writing metaphors. She claims “the field of composition, at least at the practical classroom level,

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has suffered from a lack of recognition of the rhetorical nature of metaphor” (15). Her findings

conclude that instructors use metaphor to devise solutions to deal with the felt-difficulties of

teaching composition. The case-study participants’ experiences are summarized as follows: Kate

deals with the felt difficulty of teaching the rules of academic writing by means of a sports

metaphor (70); Pavil deals with the felt difficulty of being a dissertation writer and a writing

instructor through the metaphors of split-personality and balance (120); Winston deals with the

felt difficulty of grading and setting academic standards through the metaphorical tension of

critic and supporter (168); and Ray deals with the felt difficulty of meeting college-writers’

needs through the metaphor of adaptation (214).

An important constraint of her study, however, is its emphasis on instructors’ felt

difficulties, whereas students receive minimal attention. Much like Tobin and others, she

employs a metaphor invention exercise that asks students to fill-in-the-blank (“Writing is like . .

.”); the MIEs are utilized in classroom conversation and recounted later in interviews with the

teacher. Her technique is not so much a matter of recording what is already going on in the

classroom as much as it is to reinvent the classroom through discussion-based metaphor

activities, such as reading articles about scholars’ metaphors (i.e., “Kenneth Burke, Peter Elbow,

David Bartholomae, Mike Rose, Ken Macrorie, and Donald Murray”) and engaging in dialogue

about each other’s personal metaphors for writing (56). Hart acknowledges the limitations and

future implications as including: the need for longitudinal research designs, diverse participant

pools, investigating prevalent metaphors in scholarly research, refining current coding and

categorization methods in metaphor analysis, and further studying how teachers use metaphors

as solutions to navigate the challenges of teaching writing.

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Appearing the same year as Hart’s dissertation, Stephen E. Neaderhiser’s (2009)

dissertation “‘Metaphors we teach by’: representations of disciplinary and teacherly identity”

investigates black-boxing—the uncritical acceptance of others’ metaphors (whether that be the

field’s or an instructor’s) (vi). He also advances that metaphor constructs narrative identity.

Reflecting on this relationship, he quotes compositionist Lisa Ede: “‘Can we be more conscious

of, and more explicit about, the models and metaphors that animate our research and the

narratives that construct us as researchers and teachers?’ (41)” (220). Later, reappearing as the

published article “Conceiving of a Teacherly Identity: Metaphors of Composition in Teaching

Statements,” he explores how “we might be able to observe localized and personalized examples

of disciplinary metaphors, as well as the broader implications and effects of these metaphors as

they are put into practice” (414).

The main objective of the dissertation was to conduct “a theoretical examination and

textual analysis of the metaphors used to describe the act of writing and the teaching of writing”

(vi). He describes, “I was interested in learning how (or if) discipline-specific metaphors

operated as a way to present a compositionist’s identity—an identity that is both individual and

part of the larger discipline” (414, “Conceiving of a Teacherly Identity: . . .”). His research asks,

“How do writing teachers interact or engage with metaphors of writing and the teaching of

writing when representing their teacherly identities?” (414). The primary educational metaphors

he categorizes and explores are “TEACHING-IS-STORY, TEACHING-IS-COMMUNITY, and

TEACHING-IS-CONVERSATION” (124-5, “‘Metaphors we teach by’: . . .”).

Neaderhiser’s data-collection looks at teaching statements, a sample-set of “fifty teaching

statements from forty-nine unique participants” (418, “Conceiving of a Teacherly Identity: . . .”).

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Frequent metaphors coded from these statements include: WRITING AS seeing, building, process,

journey, growing, community, and conversation (423). He adds,

The remaining metaphors were WRITING IS DISCOVERY, WRITING IS SOCIAL ACTION, WRITING IS EXPERIMENTATION, TEACHING IS LEARNING, TEACHING IS FACILITATING, TEACHING/LEARNING IS LOVE, LEARNING IS FOSTERED, and WRITING IS VOICE. (423)

While this has advanced work in researching metaphor and identity, the study is limited by the

broad data-set, whereas Hart looked closely at specific instructors to make claims about how

metaphor reveals things particular to a specific teacher’s identity. Neaderhiser posits his “study

still offers only a limited view of the genre and the metaphors that might appear within it” (438).

Implications for further research “indicate . . . the necessity for a deepened awareness of both

metaphor, in how we consider the interactive potential of our disciplinary metaphors, and genre,

in how we understand the active levels of identity construction and representation that operate

within teaching statements” (438). Indeed, studies like these leave us with questions regarding

not only how instructors problem-solve or represent their identities but how college-writer’s

problem-solve or represent their identities through metaphor.

Furthermore, David Dadurka’s (2012) master’s thesis “Metaphoric Competence As A

Means To Meta-cognitive Awareness In First-Year Composition,” on the other hand, conducts a

metaphor analysis of “more than a dozen first-year composition students’ end-of-semester

writing portfolios” to assess college-writers’ “meta-cognitive awareness, mindfulness, and

reflection” (iii). Unlike other researchers mentioned here, he includes the autoethnographic

analysis of his own compositional metaphors. Adopting a writing-about-writing pedagogy, he

collects metaphorical responses from his students using their own autoethnographic reflections,

recorded using videoed think-aloud protocols.

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The main inquiry of Dadurka’s research centers around how his own metaphors impact

his writing and pedagogy and how students’ metaphoric competence enhances their acquisition

of writing (17). Categorical metaphors used to frame the study are largely borrowed from

compositionist Philip Eubanks (2011), with the addition of flow: WRITING AS TRANSMISSION,

WRITING AS TRANSACTION, WRITING AS FLOW, and WRITING AS TRANSCRIPTION. Like Hart,

his research is an example of what it looks like to open up classroom dialogue about metaphor’s

role in composition. He outlines:

For this research project, I sought answers to the following questions: / 1. What are the metaphors that I used during my graduate studies to describe writing? . . . / 2. What metaphors did students in my writing classes use to describe writing processes? What changes, if any, occurred in these students’ definitions of writing and metaphors of writing between the beginning and end of the semester? (17)

Specifically, the data-collection consists of student portfolios containing “auto-ethnographies,

related essays on the topic of revision, think-aloud protocols, student journals, and end-of-

semester reflection letters” (17-18). Dadurka adds that these data samples represent “student

writing self-portraits” (2).

While Dadurka “found [that] students’ writing self-portraits appeared to be more

consistent with transmission models of writing and metaphorical expressions licensed by the

Conduit Metaphor, those of ‘conveyance,’ ‘flow,’ ‘fluency,’ ‘blocks,’ and

‘economy/efficiency,’” this, again, allows us to only make general claims about how college-

writers conceptualize literacy instead of how they particularly conceptualize it (72-73). To get at

how college-writers’ metaphors for writing speak to their identity, researchers need to begin to

move beyond broader generalizations so that we can analyze the peculiarities of particular

college-writers’ identities.

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Lastly, in “Adult literacy students’ metaphors of reading and writing” by Donita Shaw

and Marc Mahlios (2014), they examine metaphors for reading and writing used by adult

learners. Their data-collection tool provided a list of metaphors for participants to choose from,

or they could add and develop their own. A major limitation of this type of instrument is pre-

selecting types of metaphors for participants to choose from: one, because it limits the creativity

of the exercise by giving participants prescribed ways of viewing literacy instead of being

challenged to generate their own, and two, because it falls prey to reinforcing dominant

perceptions instead of exploring new directions. Metaphors for reading included: puzzle, door, a

tree, walking, mountain-climbing, and the “self-created” metaphors of bird flight or napping on a

cloud (25). Metaphors for writing included: baking, flowering, running, bike-riding, trail-

walking, and the “self-created” metaphors of gardening and speaking in silence (26). Shaw and

Mahilios advocate that different types of metaphors correlate with increased levels of proficiency

in literacy learning: metaphors of growth with development, metaphors of procedure with

behaviorism, metaphors of journeying with constructivism, metaphors of mobility with social

learning, and metaphors of physical challenge with cognitive processing (28). Implications

drawn from their research express that metaphor analysis is a means to value the identities and

narratives of students, giving educators the ability to learn more about their students through

metaphor (28). Metaphor analysis gives educators insight into how to support students and their

learning experiences (29).

In the next section, I cover how my study aims to advance the present body of research.

Research Questions: Motivations, Difficulties, New Directions, and Resolutions

I identify the following concerns as new directions in researching college-writers’

compositional metaphors:

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• Moving beyond MIEs to other methods of data-generation, such as researching

literacy narratives

• Researching naturally-occurring conversation regarding writing, such as student-

teacher conferencing

• Developing descriptive student case-studies, which utilize a variety of writing

samples to triangulate and draw interpretations from

• Advancing CMT’s potential to further methods in identity research within Rhetoric

and Composition

Because metaphors both illuminate and constrain meaning, they require us to critically

consider not only how our field conceptualizes its own object of study but how, as instructors,

our own literacy-metaphors illuminate and constrain our pedagogy or, alternatively, how college-

writers’ metaphors for literacy continue to illuminate and constrain their acquisition of our

practice.

Broadly, my study investigates how metaphorical conceptualization impacts the

generative, creative aspects of composing—how literacy-metaphors affect why and how we read

and write. As educational philosopher Eva Feder Kittay suggests, researching metaphor

“‘advance[s] our understanding of cognitive and creative processes’ (9)” (qtd. in Booth & Frisbie

166). And though there are largely two distinct levels to metaphoric representation, many studies

have not paid particular attention to how these are differentiated in their data (i.e., they are often

collapsed into one another or mistaken for the other). This has led me to identify how both

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implicit metaphors (i.e., conceptual-metaphors)15 and explicit metaphors (i.e., novel, poetic

figures)16 influence and shape how we conceptualize the composing process?

At present our discipline has only begun to explore the role of conceptual metaphor in

conceptualizing composition. From this position I put forth a conceptual model of composing,

which focuses on the cognitive frames that inform how writers metaphorically contextualize their

reading and writing activity.

So, why investigate the variety of metaphors instructors and college-writers have come to

rely on? The answer: to increase and widen our perspectives for teaching writing, to search out

new paradigms, and to develop new writing pedagogies inspired by critical metaphor analysis.

As a Rhetoric and Composition researcher, my primary goal in applying CMT to literacy is to

demonstrate how metaphor influences writing activity as well as reveals something of our

identities as readers and writers.

Researching first-year-composition classrooms provides insight into how college-writers’

metaphors for literacy influence their literate activity, either hindering or enriching it. The

college-writer is in a unique position because they can provide us with insight into the influence

of metaphor on the development and acquisition of academic literate practices and reveal how

those practices are in turn influenced by the literacies they bring to the classroom.

The research questions of my study are:

15 For example: Achilles roared. = ACHILLES IS A FEROCIOUS ANIMAL. This is a conceptual metaphor because the relationship between the source, which is “Achilles,” and the target, which is “lion,” is implied in the verb. Metaphor analysts refer to this type of meaning as implicit because the metaphor is not outright stated. 16 For example: Achilles is a lion. This is an explicit metaphor because the target is not implied but stated outright as a literary device.

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1) How do college-writers’ conceptions of reading and writing—their figurative

thinking—influence, shape and impact their interactions with reading and writing as

well as situate themselves as certain types of readers and writers?

2) What are some of the most prevalent as well as rare metaphors for conceptualizing

literacy among first-year college-writers?

3) How do instructors’ and college-writers’ metaphors compare and contrast?

4) In what ways might college-writers’ literacy-metaphors encourage us to reimagine

composition pedagogy?

In its entirety, the design of the dissertation is to: a) establish my research scope, b)

narrate the history of metaphor analysis in the college composition classroom, c) detail my

methodology and findings, and d) highlight my contributions to conceptual metaphor research

within composition pedagogy. My research exists to create a catalogue of the metaphors college-

writers read and write by; synthesize previous studies on college-writers’ compositional

metaphors; demonstrate and legitimize a methodology for conducting metaphor analysis in

Composition studies; and give voice to my students, allowing them to teach through my research.

Study Overview: Chapter Synopses

Chapter Two: Literature Review: In this chapter I review the major movements in the

history of metaphor theory in Rhetoric and summarize key studies in the history of metaphor

analysis in Composition. In the rhetorical tradition I give an overview of the five major shifts in

theorizing metaphor: substitution, comparison, interaction, conceptual, and archetypal. In writing

studies, I highlight key research designs that have made a case for metaphor’s significance in the

composing process.

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Chapter Three: Methodology and Methods: In this chapter I detail the methodologies

and methods of my research design. The methodologies that inform my research design include:

Teacher-Research, Critical Pedagogy, (Auto)Ethnography, and Critical Metaphor Analysis. Each

of these standpoints influences and determines data-collection methods and analytic procedures.

My research methods consist of an analysis of a variety of classroom assignments and

exercises: reflecting on and reacting to professional quotes about writing, inventing personal

metaphors for writing, composing literacy narratives, generating peer-review marginalia,

exploring revision reflections, answering survey questions about the composing process, and

conferencing.

Chapter 4: Sara’s Text and Talk Data: In this chapter I present analyses of Sara’s17

writing samples and conferencing, moving from data-collection to analysis and discussion.

Chapter 5: David’s Text and Talk Data: In this chapter I present analyses of David’s

writing samples and conferencing, moving from data-collection to analysis and discussion.

Chapter 6: Metaphor Invention Exercises: As a follow up, I report the comprehensive

results of all MIEs.

Chapter 7: Metaphorical Profiles: In the final chapter I reflect on CMT’s potential to

influence composition pedagogy. I weigh what each metaphorical profile tells us about what our

students have to teach us about literacy.

17 All student-participant names have been replaced with aliases to secure anonymity.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors. —C.G. Jung from the Collected Works of C.G. Jung,

Vol. 9 (Part 1): Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

In the first chapter I introduced why metaphor matters for the composition classroom,

reviewing the most relevant studies and detailing my research questions. In this chapter I narrate

the history of metaphor in Rhetoric and Composition. I divide this discussion into two parts: A

Brief History of Metaphor Theory in the Rhetorical Tradition, and A Review of Metaphor

Analysis in Composition Studies.

A Brief History of Metaphor Theory in the Rhetorical Tradition

Names are the essence of language; for the name is what abstracts the conception of the [thing] from the [thing] itself.

—Susanne K. Langer from “Language and Thought”

In this section, I offer a summary of each theoretical shift, outlining how theorizing about

metaphor has evolved: Substitution Theory, Comparison Theory, Interaction Theory, Conceptual

Theory, and Archetypal Theory.18 As I do so, I describe each theoretical shift using the meta-

metaphors:19 Allegory; Similitude; Exchange; Frame, Map or Domain; and Narrative.

Since rhetoric is the “available means of persuasion” (Kennedy 37) for “inducing

cooperation” (Burke 20-21, emphasis in original) and “altering reality . . . by the creation of

18 The Substitution, Comparison, and Interaction views are defined in Black’s “XII–Metaphor,” presented at Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, from which my descriptions are taken. It is also important to note that these are imposed definitions, not the classifications given by philosophers whose time period we are reviewing. These categories allow us to retrospectively compartmentalize our understanding of what metaphor may have meant at certain times to certain people in certain fields of study. 19 Refer back to “The New Rhetoric of Metaphor” for a definition of meta-metaphor.

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discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action” (Bitzer 4), it is

important to acknowledge metaphor’s rhetorical capacity. As a feature of rhetoric, metaphor is

one of the most significant means of persuasion. Metaphor charms and enchants, elevating

language, enriching elegance and eloquence. To the average person, however, metaphor is often

mistaken to be the poet’s concern, despite the fact that it is essential to our everyday meaning-

making. Metaphor has gone from being thought of as a matter of style to the very building-block

of ideology. Metaphor imparts new ideas and concepts by altering perceptions, giving a thing the

name of something else for the purpose of creating novel identifications between concept and

rhetor. Even the goal of rhetoric itself is pseudo-metaphorical: “[M]etaphor tells us something

about one character as considered from the point of view of another character. And to consider A

from the point of view of B is, of course, to use B as a perspective upon A” (Burke 503-504,

emphasis in original). Moreover, an important psychological affect—or pathos—of metaphor is

to procure empathy—to experience “thou art that” or this is that. Empathy, above all else,

induces cooperation. Metaphor is rhetorical:

Rhetoric offers a bridge between worlds private and public, academic and civil—and we argue that the role of metaphor is a central place to begin. Metaphor’s power to create knowledge is crucial to our students, as consumers and producers of texts. By spelling out metaphors, investigating the narratives buried within them, and examining the assumptions that framed their creation, we can lead our students to a richer understanding of how metaphor, like language more generally, can shape, reshape, and even create a reality. (Booth & Frisbie 164)

Aristotle was among the first classical Greek scholars to categorize and theorize

metaphor. Aristotelian scholar George A. Kennedy (2007) points out, “Metaphora is itself a

metaphor and literally means ‘carrying something from one place to another, transference’”

(199). As we can see, the figurative language used to describe metaphor assists us in tracing the

history of metaphor because it reveals how our thoughts about metaphor evolve as the discourse

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around metaphor evolves. The paradox of metaphor is that it cannot be adequately defined

without it. The conceptual metaphors behind the original Greek (i.e., METAPHOR IS A

CONTAINER (FOR CARRYING) and METAPHOR IS TRAVELING) conjure the everyday image of

carrying an item from one place to another. In this analogy, the ‘item’ is meaning and ‘place’ is

the new meaning. (As an aside, we must distinguish that Aristotle does not theorize metaphor at

this level, but we may benefit from rereading him and other theorists through CMT.)

Aristotle’s famous definition in the Poetics provides that metaphor is “‘giving the thing a

name that belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to species, or from

species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy’ (Poetics, 1457b)” (qtd. in

Johnson 5). For Aristotle, METPAHOR IS NAMING or RENAMING, conceptualizing linguistics

through the discourse of taxonomy. He explicitly stresses that metaphor is a matter of style, of

adorning language with “clarity and sweetness and strangeness;” it can be used for comedic

purposes (i.e., Kennedy 204) or to incite the senses (202); though it, more importantly, “brings

about learning” (200, 218). Beyond naming and definition, the pedagogical function (i.e., the

ability to teach) appears to hold precedence for Aristotle, of making the abstract concrete, the

unknown known, the unfamiliar familiar. In another aphorism, he describes that metaphor is like

employing the service of a soldier or persuasive lower-ranking official: “‘[T]he greatest thing by

far is to have command[—or be master—]of metaphor’” (qtd. in Kövecses viii, my emphasis).

Substitution Theory: Metaphor as Allegory

The dominant view in Aristotle’s time, Substitution Theory, presupposes that any figure

can be replaced with its literal referent. A familiar Homeric example, which demonstrates this,

is: Achilles is a lion. From a substitutionist standpoint, the noun phrase “a lion” can be replaced

with its literal referent, “fierce in battle.” Metaphorical meaning from this perspective is

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allegorical, conceptualizing figurative language as a one-to-one relationship. The idea of

substitution is best exemplified when Aristotle explains, “Metaphor from analogy should always

have a correspondence between two species of the same genus: thus, if the wine cup is the

‘shield’ of Dionysus, the shield can fittingly be called the ‘cup’ of Ares” (Kennedy 206). An

important limitation of this perspective, however, is that it does not account for concepts for

which no literal, concrete referent exists, such as with emotions, aesthetics, or metaphysical

concerns like the Divine: “Metaphor is one our most important tools for trying to comprehend

partially what cannot be comprehended totally: our feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral

practices and spiritual awareness” (Lakoff & Johnson 134, “Metaphors We Live By” from The

Production of Reality: Essays and Readings on Social Interaction).

Comparison Theory: Metaphor as Similitude

Aristotle remarks that “‘a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the

similarity in dissimilars’ (Poetics, 1459a)” (qtd. in Johnson 6). He adds, “[M]etaphors should be

transferred from things that are related but not obviously so” (Kennedy 223). In this sense,

metaphor is approached as an elliptical simile, a position later held by Cicero and Quintilian,

meaning that “likeness” is always implied. But there is an arguable difference between the

assertions is like or is, that is, other than the addition of a single word. Simile highlights

resemblance between the features of different categories but metaphor argues that the categories

are equivalent, such as “She wept tears of wine,” instead of “She wept tears that were like wine.”

Similarity is the creative result of juxtaposition. Metaphor therefore generates similarity. Like the

substitution view, the comparison view does not account for the fact that many definitions are

metaphorical in nature and do not likely have an equivalent simile counterpart. The rhetorical

degree of meaning sets metaphor apart from simile. For example, if I propose “tears are wine”

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instead of “tears are like wine,” it bolsters the image’s meaning. In this instance, the meaning of

A is B is not the same as A is like B. Metaphor is not only comparison; it is definition. It is not

merely a matter of likeness the rhetor wants to assert; it is conceptual equivalency. All similes

are like metaphors, but not all metaphors are similes. Take for instance, the spiritual argument

“God is love.” If this were stated as a simile, we see that it does not have the same affect, impact,

or meaning: “God is like love.” All similes imply a conceptual relationship, but stress likeness

over equivalency. Whereas, metaphor stresses equivalency over likeness.

Around this same time, two of the most famous detractors of metaphor were political

philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Hobbes asserts metaphor deceives, often leading

to conflict: “‘[M]etaphors, and senseless and ambiguous words, are like ignes fatui; and

reasoning upon them is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities; and their end, contention

and sedition, or contempt’ (Leviathan, pt. I, chap. 5)” (qtd. in Johnson 11). Locke too

acknowledges metaphor’s divisiveness: “‘[A]ll the artificial and figurative application of words

eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions,

and thereby mislead the judgement; and so indeed are perfect cheats’” (qtd. in Geary 18). These

criticisms, however, are based on two false assumptions: 1). All figurative language has a literal

counterpart, and 2). Only literal language communicates truth. Ironically, Locke and Hobbes’

own objections rely quite heavily on certain figurative tropes. Hobbes uses metaphor (i.e.,

metaphoric reasoning is wandering). Locke uses personification (i.e., metaphor insinuates and

misleads) and metonymy, ACTION-FOR-ACTOR (i.e., metaphors are perfect cheats, assuming

LIFE/LANGUAGE IS A GAME).

Locke and Hobbes’ skepticism, however, does warrant some merit because even

Aristotle, an influential proponent of metaphor, had reservations about the trustworthiness of it.

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As communications scholar Vernon Jensen (1983) notes, “Like subliminal advertising,

[metaphors] may well be subtly influencing us more than we realize. We unconsciously absorb

their images and underlying assumptions, unmindful of what they are doing to us and to the

subject matter” (201). Metaphor can be used to manipulate and deceive, just as much as it can

teach and reveal truth.

Interaction Theory: Metaphor as Exchange

Interaction Theory has been mostly associated with the work of Max Black, but runs

through I.A. Richards’ and Kenneth Burke’s as well, paralleling ideas in symbolic

interactionism. Black “made the provocative claim that . . . metaphors . . . create similarities

between things, rather than merely express preexisting ones” (Johnson 19). The interactionist

premise holds that commonplace meanings associated with perspective A interact with

commonplace meanings associated with perspective B, out of which metaphoric meaning is

made. Both terms therefore act upon one another to generate similarity. Interaction, in this sense,

is triangulation; by comparing perspectives A and B, their interaction results in perspective C.

Consider Shakespeare’s quote, “All the world’s a stage.” Stage not only influences how we

conceptualize world, but world influences how we conceptualize stage. To produce the extended

metaphor or analogy, the poet must consider all discursive associations belonging to “world:”

people, roles, and life/death. The poet must then consider all associations belonging to “stage:”

player, act, and entrance/exit. Thus, from an interactionist standpoint, metaphoric meaning is

reciprocal and does not solely move linearly from vehicle to tenor. Metaphor occurs in the

blended space or interaction between commonplace associations, like a Venn diagram: “In other

words, metaphor works by combining its two elements, not by substituting one for the other”

(Seitz 42-43). Richards describes the moment of discovering creative similarities as “‘two

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thoughts of different things active together and supported by a single word, or phrase, whose

meaning is a resultant of their interaction’ (p. 93)” (qtd. in Johnson 19, my emphasis). French

philosopher Paul Ricœur also provides that “‘metaphor holds together within one simple

meaning two different missing parts of different contexts of this meaning. Thus, we are not

dealing any longer with a simple transfer of words, but with a commerce between thoughts, that

is a transaction between contexts’” (qtd. in Charteris-Black 2, my emphasis). Burke also notes

that metaphor reciprocally brings out “the thisness of a that, or the thatness of a this”—the

worldness of stage, or the stageness of world (503). Interaction Theory’s limitation lies in the

assumption that metaphoric interaction is primarily located in linguistic associations instead of

constituting cognitive domains for which commonplace associations already exist.

Conceptual Theory: Metaphor as Frame, Map, or Domain

The conceptual shift gains prominence with Richards’ claim in The Philosophy of

Rhetoric, “‘Thought is metaphoric, and proceeds by comparison, and the metaphors of language

derive therefrom’ (p. 94)” (qtd. in Johnson 18). Even before Richards and Lakoff and Johnson,

educational philosopher Alexander Bain (1867) likewise claimed that figures “parallel . . . mental

operations,” that “[i]t is a natural function of the mind . . . to generate metaphor, metonymy, and

antithesis” (1142). Even earlier still, rhetorician and compositionist Hugh Blair (1783)

recognized that “there are few sentences of any length, in which some expression or the other,

that may be termed a figure, does not occur” and “many a [person] uses metaphorical

expressions to good purpose, without any idea of what a metaphor is” (962, 963). To prove this,

Blair points out, “[W]e speak of piercing judgment, and a clear head; a soft or hard heart; a

rough or smooth behaviour. We say, inflamed by anger, warmed by love, swelled with pride,

melted into grief” (963). Early speculations and hypotheses such as these led cognitive linguists

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George Lakoff and Mark Johnson to claim that metaphor is first and foremost manifest in

thought—and structures thought—before it is manifest in language. Thought and language are

interdependent; through linguistic acquisition thought adapts to language and language adapts to

thought. Conceptual metaphor is evidence of a pre-linguistic feature of mind, the forming of

neuro-links between concepts, like feelings, sensations, visual impressions, etc. As Lakoff has

mentioned elsewhere, very early on we learn to associate warmth with love (i.e., LOVE IS

WARMTH; ‘warmed my heart’) long before we have the language to communicate it because we

have experienced the two phenomena simultaneously, again and again, and the repetition forms a

conceptual link, which later adapts the linguistic counterpart to the experiential one. Abstracted

feelings of love are therefore associated with comfort and security.

Because our conceptual system is metaphorical, our metaphors frame and govern how we

see the world and understand our place in it. For example, in one our most archaic conceptual

metaphors LIFE IS A JOURNEY, the domain JOURNEY frames and governs how we narrate LIFE:

traveling, direction, signs, guides, paths, ways, roads, landmarks, places, and destinations. The

linguistic evidence suggests that the domains for living and journeying have formed a conceptual

link, which continues to frame how we talk about life.

Archetypal Theory: Metaphor as Narrative Identity

[M]ythology is a compendium of metaphors. —Joseph Campbell from “Understanding Mythology with Joseph Campbell”

Metaphor offers ways to reconceptualize domains of knowledge and create new ones by

constructing narratives. A narrative theory of metaphor is currently underdeveloped in the

literature. Certain scholars like philosopher Donald Schön (1979) and work in the literary sub-

field of mythological criticism as well as elements of analytic psychology and psycho-therapy

have contributed to further this notion, and many fruitful links have been made between myth-

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making and figurative language. We have yet to see a cohesive publication on the subject,

however. In Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy, Schön

defines generative metaphor as that which frames “‘our perspectives on the world: how we think

about things, make sense of reality, and set the problems we later try to solve’ (Schön, 1979, p.

254)” (qtd. in Tomlinson 58). A specific example he cites is A SLUM IS A BLIGHT/DISEASE,

which demonstrates how metaphors, to a degree, tell stories. He suggests that we need to be

critical of the types of metaphorical stories we tell because they set the frame for defining,

understanding, and reacting to something. To return to a previous example—located in footnote

5—in Thibodeau and Boroditsky’s study, crime was implicitly conceptualized as either a VIRUS

or a BEAST, depending upon the focus group. What the experiment revealed was that metaphors

frame how audiences react to social problems based on differences in generative metaphors.

These metaphors are perfect examples of narrative metaphor because they construct a type of

story the rhetor wants to tell about something:

[M]etaphor plays a crucial role, helping us create a ‘story’ we can make sense of and identify with. We are all familiar with the experience of telling a story from different perspectives, adding or deleting—or altering—details depending on our observations, feelings, and thoughts. This selection process is driven by the metaphor maker’s worldview, which comes out of the nexus of assumptions, life experiences, moral and religious beliefs, political affiliations, and so on that shape us. (Booth & Frisbie 167)

Narrative metaphors generate mythemes (e.g., birth, struggle, journey/quest, death and rebirth),

which emerge from certain archetypal positions. If crime or poverty is a disease, the reader

becomes a medical researcher looking for a cure; if crime is a beast, then the reader becomes an

animal-tamer trying to track and cage it. Narrative metaphors therefore rely on certain archetypal

positions to “tell” the story, to get us to identify with it and accept its underlying assumptions, to

persuade us to immerse ourselves in its vision of the world.

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To date, there has been minimal research demonstrating the relationship between

conceptual metaphors and archetypes, even though it is hard to study one without the other.

Swiss analytic psychologist Carl G. Jung (1959) defined archetype as a deep universal structure

of the psyche. These universal images, patterns, or ideas are the unconscious source from which

literary archetypes manifest, making literary archetypes conscious, cultural projections of the

archetypes of the unconscious. Our earliest archetypal examples are mythological; the gods and

goddesses of ancient religious traditions are among the primordial literary archetypes.

Furthermore, Jung claimed, “There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life”:

Mother, Father, Child, etc. (48). In the rhetorical tradition, Michael Osborn (1967) was among

the first to demonstrate persuasive connections between metaphor and archetype, analyzing the

archetypal metaphors of “light and darkness, the sun, heat and cold, and the cycle of the seasons”

(117).

An archetype is the root source of a conceptual metaphor. For example, ARGUMENT IS

WAR is manifest in the cultural milieu because the Warrior archetype—or its destructive shadow-

side—continues to be associated with argumentation, producing the meta-narrative of conflict in

argumentative discourse. Each metaphor, therefore, has an archetypal pattern or meta-narrative

associated with it. The metaphors interlocutors use to identify themselves thus identify which

archetypes are giving rise to those metaphors.

Beyond literary criticism, archetypes have been implemented in psychometric

assessments, which, on therapeutic grounds, argue, “Identifying which archetypes are influential

in our lives can thus lead us to self-discovery, self-awareness, growth, and self-actualization”

(“Archetypes: Discovering Unconscious Patterns,” para. 7). From this perspective, archetypes

are rhetorical energies we summon power and energy from. If we need to be courageous, we

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summon the power of the Warrior. If we need to be prudent and discerning, we summon the

power of the Sage. American, Jungian analyst James Hillman (1989) offers, “Let us then imagine

archetypes as the deepest patterns of psychic functioning, the roots of the soul governing the

perspectives we have of ourselves and the world” (23). Like conceptual metaphor, archetypes too

govern our perspective of ourselves and our world, which is why defining the relationship

between the two is critical for furthering identity research.

Most identity research in Literacy, Rhetoric, and Composition can be attributed to James

Paul Gee’s (2012) sociolinguistic approach developed in Social Linguistics and Literacies:

Ideology in Discourses as well as Elizabeth Moje (2009) et al.’s “Literacy and Identity:

Examining the Metaphors in History and Contemporary Research,” in which she follows the

metaphorical trajectories of “(1) difference, (2) sense of self/subjectivity, (3) mind or

consciousness, (4) narrative, and (5) position” (415). Gee posits that reading and writing are not

only cognitive skillsets but performative identities out of which we make meaning as we

respond, conjecture, and argue positions (32). He takes a narrative approach to identity, where

readers and writers project something of their core identity into the discourses they participate in

(24). Literacy researchers Cynthia Lewis and Antillana del Valle (2008) present that we “do

more than perform [our] identities; [we] are discursively engaged in a process that brings identity

into being” (316). Moreover, this defines “literacy [as] a medium for self-discovery and self-

formation” (Moje et al. 426). Narrative positioning in literacy allows for an evolving concept of

identity, where people “tell stories about themselves . . . but also . . . shift positions and tell new

stories” (431). Archetype and metaphor capture this narrativization as readers and writers talk

and write about their experiences with reading and writing.

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Using CMT in conjunction with Archetypal Psychology provides a unique heuristic for

analyzing the metaphorical, archetypal identities that—in the context of my study—college-

writers use to situate themselves and their writing. My research repurposes archetypal theorist

Carol S. Pearson’s work, arguing that the metaphors we read and write by are motivated by the

archetypes we read and write by. Pearson’s archetypal taxonomy was first outlined in Awakening

the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World

(1991) and was later used to design the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator® Instrument.

Pearson describes, “Freedom begins the moment we become conscious of the plot line we

are living and, with this insight, recognize that we can step into another story altogether. . . . .

What our lives are like, then, depends on the scripts we consciously or, more likely,

unconsciously have adopted” (17). The plot line she refers to, then, is the meta-narrative, which

is sustained by a variety of metaphorical assumptions, grounded in certain archetypal positions.

Being aware of the archetypes and metaphors we live by allows us to adopt new scripts and try

out new ways of seeing, being, and doing. She advises, “A good practice to ensure that you are

seeing all sides of an issue is to identify the archetypes that have been speaking through the

arguments you have considered and discover the other archetypal positions that might be of

help” (31). In the same manner, we need to be more conscious of the metaphors that frame our

arguments, seeking to discover new metaphors that may offer a more applicable degree of

meaning or improve outcomes.

The following table includes modified descriptions of Pearson’s 12 archetypes (each

description reimplements her original archetypal concepts as applied to literacy):

Table 1.1

Archetypes and Meta-narratives

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Archetype Meta-narrative Literacy is about . . .

Idealist Optimism, trust, and faith.

Everyperson Resilience, survival, and community.

Warrior Discipline, courage, and competition/achievement.

Altruist Compassion, generosity, and self-sacrifice.

Wanderer Independence, authenticity, and self-discovery.

Romantic Enthusiasm, passion, and commitment.

Revolutionary Innovation, empowerment, and liberty.

Creator Imagination, invention, and advancement.

Magician Charisma, inspiration, and transformation.

Ruler Influence, leadership, and power.

Sage Curiosity, wisdom, and truth.

Comic Play, joy, and freedom.

This section has summed up the general progression of thought on metaphor from a

rhetorical perspective. I now turn to the history of metaphor as it pertains to Composition

Studies.

A Review of Metaphor Analysis in Composition Studies

In this section, I review handbook literature, the cognitive turn, the figurative rhetoric of

writing, and teacher-research applications.

Composition, according to the Conference on College Composition and

Communication’s vision statement, is “a human activity that empowers individuals and

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communities to shape their worlds” (“About CCCC,” para. 2). Writing Studies scholar Charles

Bazerman (2004) defines composition as “the study of writing—its production, its circulation, its

uses, its role in the development of individuals, societies and cultures” (32). Composing also

incorporates other activities and mediums associated with writing (i.e., multimodality), which

often integrate writing into their production but are not always manifest as solely written

products, such as advertisements, brochures, presentations, podcasts, videos, and web-texts of all

sorts, etc. In 1996, The New London Group proposed—what they referred to as—a more neutral

position for defining literacy studies: “[A] metalanguage of multiliteracies based on the concept

of design” (77); “we are both inheritors of patterns and conventions of meaning and at the same

time active designers of meaning. And, as designers of meaning, we are designers of social

futures—workplace futures, public futures, and community futures” (65). Gee (2007) also

metaphorically explores this relationship in What Video Games Have to Teach Us About

Learning and Literacy through the metaphor Education/Literacy is Game Design. While literacy

as a design study has yet to fully be realized or commonly accepted, it is important for us to keep

alternatives such as these in mind as composing and content-creation evolve. As cinematic

educator Elizabeth Daley (2003) points out—arguing for a multimedia definition of literacy—

screen metaphors have already made their way into our common, everyday vernacular:

Close-up is synonymous for ‘in-depth’ and ‘penetrating.’ We speak of flashing back to our earlier lives. We frame events to put them in context. We cut to the chase when we are in a hurry. We dissolve or fade out or segue from one topic to another, and we have background sound. (34)

The language of the screen and multimodal design have crossed over with how we (might) talk

about reading and writing: angle, background, capture, collage, continuity, contrast, cue, cut,

display, focus, forefront, juxtaposition, lens, montage, pace/rhythm, POV, project, (re)mix, scan,

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scroll, sequence, and superimpose. In the age of DIY audio-visual content-creators, design may

very well be the new composition.

What Literacy, Discourse, Rhetoric, and Composition/Writing Studies all have in

common, however, is: they represent or manifest culture; they consider who empowers whom,

how and why; they focus on the usage of language in context; they substantiate and project

agency, mediating thought and action; and they create and hold together social realities.

Likewise, these are the social functions of metaphor, which is why it is—and should be—a

central concern for our field of study.

Handbooks and Writing Guides

The St. Martin’s Handbook by Andrea A. Lunsford is widely used in FYCs and offers

only a stylistic approach to metaphor—a point of critique Seitz made almost three decades ago.

As Jensen claims, metaphor “is a study of invention (and to some degree, disposition) more than

a study of style” (207). Occupying only 2-3 pages of the handbook, the advice on figurative

language broadly covers metaphor’s imaginative and comparative appeal and warns against

clichés and mixed metaphors. There is no mention of how it contributes to ideology, such as with

the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR, which perpetuates a penchant for conquest

rhetoric20. Describing the relationship between ideology and metaphor, Christopher Hart

explains:

Metaphors are ideological . . . in so far as they ‘define in significant part what one takes as reality’ (Chilton and Lakoff 1995: 56). According to Chilton (1996: 74), metaphors ‘can contribute to a situation where they privilege one understanding of reality over others’. (2)

20 In Inviting Transformation: Presentational Speaking for a Changing World, Sonja K. Foss and Karen A. Foss (2012) outline five different genres of rhetoric: conquest, conversion, benevolent, advisory, and invitation. Each genre is constituted by a specific metaphorical intent: “to conquer,” “to convert,” “to assist,” “to instruct,” and “to offer”. And each verb phrase represents an ideological position from which we communicate and persuade. This is how metaphor pervades all discourse and structures composition.

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As Booth and Frisbie note, “It is troubling to see in [writing handbooks] a representation of

metaphor so contrary to the view of those most aware of metaphor’s cognitive force, its potential

to shape a writer’s prose or a reader’s views” (169). While Lunsford advances that “all language

is metaphoric, referring to something beyond the word itself for which the word is a symbol,”

conceptual or rhetorical implications are not furthered nor detailed (535). Indeed, Lunsford’s

own definition of writing implicitly highlights the importance of metaphor as a framing device—

WRITING IS A TECHNOLOGY:

[A] technology for creating conceptual frameworks and creating, sustaining, and performing lines of thought within those frameworks, drawing from and expanding on existing conventions and genres, utilizing signs and symbols, incorporating materials drawn from multiple sources, and taking advantage of the resources of a full range of media. (“Writing, Technologies, and the Fifth Canon,” 171)

While this may seem like an oversight, the St. Martin’s Handbook is a telling artifact,

showcasing how metaphor is still, by and large, taught as a stylistic device despite the fact that

it’s been almost 30 years since the conceptual turn in metaphor research. My suspicion is that

this is the typical approach which continues to dominate most FYCs today. Even the commonly

relied upon website The Purdue Online Writing Lab has no reference for conceptual metaphor.

The state of rhetorical education and metaphor reveal how it is still predominantly treated

as a matter of poetry or an economy of style, instead of being representative of the mental faculty

of conceptualization itself.

The Cognitive Turn and the Composing Process

A model is a metaphor for a process: a way to describe something, such as the composing process.

—Flower and Hayes from “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing”

To situate the history of metaphor research in Composition, it is relevant to review the

emergence of cognitive rhetoric in writing studies during the 1970s-80s.

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The cognitive turn was forwarded by Linda Flower and John R. Hayes’ (1981) “A

Cognitive Process Theory of Writing.” In it they propose, “Writing processes may be viewed as

the writer’s tool kit. In using the tools, the writer is not constrained to use them in a fixed order

or in stages. And using any tool may create the need to use another” (376). Cognitivists shifted

their attention to inquiries regarding what occurs meta-textually as writers compose, for the

purpose of understanding the composing process based on what writers actually do when they

write. Much of the early research in cognition and writing, however, was fueled by a desire to

close the disparity gap between novice and expert writers. Flower and Hayes were also reacting

to the previous Stage Model, which approached writing as a prescriptive linear checklist:

prewriting, writing, and rewriting. They otherwise identified three recursive strategies in writing:

planning, translating, and reviewing (i.e., evaluation and revision).

Extending Flower and Hayes’ initial model, Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia

(1983) revise the reviewing process to include compare, diagnose and operate. Later Flower and

Hayes (1986-7) modified their own model to include the sub-stages of: “1) processes, which

involved reading to evaluate, selecting a strategy, and executing the revision; and 2) knowledge,

which included task definition, criteria for planning and text, problem representation, and

revision procedures” (Becker 29). Furthermore, N. Ann Chenoweth and Hayes (2001)

subsequently devised a new model around the processes of proposing, translating, revising, and

transcribing. (26-36)

Because these models are based on the tasks, operations, choices and decisions of

individual writers while they compose, there is an attempt to portray the composing process as

varied and more complex than previously thought. The limitation of these models, however,

belies the fact that they are more representative of the researcher’s perception and perspective

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than the participants’. If writers were to invent and investigate their own models or metaphors for

their composing, we would encounter the complexity of a participant’s own perceptions and

perspectives rather than the researcher’s. For instance, a writer may reject or accept the

composing process as Flower and Hayes’ tool(kit)-metaphor or Bereiter and Scardamalia’s

surgical-metaphor or Chenoweth and Hayes’ translation/transcription-metaphor. Writers may

present us with new metaphors altogether. As we can see, conceptual metaphors inform and

contextualize the cognitive processes outlined in each model. For this reason, developing a

conceptual model of the composing process that incorporates metaphor as the frame for

understanding process expands our understanding of how the composing process is modeled by

actual writers.

Overall, the cognitive turn brought renewed interest to the dynamics of the composing

process, of which metaphor is still an under-researched or under-acknowledged component.

Calls for Research

In one of the first studies to investigate college-writers’ composing processes, “Self-

Evaluation Strategies of Extensive Revisers and Nonrevisers,” Richard Beach (1976) explores

the subject of revision. In it he sets the problem of college-writers borrowing

conceptions of revising [that] reflect teacher and textbook conceptions of revising as final polishing of wording and mechanics. It suggests that in order to help students learn to self-evaluate effectively we need to provide alternative, helpful models of the revision process. We also need to know much more about individuals’ cognitive strategies. (164, emphasis added)

His concern with discipline-generated metaphors indoctrinating college-writers to hold

conceptions that are not representative of their own commonplace, subjective experiences hints

at the need to research writing from the college-writer’s perspective. Evidenced by

compositionist James Zebroski (1994), “Students often have internalized a former teacher’s

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theory of writing or a theory from textbook versions of the writing process that does not fit at all

with actual writing experience. Student theory is often plural, contradictory, heteroglossic” (17).

Theory, in both cases, is often implicit. Uncovering and analyzing a college-writer’s underlying

metaphorical assumptions about writing allows those theories to become more tangible,

accessible, and interactive: “An important reflection of writers’ pretheoretical views can be

found in the figurative language that they use to describe their composing. Patterns of figurative

expressions can function as resonant narratives, bringing structure and coherence to our

conceptions of the world” (Tomlinson 58). Moreover, according to Beach’s data, some of the

students’ metaphors for revision included: rearranging, smoothing, cutting, throwing out,

polishing, and tying. His findings reveal that metaphor is a door to the conceptual inner-workings

of the composing process. To date, our field is still in need of understanding more about

metaphor’s impact on individual writers’ cognitive strategies.

Beyond the scope of the classroom, Barbara Tomlinson (1986) in “Cooking, Mining,

Gardening, and Hunting: Metaphorical Stories Writers Tell About Their Composing Processes”

studies professional writers’ metaphors for writing, conducting interviews of their composing

processes. Likewise, she calls for additional research into “what people think and say is going on

when they write and how that may influence their writing activities” (77). This emphasizes the

field’s growing interest in writers’ cognitive strategies.

Like Beach and Tomlinson, Leonora Smith (1988) acknowledges in “Revising the Real

Way: Metaphors for Selecting Detail” that metaphor is “already deeply embedded in the

language of revision and editing, both in the questions we pose (does it ‘flow’?; is it smooth or

rough?) and the kinds of suggestions we can make about what to do with it (prune it, develop

it)” (38). Our very discourse reverberates with metaphor, where most of our vocabulary is

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metaphorical in and of itself: content, mechanics, device, research, exercise, outline, draft,

overview, reflection, review, revision, transition, block quote, passage, body paragraph, focus,

viewpoint, structure, support, insight, and framework.

Following the realization that the lexicon of our discourse is rife with metaphor, Seitz

proposes in “Composition’s Misunderstanding of Metaphor” that “[i]f metaphor plays [such] a

decisive role in the rhetorical stance and development of texts, then it should surely be an issue

of significant concern to those of us involved in the study of writing” (288). He recommends “we

pay more attention to the implicit metaphors that often dominate our own discourse” (292, my

emphasis). As “Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricœur, among others, [have argued, . . .] metaphor

serves as the very process by which new concepts are produced;” therefore, composition research

and pedagogy should further recognize “how metaphor inevitably shapes, enables, and constrains

the range of [college-writers’] discourse even when they are unaware of it” (289 & 294).

More recently, Philip Eubanks’ (2011) research in Metaphor and Writing: Figurative

Thought in the Discourse of Written Communication draws on a corpus of texts authored by

workplace, creative fiction, non-fiction, technical, professional, and academic writers to examine

“the connections between everyday writing metaphors and other rhetorical elements such as

categories, stories, and metonymies” (1). Although writing studies has pursued research in

metaphor, he admits Rhetoric and Composition is coming to metaphor analysis late and has some

catching up to do (13 & 15). His work draws attention to the role of identity in metaphor:

“Writing studies has paid little attention to the figurative landscape within which the figure of the

core self operates” (122). How we conceptualize the verb phrase “to write” impacts how we

conceptualize the noun. If WRITING IS COMPOSITION, then WRITERS ARE COMPOSERS, so on and

so forth. Metaphor analysis is identity work. Wherever there is writing, there is the writing of an

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identity. A writer’s performative narrative identity enables them to “accomplish different whos

and whats through using different social languages” (Gee 87). As we write, we bring different

identities and narratives into existence: “‘to write is to exist. . . . writing is an essential

component for performing identity’ (p. 366)” (Thomas qtd. in Lewis & del Valle 314). American

fantasy writer, Patrick Rothfuss even describes the formation of identity as narrative itself: “It’s

like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That

story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”

The Figurative Rhetoric of Writing

Eubanks’ major contribution involves the development and definition of what he terms

the figurative rhetoric of writing. He asserts that it reflects “some of writing studies’ most

important contributions[, which] are framed as endorsements and rejections of key metaphors”

(2). For instance, at the heart of every paradigm shift21 in the field there is an argument regarding

the rejection of an old metaphor or the adoption of a new metaphor (e.g., see Murray (1972) and

Flower & Hayes (1981). Some other unique examples include:

Gregory Clark (1998) has advocated seeing writing as travel; David Kaufer and Brian Butler (1996) have advocated seeing rhetoric as a design art; Barry Kroll has written about argument as aikido; Nedra Reynolds (1998) has written insightfully about composition and geographies. (17)

Janet Emig’s Writing as a Mode of Learning (1977), Marilyn M. Cooper’s The Ecology of

Writing (1986) or Marie Louise Pratt’s Arts of the Contact Zone (1991) are among other

influential examples. Most, if not all, of our research is to a degree argument-by-metaphor, for

“composition might exhibit the irony of its recognition that it can only study writing

21 Scientific philosopher Thomas Kuhn developed the concept of the “paradigm shift” in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Though there has been some conjecture on what Kuhn meant by the phrase, in general parlance it has come to mean the gradual or radical change from a predominant way of thinking to a new way of seeing, being, and doing.

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by writing” (Seitz 297, emphasis in original). How we conceptualize what writing is determines

how we study it.

Pedagogical Applications

Moving from theory to practice, Donald McQuade (1983) contemplates metaphor’s

relationship to composition pedagogy. He describes metaphor as a means for college-writers to

better “understand . . . the processes of both their own thinking and their own writing” (221). The

purpose of his essay, “Metaphor, Thinking, and the Composing Process” is to demonstrate “how

thinking about metaphor can help us to understand rhetoric and the composing process more

fully and to teach them more effectively” (222). Metaphor can liberate the college-writer by

aiding them in discovering their own language for writing, highlighting “the potential for student

empowerment” (Paulson & Armstrong 500-1). In other words, “metaphor is an essential

component of intellectual freedom” (Charteris-Black 253).

Furthermore, McQuade believes that college-writers need to understand that metaphor is

“a frame for building meaning in writing” (222). Likewise, Rubano and Anderson (1988) in

“Reasoning and Writing with Metaphors” warrant that “[m]etaphor is a linguistic tool for

discovering meaning” (37). As instructors, we need to be reminded, and our students need

instructed, that metaphor “is a powerful mental act that underlies all discourse and pervades all

rhetorical structures and strategies” (McQuade 225). Indeed, it is pertinent to reflect on the whole

of the composing process as a metaphorical act:

Metaphor can play a critical role throughout the entire process of composition. It can simulate, screen, and direct writers’ preliminary thinking, help guide their selection of material, control their particular emphasis, and, in general, furnish them with a uniform frame of reference within which individual observations, ideas, and snippets of information about a subject can be enhanced and consolidated. . . . In sum, metaphor can not only actualize but stabilize the nascent meaning of a composition. (228)

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In conjunction, Gretchen Schwarz (1988) adds, in “Metaphor and Cognition: Beneath the

‘Basics,’”

English teachers can encourage higher order thinking by having students both create and analyze metaphors. Moreover, we can improve our own effectiveness as we explore the metaphors we live by as educators. Nothing is more basic than the language through which we construe the world. (33)

Future research and instruction must account for the framing power of metaphor.

The calls for research reviewed here include thinking through how metaphor plays a role

in the formation and execution of college-writers’:

• cognitive strategies

• rhetorical stances and textual development

• shaping, enabling, and constraining of discourse

• and the development and performance of self.

These directions are what my research intends to explore and amend.

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND METHODS

In Chapter 2, I explored metaphor’s relationship to composition and the rhetorical

tradition. In this chapter, I detail my research design, situating my methodology, describing data-

collection methods and analytic procedures.

Epistemology

WE NEED TO PROJECT OURSELVES INTO THE THINGS AROUND US. My self is not confined to my body. It extends into all things I have made and all the things around me. Without these things, I would not be myself; I would not be a human being.

—Carl Jung from The Earth Has a Soul: The Nature Writings of C.G. Jung

It is important to recognize that CMT is positioned within a philosophy of Embodied

Realism (ER). From this standpoint, my research investigates the metaphors we read and write

by as a matter of experiencing the world on the basis that we have a body and are a body.

ER acknowledges that the “[m]ind is embodied, meaning is embodied, and thought is

embodied” (Johnson & Lakoff 249). Because our minds have a particular type of body, how we

experience something depends on our bodily orientation (246). As an “empirically responsible

philosophy” ER distinguishes itself from Objectivism and Subjectivism through accepting that

both universals and cultural particulars exist (252 & 262). In this way, ER is akin to Social

Constructivism, holding that knowledge and truth are socially-constructed by minds and bodies

in interaction: “We have argued that truth is always relative to a conceptual system, that any

human conceptual system is mostly metaphorical in nature, and that, therefore, there is no fully

objective, unconditional, or absolute truth” (Lakoff & Johnson 185). As clinical psychologist

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Noam Shpancer sums up, “It turns out that the meaning of reality—the experiences, events,

objects, processes, and facts we encounter—is not set but rather it is dynamic. It’s not absolute,

it’s contextual” (para. 3). Identity is constituted through relationships with others, communities,

and institutions as well as our relationship to our body through which we experience the natural

and social world.

Metaphor itself, as seeing and experiencing one concept in terms of another, is social-

constructivist, in that, we create, negotiate, and sustain knowledge through metaphor. Metaphors,

while they emerge from our interactions, are determined by our bodily experiences,

environments, and artifacts we create within, and out of, those environments. Jensen’s work

contributes to this point, arguing that “metaphors . . . are based on artifacts” (206). As tool-

inventors and users, a significant part of what it means to be human involves creating artifacts

for influencing and manipulating our world. Our interactions with natural objects and artifacts

therefore play an important role in our metaphoric conceptualization, as demonstrated in the

common examples THOUGHT IS A TRAIN or THE BRAIN IS A COMPUTER. Metaphors are

figurative artifacts for structuring human activity.

Methodologies

My research design consists of a variety of methodological positions, and each position

determines how the object of study is approached and what types of data to collect as well as

methods for analysis. From this standpoint, I draw from Teacher-Research, Critical Pedagogy,

(Auto)Ethnography, and Critical Metaphor Analysis.

Teacher-Research22

22 Monumental advocate of teacher-research, Ray Ruth (1993) in The Practice of Theory: Teacher Research in Composition, outlining “The Argument for Teacher-Research” cites typical criticisms and perceived limitations of studying one’s own population:

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Teacher-Research is the (auto)ethnographic23 study of classroom theory and practice—by

the teacher of that classroom—for the purpose of improving pedagogy, empowering students,

and furthering praxis (i.e., the relationship between theory and practice). Teacher-research works

recursively to build theory by revising practice. From this position, I investigate the enculturation

of the composition classroom, reflecting on the relationship between self, metaphor, and culture

(see Berthoff (1981), Hermann (1989), Berlin (1990), Ray (1992), Lankshear and Knobel (2004),

and Nickoson (2012).

A common limitation, however, in studying one’s own population is the concern that the

teacher-researcher has too much control over the data-set or samples, that the teacher-researcher

may be inadvertently manipulating the object of study by means of a confirmation bias—seeing

only what they want to see. To establish trustworthiness, I practice transparency regarding my

methods and coding procedures and their limitations.

The types of texts and classroom practices I use are common to most composition

classrooms, aside from the MIEs and surveys, which have been implemented in similar studies.

To avoid reducing the data to specially designed data-collection methods, like the MIE (as other

studies have done), I intentionally include a variety of common exercises that are not necessarily

(1) without benefit of an outsider’s perspective, teachers themselves lack an understanding of what they do in the classroom; (2) teachers conduct ‘biased’ research that does not meet the standards of established researchers; and (3) teachers do not have the theoretical perspective needed to interpret their findings for the research community (Stenhouse 1985). (62)

On the contrary, she explains that the insider’s perspective provides the benefit of “self-reflective inquiry” (62). She also reminds us that teacher-researchers can strengthen the legitimacy of their data by triangulating it with others’ findings. And, lastly, she describes that teacher-research requires us to redefine theory as “function rather than form, as process—a way of seeing and thinking—rather than product—a body of information” (65). 23 Sociolinguist A. Suresh Canagarajah offers:

The best way to define autoethnography is through the three words that make it up—that is, auto, ethno, graphy. Auto: The research is conducted and represented from the point of view of the self, whether studying one’s own experiences or those of one’s community. Ethno: The objective of the research and writing is to bring out how culture shapes and is shaped by the personal. Graphy: Writing is not only the main means of generating, analyzing, and recording data; there is an emphasis on the creative resources of writing, especially narrative, for accomplishing the social and scholarly objectives of this research. (locs. 1485-1489)

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unique to my classroom. I chose to include data-collection methods conducive to meta-writing,

that is, exercises that inspire writing about writing. Being able to have control of this enabled me

to maximize my efforts to include a diversity of data-points.

While my own population may be just as generalizable as another instructor’s, I would

not be able to exert the necessary control over another’s classroom. I believe it would be

unethical to expect another instructor to modify their course based on my research questions. A

teacher-researcher is particularly invested in the outcomes because of the impact on their own

pedagogy and the import of giving voice to their own students’ experiences.

Critical Pedagogy

In conjunction, critical pedagogy is grounded in the advancement of classroom practice

through creatively problematizing how writing is taught. It involves teaching students to question

the underlying assumptions embedded in how something is defined. It also involves teachers

taking critical approaches to their own assumptions, inquiring into what students have to teach

them. To me, this reciprocity is integral to critical pedagogy. The focus is to empower students to

develop their own perspectives instead of merely accepting the status quo, which is often

reinforced by the authority in the classroom—the teacher or the text. Critical pedagogy

encourages students and teachers alike to challenge and question “habits of thought, reading,

writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, . . .

traditional clichés, [and] received wisdom, . . . to understand the deep meaning, root causes,

social context, ideology, and personal consequences of” holding and valuing specific beliefs and

conceptualizations (Shor 128). Shor’s mentor, Freire in “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education”

reimagines the power dynamic between student and teacher as: “Through dialogue, the-teacher-

of-the-student and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-

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student with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one

who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach.

They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow” (249).

Autoethnography

As an integral component of teacher-research and critical pedagogy, autoethnography

bears semblance to the ethnographic methods of “participation, observation, interviews, and

artifacts,” triangulating between multiple data points, using inductive-coding and theorizing

(Canagarajah loc. 1497). What differentiates autoethnography from ethnography is “the

researcher/subject roles are fused;” the researcher becomes an active member of the research site

(loc. 1501). In “Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject,”

qualitative communications researchers Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner outline the value of

the autoethnographic approach:

• Connects the personal with the cultural, integrating the researcher’s own experience

with that of the participants’ (739, 740, & 757).

• “[F]unctions as an agent of self-discovery or self-creation, for the author as well as

for those who read and engage the” research (746).

• Questions and resists valuing “arguments over feelings, theories over stories,

abstractions over concrete events, sophisticated jargon over accessible prose,”

focusing on “caring and empathy” instead of “controlling and knowing” (746).

• Makes apparent the role of the observer on the observed, acknowledging that our

conception of truth and fact are indistinguishable from our values as researchers

(747).

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However, critics might question, “Is classroom research more legitimate from an outside

researcher’s perspective or from the teacher-researcher’s perspective?” Scholars like

Canagarajah answer this by suggesting, “There is agency in the fact that one can articulate one’s

own experiences, rather than letting others represent them” (para. 9). Autoethnographic methods

are more intimate and provide detailed knowledge of the site and its participants that only a

teacher-researcher could provide. My intention in using my own classroom was to utilize the

autoethnographic details of my own experiences as well as utilize my proximity (or intimate

knowledge) to the subject matter being studied. To minimize any unintended efforts on my part

to sway the data, I chose to represent myself through, what I consider, more naturally-occurring

or spontaneous data, such as instructor commentary or conferencing.

Critical Metaphor Analysis

My application of CMT is inspired by the work of Lakoff and Johnson (1980),

Fauconnier and Turner (2003), Charteris-Black (2004), Kövecses (2010), and Cameron and

Maslen (2010). Again, the main tenet of CMT is that metaphor is a feature and function of

cognition before it occurs in language, allowing the analyst to theorize about cognitive processes

by working from linguistic evidence. In this sense, metaphor constructs conceptual domains or

blended conceptual spaces in cognition. A frequent example of conceptual blending occurs with

framing, as it has meaning in multiple discourses, such as framing in construction or framing in

photography and film.

In particular, I adopt Charteris-Black’s model of Critical Metaphor Analysis where he

argues that, while MLEs form concepts, MLEs are also pragmatic and rhetorical,24 that is, they

24 The rhetorical nature of conceptual metaphor, according to Eubanks, consists of three dimensions:

Conceptual metaphors are not only systematically related but are also rhetorically constituted. This rhetorical constitution takes three forms: (1) rhetorical inferences, culturally and historically contingent reasoning we apply to concrete situations; (2) ideologically motivated mappings, the configuring of

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are not entirely determined by the language system we inherit. In the discursive or persuasive

sense, MLEs are selected—consciously or subconsciously—based on an agent’s context,

audience, intention, or personal preference:

Metaphors are—like many aspects of language—chosen by speakers to achieve particular communication goals within particular contexts rather than being predetermined by bodily experience. I claim, therefore, that a complete theory of metaphor must also incorporate a pragmatic perspective that interprets metaphor choice with reference to the purposes of use within specific discourse contexts. (Charteris-Black 247)

Charteris-Black’s rhetorical model demonstrates that metaphoric selection draws from three

areas of meaning: the cognitive/affective, pragmatic, and linguistic. In addition, there are also

three realms of value that influence metaphoric selection: ideological, cultural, and historical.

Each of these elements contributes to a user’s intent to persuade (see Fig. 1). I, however, do not

see rhetoric as relegated to the persuasion box as much as rhetoric encompasses the whole

diagram.

metaphors in accordance with cultural and ideological assumptions; and (3) rhetorical responsiveness, politically and philosophically motivated patterns of response among conceptual metaphors. (161)

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Fig. 1 – Charteris-Black’s Discourse Model of Metaphor

Methods

While the aforementioned methodologies establish my research stance, the following

methods demonstrate exactly how I propose to answer how college-writers’ conceptions of

reading and writing influence, shape and impact their interactions with literacy. To inquire into

college-writers’ cognitive strategies, textual development, use of discourse, and identity

representation, the following data-collection methods are employed: sampling, surveying, and

audio-capture. All data is assignment-based and has been analyzed for the purpose of considering

how college-writers’ compositional metaphors might inspire us to reimagine composition

pedagogy.

Research Site and Participants

The data was collected at a public research university in the suburban Midwest over a

single semester. The college’s gender distribution averages around 40% male and 60% female.

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The college’s ethnic diversity is about 75% Caucasian, 9% Black, 3% Hispanic, 1% Asian, 6%

International, and 3% unknown. The research site for the study was comprised of two sections of

First-Year Composition. The course theme, at the time, consisted of “Metaphors and

Perspectives in Writing.” All participants were traditional college students. And during the

administration of the data-collection, each student was given the option to participate in the study

(as it was in no way a requirement, nor did it have an impact on classroom assessment). All data

is the result of the students’ natural participation in the course curriculum. Consent was acquired

per IRB (#15-171) for use of written documentation and audio-recording. Overall, 29

participants were involved in the study.

The catalog course description for First-Year Composition details that it is “[t]he study

and practice of academic writing, including an introduction to rhetorical principles, the writing

process, critical reading research and technology.” First-Year Composition runs a semester and is

typically followed by the subsequent course, Second-Year Composition. Selecting two of my

own sections is the result of pursuing teacher-research, as I believe no one is better suited to

study their classroom than the teacher of that classroom, due to their proximity and intimate

knowledge of the site. I value the relationship between research and practice, where teaching

should inspire research and research should enrich teaching. To me, this is the essential dynamic

of what it means to be a teacher-researcher. In addition, my site is unusual in that my pedagogy

and course design are structured using metaphorical themes, which is how the present document

came into being in the first place. And many of the data-collection methods were already a part

of the course design, which enabled me to study the site without interrupting the dynamics of the

classroom or another’s classroom.

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Moreover, the reframing power of metaphor has also always been an integral part of my

teaching philosophy. In fact, it was metaphor that opened my eyes, in the first place, to the

transformative, magical dimension of writing, which is what led me to become a Rhetoric and

Composition scholar.

My course design employs weekly meta-themes (e.g., Writing as Conversation) each

week to encourage different perspectives. The classroom exercises used in the study are:

• The first exercise asks participants to research a quote on reading/writing and dissect

its importance.

• The second exercise asks participants to invent their own metaphor for literacy.

• The third exercise involves writing a literacy narrative using literacy journal

observations and research.

• The fourth exercise is a reflection letter and revision memo for the literacy narrative.

• Other exercises include peer-review commentary, conferencing, and a survey

questionnaire.

Additional texts to consider for future investigations might also include writing instructors’

syllabi, assignment prompts, and lectures, to comprehensively inquire into the metaphors that

form a teacher’s implicit theory of literacy.

Why College-Writers?

First-year college-writers are an optimal group to study because entering university life

entails an increase in academic literate activity. Because college is a time of transition, it requires

students to take on new perspectives, where their self-sponsored literacies and their school-

sponsored literacies come together in unique ways as they discover what it means to write in the

professional sphere. For many, college is where their writing development really begins.

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What metaphors do college-writers bring to the classroom? What metaphors do they

leave with? How have these metaphors effected their writing development? College may very

well be the last time students are challenged to think about how they conceptualize literacy.

Next, I detail each exercise that was used to research the site and its participants.

Data-Collection

To capture the effect of genre and time on the object of study, the data was gathered

using a variety of classroom assignments administered at different points during the semester:

analyzing quotes on reading/writing, inventing personal metaphors, composing literacy

narratives, participating in peer-review, reflecting on previous writing assignments, defining the

reading/writing process, and discussing invention and revision. The variability and

diversification across these data points enables “what Clifford Geertz calls a ‘thick description,’

a detailed, in-depth look at local practices from multiple angles” (Sheridan locs. 1029-1030).

Each exercise shifts perspective in unique ways.

To reiterate, within the current body of research certain limitations remain: 1) relying too

much on solitary data-collection methods (i.e., focusing on the invention of explicit metaphors

solely), 2) lack of genre-coding (i.e., reducing literacy to a catch-all, omitting how genre affects

metaphoric invention and conceptualization), 3) lack of addressing metaphors for reading or

analyzing metaphors for literacy which occur naturally in talk, and 4) a lack of detailed student

case-studies. The methods of data-collection and analysis outlined here seek to improve upon

these limitations. Closer analyses of student case-studies will enrich our understanding of the

meta-discourse occurring in and around the college composition classroom. From this data we

can draw metaphorical profiles of each participant, revealing the complexities of a college-

writer’s implicit theory of literacy.

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In the following section, I describe and detail my data-collection methods:

Literacy Quote Analysis

For the first exercise participants research a quote—of their own choosing—on the

subject of reading/writing and dissect and explain its significance. (Using other writers’ quotes

often aids college-writers in defining their own perspectives on writing, moving from imitation

to invention.) The response format involves emulating others’ models to produce one’s own

concept of something. As classical rhetorical theorist Edward P.J. Corbett (1971) relates,

imitation “unlocks our powers and sets us free to be creative, original, and ultimately effective.

Imitate that you may be different” (250, emphasis in original). In practice, encouraging

participants to focus on the meaning and application of a single quote begins to reveal their own

conceptualizations of literacy, genre, and the various constituent parts of composing. Most often

the quotes themselves employ metaphor, serving as an introduction to the framing and naming

power of metaphor. In terms of practical classroom application, quotes serve to facilitate

conversation about defining what writing is.

Metaphor Invention Exercises

For the second exercise, once at the beginning of the semester and once toward the end,

participants are assigned Metaphor Invention Exercises (MIEs), which require them to define

literacy using explicit figurative language. The exercise is meant to draw out explicit

conceptualizations, meaning the college-writer’s metaphorical invention is prompted and

intentional.

MIEs were administered in Tobin (1989) and Paulson and Armstrong’s (2011) research.

While these studies implemented MIEs as the sole method of data-collection, I implement them

here as ways to explore explicit levels of conceptualization. Again, I distinguish between

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metaphor as something that occurs implicitly through the way we naturally communicate and as

something we make explicit to generate a poetic turn of phrase or extend an analogy.

Each time a MIE is administered it generates content regarding how college-writers

define their experience and understanding of the composing process, asking them to develop

their own theory of writing using analogy, metaphor, or simile. MIEs encourage the use of

explicit, figurative language to describe and define the writing process: “The writing process is

_______. / The writing process is like _______. / OR The writing process is to _______ as

_______ is to _______.” Analogy, metaphor, and simile are all conceptual comparisons.

Analogy, however, is an extended metaphor and simile is a truncated or short-circuit analogy.

Participants elaborate, extend, and explore the entailments of their metaphors by engaging in a

stream-of-consciousness free-write. The time constraint on composing each MIE is 30-45

minutes. The pedagogical goal of conducting multiple MIEs is to have college-writers reflect on

how their metaphors have evolved: What are their preconceptions entering the course, and what

are their final reflections upon resolving the course?

One distinct limitation of a MIE is the subjective relativity of the nature of invention

itself. For instance, each time a writer is asked to invent a metaphor it may inspire a different

result. Each response is therefore contingent upon a writer’s mood, current experience, or level

of creative energy. But the primary advantage of a MIE is that it tracks conceptual change,

allowing the analyst to compare data at different points to speculate about how pedagogy and

experience have influenced invention choices. Beyond anecdotal use, the researcher may

construct a taxonomy (i.e., general categories) or data-tree (i.e., relational categories) to

showcase how various types of conceptualizations emerged from the data-set, that is, to account

for quantitative generalizability, occurrence or frequency. But to corroborate and aggregate the

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data, methods for capturing implicit, more naturally-occurring data are required. In the end,

MIEs explore the invention of explicit, novel metaphors25.

MIEs have the potential to open up dialogue, making literacy relatable, personable, and

powerful. They enable college-writers to begin devising their own theory of composing, inspired

by their own experiences and creativity. Using “[t]heory [as] an instrument . . . to think about

writing,” claims Zebroski, begins with, “What is the root metaphor of writing? (What is writing

like?)” (29). Metaphor impacts theory; theory impacts practice; practice is metaphor-in-action.

Literacy Narrative

For the third exercise, to generate more nuanced types of data, participants compose

Literacy Narratives (LNs). As a genre, LNs teach primary research (i.e., writing

autoethnographies) and are acts of meta-writing—writing-about-writing. The WAW (Writing

About Writing) movement, which is related to the WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum)

movement, holds that composition is not just about teaching mechanics and style; as a discipline,

it has its own content, which we should encourage students to research as an integral part of the

curriculum. The assignment differs from the traditional literacy narrative in that it asks students

to conduct data-driven research by keeping a journal of their literate habits across the span of two

days.

Occasionally students do not see themselves as writers, a common obstacle of the

composition classroom. Many a lecture or admonition is spent, first and foremost, convincing

students they are already writers, as many confuse “writer” with professional “essayist” or

25 To give an example of a novel metaphor, I cite the following anecdote from Tobin’s study:

‘Writing is like carrying a torn bag of groceries because I have all of these ideas and they spill out onto the page like those falling groceries. I pick up the ones I can and try to hold everything together till I get to a place I can put them down. But it’s tough. I believe in those first ideas that get written down during brainstorming. But they are all jumbled and disorganized and falling apart. And by the time I get them down, I’ve usually dropped a few.’ (452)

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renowned “author.” The pedagogical goal of the LN is to create an awareness of how literacy

impacts the everyday as well as gives expression to who they are. While the MIE focuses on the

composing process, the LN focuses on the roles of reading and writing in the college-writer’s

day-to-day.

Each student keeps a literacy journal26 for a two-day period: one, a typical, average day,

and, the other, an academic-oriented day. The journal divides each day into consecutive 2-hour

periods, asking the participant to reflect on—in detail—the literate practices engaged during

those windows. The LN allows the researcher to learn about the participant’s academic-

sponsored literacy, workplace literacy, and self-initiated literate practices by means of self-

reporting.

Limitations inherent in self-reporting may include exaggeration, non-disclosure,

forgetfulness, and mood-related biases. Self-reporting also allows participants to edit the version

of themselves the researcher perceives. While these issues disguise certain aspects of the data, it

demonstrates how identity is shaped by the narrative students tell. Self-reporting gives

participants control over how they are represented.

Because the LN generates meta-discourse, conceptual metaphors are implicit in the

language students use to narrate, describe and detail their literacy practices/events, allowing for

more naturally-occurring data. The LN enables participants to become, to an extent, co-

researchers.

Peer-to-Peer and Instructor Marginalia

26 I borrow the time-diary protocol from Dale J. Cohen et al.’s (2011) “A Time Use Diary Study of Adult Everyday Writing Behavior” to capture college-writer’s everyday reading and writing practices. Cohen et al. define everyday writing “as any writing that is carried out in the daily lives of an individual (e.g., Barton & Ivanic, 1991)” (4). General purposes of everyday writing include “personal communication (e.g., Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Kalman, 2001), organizing one’s life (e.g., Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Fishman, 1991; Kalman, 2001), and record keeping (e.g., Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Munger, 1999; Schryer, 1993)” (4-5). Categories for analysis associated with the time-use diary are: purpose of reading/writing, type of text/medium, and time spent on task.

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In tandem with the third exercise, college-writers engage meta-writing through peer-

review commentary, response, and feedback. As assessment writing, marginalia provides the

researcher with instances where reviewers may choose to use figurative language to

communicate with each other about the tasks and operations of writing. (All marginalia was

captured using Microsoft Word’s “Review” > Comments and Track Changes.)

Peer-review incites conversation about the composing process. The intent behind

capturing marginalia is to observe the reviewer’s assessment, the author’s response to that

assessment, as well as the instructor’s overall assessment, all in one document. As college-

writers and instructors communicate through textual dialogue, conceptual metaphors are an

inherent part of the meta-discourse.

Peer-review also engages reading-as-editing. While response, commentary, and feedback

are not overly substantive, nor extensive, college-writers do however often adopt figurative

discourse terminology (e.g., transition, highlight, space, etc.) as well as develop their own

expressions.

I chose to focus on instructor marginalia and conference dialogue as primary sources of

autoethnographic data because they are instances where the instructor directly interacts with

students and their texts. While this could have included syllabi, assignment prompts, lectures and

presentations, I narrowed the representation to instances of direct, personal interaction to capture

my own spontaneous metaphor invention. Other types of teaching materials have a tendency to

be more scripted, whereas marginalia and talk are generated in the moment. These data-types

address and represent what metaphors instructors rely on to assess college-writers.

Reflection Memos and Revision Letters

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After the student submits their LN, they compose a standard reflection and memo: What

worked; what didn’t? What were they proud of? What did they regret? What would they change?

What did they have problems with? What did they learn? The reflection and memo generate

additional meta-commentary, getting the writer to critique their writing through writing. These

exercises give the instructor a unique pre-assessment of the writer by the writer—to see the

writing through the author’s perspective. The purpose of the reflection and memo are to help

develop a critical understanding of their writerly identity and process.

Open-ended Survey

In the sixth exercise, participants complete an open-ended survey27 hosted on

qualtrics.com, entitled “Your Theory of Writing: Writing Process Survey.” The survey is meant

to break up the creative process, to get at participants’ personalized definitions of literacy. The

survey divides the composing process into its constituent parts:

1. In everyday life, what prompts you to read/write; why?

2. Define/describe your notetaking/research process:

3. What is writing? Define/describe your writing/composing/design process?

4. Define/describe your revision process?

5. What is the most significant thing about writing?

Each question engages the college-writer in what rhetorician Edward Schiappa (2003) calls

definitive discourse.

In Defining Reality: Definitions and the Politics of Meaning, Schiappa posits that

definitions all consist of context, ought-ness, usage, and classification. When we ask someone to

define something, we are, in part, asking for his or her metaphor for that thing. As he describes,

27 The open-ended format gives participants the opportunity to provide answers in their own words instead of being forced to select prescribed choices.

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definition is “X counts as [or ought to be] Y in context C” (xi). In the same way, this formula is

useful for understanding the pragmatic, contextual nature of a metaphor: A ought to be viewed as

B in the context of C. A concept may also be defined by what it is not, by inverse metaphor.

While metaphor commonly takes the form A is B, we may discover its inverse in A is (not) B.

He outlines that definitions may be mundane or novel in the same way that metaphors are

ingrained or disruptive. Definitional discourse entails that “as people and beliefs change,

yesterday’s metaphor may be literalized tomorrow” (66). There is a fine-line between metaphor

and definition because definitions are metaphors that have been abstracted and literalized over

time.

Conferences

Lastly, individual conferences were held per student request, with each conference being

audio-recorded. (Additional consent was acquired for audio-recordings according to IRB.)

Like peer-review, with a focus on invention and revisionary writing, conversing about

writing parallels writing-about-writing; it allows for a more spontaneous exploration of what

writing is and does through the discursive moves of proposing, responding, negotiating, and

translating. Literacy researchers Haas, Takayoshi, and Carr (2012) encourage integrating text

and talk as an important analytic data-collection strategy. Transcribing talk into text enables us to

revisit discourse, for it to “become the basis of reflection, text production, and further

discussion” (loc. 833). The transcription process for the conference recordings employs an

occurrence-by-occurrence method, selectively transcribing sections with figurative dialogue.

Data-Reduction and Representation

The goal of my study is to explore how individual college-writer’s conceptualizations of

literacy impact their literate activity across time and genre, which is why I am representing a

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majority of the data as case-study. I chose to reduce the data-set using case-studies because they

are particularly useful for capturing what is unique, personal, and context-specific.

To establish a balance in gender representation and role representation, one case follows

a female student; one, a male student; and one, my own work, as the instructor. I narrowed the

data by selecting from the students who participated in the conferencing, so that I could

incorporate talk data. Out of the 11 students who participated, 4 were male and 7 were female.

From this reduced pool, Sara was the only female to attend two conferences, and David was

selected because he provided a larger audio sample than the other male participants. I initially

saw this as a random way to attempt to capture as much data variety I could.

Due to the size of the data collected for each of the 29 participants, it was impossible to

represent the intricacies of all the data, so there was an essential need to reduce the data. Student

case-studies had been previously missing from the body of research, so to address a gap in the

research and provide acute, detailed levels of metaphor analysis, I decided that case-studies

would be the most useful way to showcase the nuances of the data without experiencing data

overages.

Case-studies yield in-depth investigations, multiple data sources, unique insights for

future research questions, and narrative data, where the researcher can trace the evolution of a

participant’s identity and thought development, humanizing the content of the research. Teacher-

researchers, Lytle and Cochran-Smith (1992) note “by definition” that “teacher research is case

study” (21). Literacy researcher Glenda L. Bissex (1990) offers one of the most formidable

arguments for case-study research:

Case study is a genre of research—most effective, I believe, for understanding (not controlling) human beings; most suitable for studying the human acts of composing and of interpreting literature. . . . It seems altogether fitting, then, that teachers who know the ways of interpretation should interpret the texts of their

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own classrooms, and that teachers who understand the value of the story should see and tell the stories of themselves and of their students. If any mode of inquiry speaks from and to the heart and soul and mind of our profession, it is surely case study. (75)

Case-studies provide “multiple data sources, a strategy which also enhances data credibility

(Patton, 1990; Yin, 2003)” and an “holistic understanding of the phenomenon being

studied” (Baxter & Jack 554).

While I acknowledge that case-study participants are not necessarily generalizable, the

methods by which they are researched are replicable. And further case-studies increase the

generalizability and value of previous data-sets. Case-studies, most importantly, put metaphor in

context, showing how real writers use it to conceptualize, acquire, and enact literacy in their

lives. Case-studies are the most formidable method for representing the literate identities of the

participants, because they situate the data within a narrative context.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

In “MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse” the

Pragglejaz Group presents a streamlined empirical method for determining metaphoricity. The

procedure “adopts a maximal . . . approach such that a wide range of words may be considered as

conveying metaphorical meaning based on their use in context” (2). They provide an important

caveat about metaphor analysis, in general, proposing that “we make no claims as to whether

actual writers or speakers intended their specific words to express metaphorical meanings” but

that the identification method provides “a reliable research method for determining whether

words in contexts convey metaphorical meaning” (2). Their method involves the following steps:

1. Establish the contextual meaning of the entire text.

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2. Determine which words—lexical units—are used metaphorically by establishing the

contextual meaning of each unit, considering the surrounding text and “how it applies

to a specific entity, relation, or attribute” (3).

3. Determine the word or phrase’s most basic, literal meaning.

4. If the word or phrase being used appears in a context different from the one it derives

its basic meaning from, then mark it as metaphorical.

I adopt this method along with Charteris-Black’s model and Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual

coding system to identify, catalogue, and categorize MLEs.

More specifically, to analyze and code the data, I employ CMT and Archetypal Theory,

where both take the form of a semi-inductive approach (see Charmaz; Spinnuzi), arguing from

specific cases to postulate general principles, involving unique stages of coding. Instead of

intentionally mining for specific conceptual metaphors, an inductive approach means that we

first identify MLEs, generate categories, and then compare them with existing findings and

theory to aggregate and corroborate the usefulness and value of our findings.

In qualitative research, inductive-coding means to identify parts of a sentence with a code

(i.e., a descriptor identifying the type of metaphor), allowing the theory (i.e., the metaphorical

domain or system) to emerge from the data: “The vehicle grouping procedure in part resembles

coding data within ‘grounded theory’ approaches (e.g. Charmaz, 2001), since it works

inductively from the data, rather than starting from assumptions about what will be found”

(Cameron & Maslen 118). Induction in this context refers to building theory using a ground-up

approach—specific to general—and then moving recursively to a top-down approach—general

to specific. As coding develops, the researcher works recursively with both approaches as they

find previous domains useful for categorizing additional MLEs. For instance, I may highlight

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that “building” is a ‘construction’ metaphor—working from specific to general—and then

generate the domain THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS, which now allows me to work from the general

category to look for other occurrences that fit the domain. Other metaphors related to theory will

now be grouped under this domain, until a new domain for theory is needed, such as THEORIES

ARE LENSES, etc.

I detail this approach as follows.

Coding begins with starter codes. These preliminary codes involve distinguishing

between figurative and non-figurative usage, abstract/explicit/implicit levels of meaning,

positive/neutral/negative affect (Paulson & Armstrong 498), and the type of figure: analogy,

metaphor, simile, etc.

There are three levels of metaphoric representation: abstract (meta-cognition), implicit

(conceptual), and explicit (literary).

Abstract metaphors inform how we conceptualize something based on thought evidence.

A composition may be conceptualized as an act of SELF-DISCOVERY, and this may influence and

shape the whole of the composing process, yet it may never appear as either an explicit statement

or implied in the grammar. This type of data is accessible through think-aloud protocols or

stimulated-recall interviews. For example, author James Mustich (2018) discusses in an

interview how, when he was strategizing how to compile content for 1,000 Books to Read Before

You Die, he conceptualized the organization and user-experience of the book as browsing a

friendly local bookstore: “I want readers to open this book; they might be looking for something

in particular, but they could really be empowered to browse around and follow their own

instincts” (Mckay 6:18). Mustich’s analogy is an apt example of how abstract metaphor

structures the entirety of a composition.

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Conceptual metaphors inform how we conceptualize something based on linguistic

evidence, that is, through MLEs embodied in nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. This type of

data is accessible through discourse analysis.

Novel metaphors appear as surface figures, tropes, or symbols—metaphor as poetic or

literary device. This type of data is accessible through rhetorical analysis.

Moving from starter codes, the analyst may apply theory-generated codes, which consist

of previous researchers’ conceptual keys (i.e., conceptual domains used to categorize MLEs).

Examples include Jensen’s taxonomy of conceptual domains for rhetoric: “(1) journey metaphor,

(2) edifice metaphor, (3) adhesive metaphor, (4) military metaphor, (5) natural phenomena

metaphors, (6) anthropomorphic metaphors, (7) miscellaneous human activity metaphors, and (8)

artifact metaphors” (201) or Tomlinson’s conceptual domains for professional writing: cooking,

mining, gardening, and hunting.28

After the analyst performs a surface reading, they code for instances of lexical metaphor

occurrence-by-occurrence. An MLE is the basic unit of analysis or in-vivo code arrived at

inductively. Next, the analyst initiates open-coding, comparing in-vivo codes, identifying what is

being conceptualized and how? After comparing the relationship between codes, the analyst

performs axial-coding—grouping metaphors by conceptual keys. Lastly, the analyst converts all

datum into typologies. Qualitative findings may be considered quantitatively in terms of instance

or frequency as well.

To outline the coding process, I analyze a random sentence from the current section to

demonstrate just how prevalent metaphor is: “More specifically, to analyze and code the data, I

28 Tomlinson’s categories reveal how our conception of “writing” is linked with our understanding of what an “idea” is. The primary metaphor governing this relationship is WRITING IS THINKING. For instance, if IDEAS ARE INGREDIENTS then WRITING IS COOKING; if IDEAS ARE RESOURCES then WRITING IS MINING; if IDEAS ARE PLANTS then WRITING IS GARDENING; if IDEAS ARE PREY then WRITING IS HUNTING.

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employ CMT and Archetypal Theory, where both take the form of a semi-inductive approach

(see Charmaz; Spinnuzi), arguing from specific cases to postulate general principles, involving

unique stages of coding.” Possible MLEs include “employ,” “take the form,” “cases,” “stages,”

and “coding.” These expressions are the in-vivo codes that may or may not have figurative

potential. To open-code, we identify the referent for each phrase. In this case, all figurative

words and phrases are categorically related to conceptualizing the domain “analysis.”

Next, axial-coding identifies the conceptual metaphors governing each word or phrase by

inference. Conceptual metaphors are evidenced in MLEs. For example, the first metaphorical

word encountered is “employ,” which conceptualizes ANALYTIC METHODS AS HIRED SERVICES

(i.e., they perform a labor). The second phrase “takes the form” conceptualizes ANALYSIS AS A

SHAPE-SHIFTING/PLIABLE SUBSTANCE because “form” is a matter of shaping. The third mention

“cases” conceptualizes ANALYSIS AS A CONTAINER (FOR INFORMATION). The fourth mention

“stages” conceptualizes ANALYSIS AS STAGING. The final verb “coding,” like cases and stages,

is an ingrained discourse term, which conceptualizes ANALYSIS AS ENCRYPTING/DECIPHERING

SECRET INFORMATION. To begin devising a conceptual taxonomy, the researcher establishes the

following conceptual keys: HIRED SERVICE, PLIABLE SUBSTANCE, CONTAINER, STAGING, and

ENCRYPTING/DECIPHERING. Each category organizes mutual MLEs. The researcher may choose

to modify or group current categories, that is, to either be more comprehensive or selective, or

they may invent new ones altogether.

If an analyst is unsure about whether a word or phrase is metaphorical, they may perform

a couple of tests. For instance, if the definition is literally true then the conceptual key is not a

metaphor and is instead a literal entailment. For example, we might ask: Is analysis literally a

pliable substance? No, it is not. Therefore, it is a metaphor. Is analysis literally

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encrypting/deciphering secret information? The answer to this is a bit trickier. So, we might

rephrase the question: Is all encryption/deciphering of secret information analysis? No, it is not.

Therefore, it is also a kind of metaphor. As one can see, analyzing metaphors is a matter of

interpretation, as there may be need for debate regarding how the analyst classifies and

categorizes the data.

Other interpretative issues involve how certain words themselves are metaphors or how

metaphorical meaning has been compounded or invented. Insight is an example of a word that is

a metaphor, meaning ‘seeing within’. Develop, on the other hand, is an example of a

compounded metaphor. Originally meaning ‘to unfold,’ develop has applications in the

discourses of biology (i.e., growth), industry (i.e., production), design (i.e., iteration), and

photography (i.e., imaging). It is almost impossible to separate these associations from each

other. Others may even refer to the develop-example as polysemy; words have different

definitions in different contexts. There are also words that appear to be metaphoric but are

innovations. Take for instance, the word “relationship.” While “-ship” appears to be

metaphorical, etymologically the suffix has nothing to do with a seafaring vessel (though we

may invent that it does); we innovate when we express that a relationship is on the rocks or it has

been smooth sailing.29

Furthermore, if analysis is conceptualized as a pliable substance it can be formed,

molded, or transformed. Like a potter using clay or a machinist using a plastics mold, the

researcher takes the raw materials of analysis and converts them into meaningful, usable

29 For Derrida, trace is the absence of origin, a concept related to words which are now considered sleeping or dead metaphors. For instance, “understand” has a trace that meant ‘to stand among or between’. The metaphorical meaning is both non-present and present in the literal meaning. Even the word “trace” itself is a trace. In the literal sense, trace meant ‘to follow by foot’ and, in the figurative sense, ‘to follow an outline’. Our current literal meaning has reverted to the archaic figurative meaning.

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artifacts. One might also explore the metaphor in terms of substance: solid, liquid, gas, or gelatin.

Even the use of passive voice in the phrase “takes the form” attributes agency to analysis instead

of the researcher. In terms of a metonymy, the ACT of analysis stands in for the ACTOR, the

researcher performing the analysis. The final interpretation may appear as a hierarchical data-

tree, going from the most general category to the most specific: TACTILE CRAFT→ARTIST or

MACHINIST→PLIABLE SUBSTANCE→FORMING = “takes the form.”

As we can see from the previous example, metaphors and archetypes are uniquely

associated. For example, the aforementioned MLE for “analyst” draws on the archetypes of

SCULPTOR or MACHINIST, which are CREATOR archetypes. Archetypal analysis is used as an

additional stage for coding conceptual keys to determine how metaphors enact roles. Because

mental processes are often represented as material processes, the mental process of analysis—the

analyst archetype—is therefore represented through the material process of “forming”—the

sculptor or machinist. While CMT identifies conceptual keys, archetypal analysis defines the

script or role that substantiates the use of an MLE (see Table 1.1 for descriptions of the

archetypal codes).

The final act of interpretation therefore involves asking questions about how each

conceptual metaphor helps us understand why the referent has been conceptualized a particular

way. To draw an analogy, metaphor interpretation is akin to psychoanalysis because it

investigates intrapersonal schema, imagery, and symbolism. Similar to Carl Jung’s active

imagination or David Grove’s clean language, applying metaphor analysis to case-study work

focuses on the participant’s internal metaphorical landscape.

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Lastly, conceptual metaphors may be compared over a single case or across different

cases to reveal how certain conceptualizations are particular to an individual or are commonplace

to a discourse community.

To rely on a simile, coding metaphors is like interpreting literature. A code is a “a word

or short phrase that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence-capturing, and/or

evocative attribute for a portion of language-based or visual data” (Saldana 3). There is always

room for speculation, conjecture, or multiple interpretations:

Grouping metaphor vehicles is interpretive, in that there is no single ‘right answer’ and in that the researcher must make judgements about how best to group the vehicles on the basis of available evidence. The set of groupings evolves as the researcher works through the metaphor vehicles; each new addition may lead to adapting and adjusting the existing groups. (Cameron & Maslen 120)

Just because you can code or interpret something multiple ways does not make all interpretations

any less valuable. For instance, if I refer to how I framed the study, how do I code ‘framed’?

Does frame relate to construction or photography? Is one discourse borrowing from the other; is

photography using a construction metaphor? Or when I use the term, am I even aware that I am

using a metaphor; am I just borrowing a common phrase that I have heard again and again, and it

is not saying anything unique about me? Yes. These are all pertinent interpretive issues and they

should be debated, but the researcher, whether or not they use interrater reliability (studies differ

on their approach as to whether this is necessary), must decide on an interpretation to run with:

“[A]lthough we strive for as much rigour as possible, the process is unavoidably hermeneutic,

and its success depends upon imagination and creativity combined with as much trust-worthiness

as is possible. The vehicle groupings that we construct will inevitably at times have blurred

boundaries and a degree of overlap” (120).

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Does the coding provide sound implications that enhance the legitimacy and credibility of

the interpretation? The goal is to achieve systematicity, internal logical consistency among

metaphorical groupings: “[A] set of related linguistic metaphors is what we call a ‘systematic

metaphor’. A systematic metaphor is a construct of the researcher, not necessarily of the

participants, created to help condense the discourse data, and to summarize metaphorical ways of

expressing ideas, attitudes and values” (128). Coding is rhetorical work.

In the following chapters, I introduce initial analyses and offer discussions.

Comprehensive catalogues of the case participants’ metaphors appear in the appendices.

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CHAPTER 4: SARA’S TEXT AND TALK DATA

In literature we feel the pain of the downtrodden, the anguish of defeat, or the joy of victory—but in a safe space. In this space, we can, as it were, practice empathy. We can refine our human capacities of emotional understanding. We can hone our ability to feel with other people who, in ordinary life, might seem too foreign—or too threatening—to elicit our sympathies. Perhaps, then, when we return to our real lives, we can better understand why people act the way they do, and react with caution, even compassion toward them.

—Keith Oatley from “A Feeling for Fiction”

In the following case-study, I construct a detailed metaphorical profile of Sara. The case-

study does not propose to make assertions about Sara’s core identity or personality—or even

Sara “the person”—as much as capturing identifiers within particular texts, within particular

metaphors. In this regard, I am offering an analysis of Sara’s “textual” identity or literate

identity.30 Identity is situated and performative; situated in texts and performed through

archetypes and metaphors. But, because metaphor affects behavior as well, it is permissible to

suggest that textual metaphors do reveal something about the real person or how that person

orients themselves in the world. Claims I make about identity, however, are situated in textual

representations, no matter the extent to which they apply to the embodied person.

30 In “Inventing Literate Identities: The Influence of Texts and Contexts” Prisca Martens and Susan Adamson (2001) define literate identity as readers’ and writers’

perceptions of themselves in relation to literacy. These identities are not ‘fixed;’ they are shaped and invented as [readers and writers] draw on their experiences in different literacy events with the texts they read and write (Bloome & Dail, 1997; Harste et al., 1984; Martens, Flurkey, Meyer, & Udell, 1999). As [readers and writers] operate within various cultural and social contexts, literate identities also reflect the influence of particular cultural practices (Gee, 1990) and social practices (Luke & Freebody, 1997; Taylor, 1983). In the act of engaging in literacy events, [readers and writers] interpret themselves in relationship to their world, locating themselves both in view of the experiences they have had and the experiences they imagine (Sumara, 1996). (32)

Literate identities are also expressed in the metaphors readers and writers generate for literacy, whether explicitly or implicitly.

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Each section of the chapter is divided by data-type and data-collection method, presented

in the chronological order in which they were administered for purposes of tracking the evolution

of the data over time and to demonstrate the relationship between genre and metaphor. The

chapter conducts a close reading and detailed analysis of the metaphorical landscape and

development of each type of data: writing quote analysis, literacy narrative, peer-to-peer

marginalia, reflection memo, revision letter, open-ended survey response, and conferencing.

(Appendices contain all conceptual keys, cataloguing MLEs for each.) The general progression

moves from data-collection to analysis to discussion, drawing on the relationship between

metaphor, identity, and pedagogy. I demonstrate the relationships between them by identifying

the metaphorical themes and archetypes that reveal how Sara conceptualizes her literate activity.

The analysis reveals what college-writers’ metaphors tell us about their literate practices

and identities. Metaphor analysis is pedagogically useful because educators and researchers alike

can learn more about how and why students read and write, as well as learn how to teach to their

motivations and concerns. Sara’s data is valuable because it identifies how genre determines

certain patterns of metaphoric conceptualization. For instance, patterns of space and navigation

are associated with developmental and editorial concerns. Patterns of imagination and immersion

are associated with Sara’s literate identity as a Creator and Artist.

A close analysis of Sara’s metaphors teach us how she uses literacy. For example, the

metaphor of purification teaches us about her prewriting rituals. Metaphors of expression teach

us about the sensory experiences of literacy. Painting and crafting appeal to the art and

imaginative appeal of literacy. Her nuanced metaphor of “inkless-writing” encourages us to think

about literacy beyond traditional confines. Metaphors of navigation, placement, and cutting teach

us about her editorial concerns. And her emphasis on living through literary texts teaches us

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about literacy as roleplaying. Non-fictional genres, such as argument, become a place for

activism and self-discovery. These are the metaphors Sara reads and writes by.

Case Introduction

Sara identifies herself as an aspiring fiction/fantasy writer. Her goal for FYC includes

learning different styles and skills to improve her academic and personal writing. While she

distinguishes between writing for academic purposes or personal enjoyment, she hopes to have

meaningful crossover between the two. Sara sees college writing as “more of an opportunity for

[her] rather than a class of ‘useless torture.’” In class, she is quiet and reserved but quite the

opposite when she converses over her writing. While fiction is among her primary literate

interests, Sara, too, is influenced by political media.

Sara’s Writing Quote Analysis31

Data-collection

The first type of data-collection involves researching quotes on reading and writing. After

deciding on a quote, students are prompted to analyze and interpret the significance. As an

exercise, analyzing quotes utilizes imitation to uncover how college-writers define reading and

writing. Definition is an essential component for eliciting how we conceptualize something;

therefore, interacting with others’ definitions aids us in arriving at our own, moving from

imitation to invention.

Analysis

For this exercise, Sara chose an aphorism by Russian playwright and short-story author

Anton Chekhov: “‘Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken

31 Refer to Appendix A for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from Sara’s data for the Writing Quote Analysis.

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glass.’” Providing some backstory for the quote, Sara relates that the quote is “a valuable32

message” Chekhov is “attempting to drive across to his brother, [sic] in a letter.” She employs

the conceptual metaphor WRITING IS A VEHICLE, as expressed in the verb phrase “to drive,” with

the addition of “across” portraying DELIVERY AS A BRIDGE or LAND ROUTE. This figurative

expression is associated with the conceptual domains JOURNEY (i.e., traveling) and COURIER

(i.e., delivering), which are observed in the common parlance ‘to drive a point home.’ The

underlying subtext conjures the mythopoeia of shipping valuable items (i.e., the message) over a

bridge or across land (i.e., the obstacle of interpretation and application). While this is a

relatively banal instance, it demonstrates the basic mythic, storytelling structure of implicit

metaphors.

As we take a closer look, as writers write within or about a genre, they inevitably

generate metaphors for that genre. In this regard, Sara generates metaphors for quoting:

demonstration, instruction, and magnification.

With demonstration, a metonymy (or conceptual substitution) occurs in the verb

“show”—quotes “show you how to write”—because the verb gives agency to the object (i.e., the

quote) instead of the subject performing the action (i.e., the author). Thereby, the metaphor

imparts the writer’s identity onto the thing produced by the writer. The metaphor personifies the

quote as performing or demonstrating something on its own—A QUOTE IS A DEMONSTRATION

(i.e., because it “shows,” the DEMONSTRATION stands in for the DEMONSTRATOR). In other

words, the metonymy assumes: THE WRITING IS THE WRITER because the writing takes on the

abilities of the writer, such as showing.

32 Italics appearing within participants’ quoted material are used to highlight MLEs—expressions from which conceptual metaphors are derived—unless otherwise stated.

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Along with perceiving quotes as demonstrations, Sara expresses that a “quote is able to

provide, both, what to do and what not to do”—A QUOTE IS AN INSTRUCTION. She adds, “[T]his

quote has magnified to me the importance of using metaphors, images and accurately chosen

words.” A QUOTE IS A MAGNIFICATION. As a part of the focus-metaphor, magnification stresses

‘degree of importance,’ based on the conception IMAGINATION IS SIGHT.

Furthermore, the main definition Sara generates for writing is: WRITING IS IMAGINATION,

a “bringing [an] image to mind.” She goes on to explain: “to write means being able to show the

reader a vivid image.” Elaborating on the theme of imagination, she provides that the use of

show, as it appears in the quote, stands for “to be creative, innovative.” Honing in on the genre of

fiction, she details that (FICTION) WRITING IS A TRANSFER OF IMAGES and THOUGHTS ARE

VISIONS: “If it’s a novel, then the writer should work on transferring what he sees, in his mind,

to paper, for the reader must also be able to see what the writer had envisioned.” Sense of sight in

this context is a synesthesia, “the ability to perceive a stimulus in one sense organ through a

different sensory system” (Geary 77). For instance, we speak of the mind’s eye, where the

material sense of sight becomes the immaterial sense of insight. As she points out, writing

becomes the process of giving material form to the immaterial content of our imagination. The

intangible nature of our imagination is realized through the tangible act of writing: READING IS

SEEING.

Sara’s insights into imagination demonstrate the conceptual dichotomy between reading

and writing. We may recall Freire’s assertion that writing emerges from our reading of the world;

READING IS PERCEIVING (AN IMAGE) and WRITING IS (RE)CREATING (AN IMAGE).

Discussion

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Two different types of metaphor are demonstrated here: 1) implicit metaphors about

conceptualizing what a quote is, and 2) implicit metaphors about conceptualizing what fiction is.

These instances reveal, in part, how metaphor defines genre. While Sara’s implicit knowledge of

quoting reveals certain commonplace metaphors, Sara’s exposition on imagination is unique to

her own personal experience with being a fiction reader/writer. The theme of imagination teaches

us about the visual appeal of writing; readers experience what they are reading by seeing it—

whether it be fiction or journalism. Even good arguments are not only about figuratively seeing

someone else’s point but imagining the world in a different way. Metaphors, such as

imagination, remind us literacy is sensory.

Particular metaphors reveal how quotes are demonstrations, instructions, and

magnifications. They teach us writing is seeing. The more we understand the metaphors we read

and write by, the more we can teach to these points in our classrooms. The pedagogical

application of Sara’s metaphors resides in asking questions about, “How mapping the discourse

of imagination onto the discourse of writing enhances what it means to be a reader and writer?”

How is writing image-making? How are instructors cultivating imagination, visual appeal or

immersion? These are just a few of the kinds of questions students’ metaphors confront us with

when we take time to experience writing from their perspectives.

Cataloguing Sara’s initial metaphors suggests that the identity of the Creator33 archetype

is prominent. Creator-types perceive WRITING AS IMAGINATION, to give life to an image and

sustain a reader’s immersion through descriptive world-building. Knowing what archetypal

drives are prevalent can aid instructors in generating course content around particular archetypal

33 All archetypal characters are capitalized to set them apart from other figures or tropes.

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drives, such as the creative drive. Even the study of composition itself, in the most general sense,

is essentially an investigation into the creative process.

Sara’s Literacy Narrative34

Data-collection

Literacy Narratives (LN) involve participants recounting their history as a reader and

writer as well as recording and investigating their day-to-day literate habits. LNs have been

neglected as a subject for metaphor analysis, as none of the studies reviewed here include LNs in

their data-collection methods. LNs encourage meta-writing, self-reflexively revealing their

literate identities through their day-to-day literate habits. They offer an inside perspective into

what literacy has come to mean to an individual, that is, in terms of how they identify

themselves. LNs involve students observing and recording their literate habits, then analyzing

and interpreting those habits. Participants incorporate narrative examples from their lives in both

instances, demonstrating the impact and affect literacy has had on them or continues to have. In

the following analysis, we observe how Sara situates herself as a reader and writer. The data

provided here details Sara’s dominant archetypal influences, as associated with the development

of her LN.

Analysis

Over the course of the LN, Sara develops the archetypal identities of Ascetic, Activist,

Underdog, Enigma, and Analyst. Sara starts with the self-description: “I’ve come to the

conclusion that I’m a mixture of things; a jack of all trades. I read biographies, critical thinkers’

articles, novels, short stories, magazines, etc.” This declaration exemplifies the diversity of

Sara’s reading and writing activity.

34 Refer to Appendix B for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from Sara’s data for the Literacy Narrative (with revisions).

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A personal aspect of Sara’s composing psychology—her habits of mind—

is her preference to write in solitude. On occasion a writer’s preferred workspace speaks to how

their identity is projected or performed within that space. Seeing herself as an introvert, or

Ascetic, she intentionally seeks to separate herself from distraction to improve her authorial

authenticity:

[O]ne of my preferences is reading and writing in quiet isolated places where I can clear my mind from all other external thoughts, and focus on my own thoughts and ideas. I think one of the major problems faced by novelists and writers alike is the fear of coming up with an idea that has been written before. Since our thoughts and emotions are influenced by what we read, watch and get exposed to, we know that sometimes our ideas are not pure, and I believe that solitude is the key to get rid of such external ideas.

Many creatives seek inspiration and illumination in solitude: SOLITUDE IS PURIFICATION. While

writing is a social art form, it often takes shape in moments of solitude. The spiritual dimension

of writing allows writers to interact with their inward experiences. Solitude, for Sara, has the

potential to unlock something previously inaccessible. Writing rituals, such as this, demonstrate

archetypal motivations. Ritual is an integral part of what makes a literacy event, and Sara’s

ritualistic behavior speaks to her need, as a writer, to cleanse herself mentally. This type of rite

prepares her for the task of writing. This type of mental purification is an interesting part of

Sara’s composing process because it highlights a significant prewriting ritual.

Sara also focuses on the transformative world that opens up as we develop literacy:

We first start reading and writing when we are only a few years old. Suddenly, the world around us changes, and we find ourselves indulging into a new spectrum of things. Now we are able to communicate, argue, express our opinions and speak our minds, through combining words and sharing our work. Words then start holding additional meaning to us, and we begin looking at life in a novel manner.

LITERACY IS TRANSFORMATION. Reading and writing shape and reshape our experiences of the

world. They allow us to verbalize and express our thoughts. LITERACY IS ORALITY/THOUGHT.

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When we make literacy our own it involves what Sara calls “knowing your own language.”

Literacy affects how we look at life because LITERACY serves AS A LENS. Sara possibly even

uses the double-meaning for novel, meaning narrative and “new”.

Sara primarily develops the spiritual dimension of her literate behavior through the

archetype of the Activist. She explains,

The dream of being an activist came from the thought of standing up for the rights of those facing injustice. The idea of standing on a podium in the midst of a crowd, head held high, yelling and shaking with passion appealed to me, greatly. Then there was the dream of becoming a writer, with a pen-name rather than my own. Something fascinated me about writing with a hidden identity. I don’t know if it was simply the mystery, or if there was more to it. I suppose I wanted people to think, ‘Wow; who is this person?’. I’m no longer pursuing most of these things, but don’t get me wrong; I do still take myself back to those thoughts from time to time.

Later in her argumentative research, the archetype of the Activist reemerges in a discussion

surrounding the Palestine-Israeli conflict. Because she sees herself as an Activist, writing

becomes a platform for motivating readers to empathy and action. In the closing paragraph of the

argumentative research paper, she pleads, “I urge activists and politicians to take a stance, a

stance for the children, the women, and the elderly, for humanity. The impunity must stop. Those

responsible should be held responsible. This is not a political debate, this is a humanitarian

crises.” The persona of the Activist demonstrates how archetypal influences affect and frame a

composition because archetypes are the rhetorical energies that inform the whole of the

composing process. Writing as activism is about intervention and justice. Literacy becomes a

place for positive action and reaction to real-world injustices. This level of metaphoric

conceptualization resides in the archetypal identity associated with the genre, mood, or voice of

the writing. The Activist archetype is a hybrid of the Altruist and Revolutionary, someone whose

concern is to fight for the well-being of others.

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In addition, an important subtype of the Activist is the Underdog, which Sara expresses

through the literary theme of overcoming: “I’ve noticed that I tend to relate to novels about a

story of struggle before massive success. It’s one of those things that strikes a chord in me.” The

appeal of coming from nothing, overcoming life’s struggles, and achieving lasting success are

the essential thread of the Hero’s Journey. The stories or genres we have an affinity for correlate

with metaphors we hold about life, such as the archetypal Cinderella-story: LIFE IS A STRUGGLE.

For the Underdog, reading is searching for anecdotes for overcoming life’s obstacles.

Another way Sara conceptualizes the Activist is through the hidden identity of the

masked hero or the Enigma. Fantasizing about an alter-ego such as this reveals a paradoxical

sense of humility paired with a desire to be recognized not for who a writer is but for the ideals

the writer stands for. In this regard, the Enigma holds that the writing itself is more important

than the author—the writer is a vessel for an ideal. This highlights an important quality of the

Activist as Idealist, where a writer’s faith in the message takes precedence.

As I have demonstrated, Sars’s literate identity—in the form of the Activist—relies on

the archetypal intersections of the Altruist, Revolutionary, and Idealist, which impact the

narratives she’s drawn to and the topics she writes about.

Lastly, the identity of the Analyst is situated at the end of the LN:

I thought I was a novelist. Perhaps even still do, but after further pondering an outsider’s look, I realized that the answer was before me all along. I am an analyst, and quite frankly, it doesn’t surprise me. I’ve always analyzed texts, but it had become a habit to the point where I’m no longer consciously doing it.

The Analyst archetype is a hybrid of the Warrior, Wanderer, and Sage, one who conceptualizes

literacy as a challenge, self-discovery, and knowledge-construction. Furthermore, to exemplify

her penchant for analytical thinking, she reflects on a recent literacy involving the script to a film

she was watching:

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Sometimes we don’t realize it, but when we hear words and we pause to think about them, it is not only an analysis, but it is reading. Food for thought; anything that makes us think, can and should [emphasis in original] be considered, not only a form of reading, but also a form of impromptu inkless writing. The act of forming words, through any medium, even verbally, is writing.

For Sara, literacy itself has become INTERPRETATION IS READING; MEANING-MAKING IS

WRIITNG. Defining speech as “inkless” writing reminds us that, while speech is not always

recorded in a tangible way, it can have an invisible staying power. It can be written into our

memories. She reminds us that other forms of writing, such a scripts, take on a verbal life of

inklessness, writing that has taken on another form other than alphabetic text.

Discussion

The variety of archetypes discussed here reveal the intricate character of Sara’s literate

behavior. They reveal the exigency or motivations for why she reads and writes. What begins to

emerge is a spirituality of writing. The archetype of the Activist teaches us that literacy is about

sharing our ideals with one another to improve the quality of life.

In addendum to Sara’s original draft of the LN, I include here a brief analysis of her

revision. In revision, writers make choices to explore new directions, simultaneously reducing

and adding content. Sara’s revision, in contrast with the previous draft, adds the identity of the

Novelist. Delineating between different genres of interest, Sara highlights the appeal of each

genre, “In opinion columns it was delivering a message and convincing an audience, in novels it

was imagination and release, and in writing short stories it was a template – an empty canvas

rather, to paint on.” (ARGUMENTATIVE) WRITING IS DELIVERING. (FICTION) READING IS

IMAGINATION AND RELEASE. (FICTION) WRITING IS PAINTING. For her, argument is about

movement, while fiction is about visualization.

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Adding the identifier of Novelist reveals some indecision on her part as to whether or not

she is serious about this aspiration. She describes her experience with fiction as sporadic

“snippets [emphasis in original]” that she collects and hopes to “expand . . . into a novel.”

(FICTION) WRITING IS COLLAGING: “[The snippets] continue to grow from time to time.” The

collaging-metaphor exemplifies writing as cutting and piecing together narrative. The snippets

are pieces of incomplete information that eventually create a bigger picture.

Sara, too, bolsters previous identities by drawing on interests in “social and political

issues” and having a penchant for “not simply conforming [to] the crowd.” She relates, “After a

long while of going back and forth from one description of my reading and writing to another,

I’ve settled. I am an activist, for I read and write about global issues. I am a novelist, for I read

novels and aim to write ones.” The revision assists Sara in coming to terms with her identity as a

reader and writer by rewriting it out. The revision also reinforces how Sara sees writing as the

artistic acts of painting and collaging—“crafting the image.” The collaging-metaphor

communicates that inspiration comes in bursts or at random moments and cannot be planned for

as much as it is captured in the moment. The emphasis on growth reminds us that composing is

about collecting and gathering pieces, where the author sometimes does not know what the big

picture is but feels an unavoidable impulse toward it.

Sara’s Peer-to-Peer Marginalia35

Data-collection

Peer-review is a common class exercise where college-writers roleplay through the

editing process. Review involves critiquing writing through writing, which allows the analyst, in

this case, to uncover metaphors in the reviewer’s meta-writing. In the following section, I look at

35 Refer to Appendix C for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from Sara’s data for the Peer-to-Peer Marginalia.

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Sara’s peer-review as well as my review of Sara’s work. Peer-review marginalia and instructor

feedback, like the LN, are underrepresented as methods of data-collection for researching

compositional metaphors, as none of the studies reviewed here include review workshops as part

of their data. In peer-review writing, we observe how college-writers emulate their instructors or

enact their own discourse. In instructor marginalia, we see how instructors reinforce dominant

disciplinary metaphors or incorporate personal metaphors. Like the LN, review writing is a

natural way to encounter the metaphors we read and write by. Review writing often takes the

form of short response—small phrases, succinct sentences, and short summary—and the data-set

reflects these minimalistic conventions.

All peer-review is developed in conjunction with the rough-draft of the LN, whereas the

instructor feedback is a response to the final draft.

Analysis

Sara begins the peer-review by encouraging the author to provide additional content

using the phrase, “Expand more.” Expansion is a spatial concept and a building concept—to give

more space to an idea (not just physical space on the page, but ideational space).

REVISION/EDITING IS EXPANSION.

Addressing issues of placement, Sara suggests, “Perhaps it would be best to add this to

the paragraph about social media, since it already carries that theme.” MOVEMENT IS ADDITION.

PARAGRAPHS ARE SHIPPING CONTAINERS, making THEMES, SHIPPING CONTENT. In another

instance, she instructs the author to consider elaborating on one of the quotes because “it carries

a lot of meaning.” QUOTES ARE CONTAINERS (FOR MEANING).

Discussion

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Sara’s brief metaphorical commentary focuses on issues of space and movement,

revealing how review assessment is a matter of navigation and delivery. These metaphors give

focus and attention to the reader’s concerns of figuratively moving through the writing, gathering

information, and obtaining meaning.

Implicit metaphors like these communicate the reader’s experiences with texts-in-

progress, of their concerns with remodeling and spatialization. Navigation is a commonplace

way readers experience reading; for instance, we talk about giving a text a walkthrough or

readthrough. Navigation allows writers to consider how to develop their writing through

spatialization. Because spatial metaphors frame the text as a type of setting or space, navigation

aids us in thinking about issues of place(ment). For instance, the concept of “topics” in rhetorical

education comes from the Greek topos, meaning “place.” Writers construct ideational spaces or

places for their readers to inhabit and explore.

Instructor Feedback36

Analysis

Like Sara’s emphasis on space and movement, my own metaphors, too, attend to figures

of architecture, organization/cleaning, and vision. Beginning commentary on Sara’s paper, I note

the “introduction is useful for setting up the memoir” portion. INTRODUCTIONS ARE DISPLAYS.

In addition, I remark that the memoir provides a “Nice portrait”—MEMOIRS ARE PORTRAITS.

Cumulatively, these metaphors allude to the interior design of the document, its display and

decorum.

Likewise, elements of exterior design are established through the language of

architecture. Because ESSAYS ARE CONSTRUCTIONS, INSIGHTS ARE a part of that

36 Refer to Appendix D for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from the Instructor’s Feedback.

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ARCHITECTURE: “If this is your overarching insight you might want to go back and rethink how

each section develops/doesn’t develop this identity???” Even in other discourses, we refer to a

design’s information “architecture”. Along similar lines, I refer to WRITING AS

(RE)CONSTRUCTION: “Good reflection on extending the definition of reading.”

Because design and architecture define the space of writing, THOUGHT becomes

MOVEMENT/NAVIGATION: “Right, this says something about your identity and the process

necessary for thinking things through your own way.” Other elements of design, such as

“reflection,” “transition,” and “fit,” are observed in: “The theme and identity of being an activist

is apparent, but how these reflections transition or fit with the rest of the paper is not.” WRITING

IS A MIRROR (FOR THE WRITER). WRITING IS NAVIGATION/CONSTRUCTION. WRITING IS

PUZZLING.

I also address issues of design through organization, mentioning “what goes with what”

to draw attention to cleaning up the meaning. Additional issues of movement and direction—

“discovery draft,” “navigation paragraph,” and “locating,” these, too, are associated with

clarifying meaning: EDITING/ORGANIZATION IS DIRECTION/PLACEMENT. Along with clarifying

meaning, I refer to the exertion of physical strength or force as a matter of emphasizing meaning,

such as ‘reining in her voice’ or starting the paper off “strong.” (DEGREE OF) MEANING IS

PHYSICAL STRENGTH.

As Sara develops different motifs, I ask if “there [is] a way that [she] could be more

precise about what [she] want[s] to focus [her] attention on here: activism and the underdog

motif or ???” THEMES/MOTIFS ARE FOCAL POINTS. Extending the sight-metaphor, I advise,

“Provide a clearer transition here.” In this sense, understanding is perceived as a liquid substance

or transparent material. For instance, we often speak of an idea’s clarity or lack thereof.

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Discussion

As the instructor, my concerns about revision utilize metaphors of organization, clarity,

and impact, and Sara and I both gravitate toward concerns of spatialization and

navigation/delivery. Metaphors of construction, organization, navigation, clarity, and strength are

dominant figures in the rhetorical canon of revision and review, for each one reveals how we

conceptualize writing development through concerns of structural integrity, mapping space,

ordering, clarity, and impact. They emphasize the writerly identities of architect, cartographer,

designer or engineer. In this regard, these are the implicit rubrics or heuristics reviewers use to

provide writing instruction.

Sara’s Reflection Memo and Revision Letter37

Data-collection

In the previous section, we looked at peer and instructor commentary; in this section, we

consider Sara’s self-assessment. Self-assessment gives the analyst a behind-the-scenes sense of

what writers hope to accomplish, what their writing has come to mean to them and what

aspirations motivate them. Because reflection generates meta-writing, it provides insight into

how college-writers conceptualize their own writing processes. The intent behind the memo and

letter is to engage the college-writer in thinking about how to revise their work as a matter of

innovation. The student must assess the effort, quality, and evolution of the text. Introspection

encourages them to confront what they are insecure about or acknowledge what they are proud

of, and why. The following analysis is a demonstration of how Sara feels about the evolution of

her LN, replete with its design choices and insecurities. Like peer-review marginalia and

37 Refer to Appendix E for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from Sara’s data for the Reflection Memo and Revision Letter.

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instructor feedback, memos and letters have been underutilized in the body of research

investigating compositional metaphors.

Analysis: Reflection Memo

In her memo, Sara focuses on issues of placement. She mentions, “I tried to refrain from

writing any fillers,” though “not everything was placed properly.” While she expresses

contentment with utilizing space, she is indecisive about the placement—WRITING IS PLACING

(OBJECTS). She contemplates, “I think there’s a paragraph that I need to get rid of in my paper,

since it seems so out-of-place, and does not seem to fit anywhere. The only reason I’m keeping it

is because I love it. I just still don’t know how to incorporate it within the text, or how to

transition to it and from it.” Metaphors of placement continue to reveal the tension involved in

deciding what to do with content the writer is not sure how to arrange or fit. While Sara

acknowledges the paragraph does not belong in its current location, it is emotionally hard for her

to part with it, which reveals that, for her, editing is not only a matter of removing content but of

emotionally letting go—the tension between the Ruler (i.e., “incorporate”) and Romantic (i.e.,

“love”).

Sara proceeds by defining writing as “finding the right words to express meanings.”

WRITING IS DISCOVERY/EXPLORATION. WORDING IS ETHICS. WRITING IS EXPRESSION. The

ethics of style are concerned with the accuracy of word choice, with right or wrong depictions or

emphasis.

Sara is also concerned about arriving at her intended destination. She remarks, “I think

the paper’s flow was neat, but it’s not at the point that I’d like it to be. It’ll never be at the point

that I’d like it to be, at least not now.” WRITING IS FLOW. WRITING IS ORGANIZATION. WRITING

IS NAVIGATION. For her, the writing has not yet arrived. Flow and navigation represent Sara’s

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retrospective levels of dis/satisfaction. How close a writer is to a sense of arriving correlates with

the level of control they feel they have over their text. Like before, the Ruler is manifest in her

personal dissatisfaction, an element of the psychology of composing that signals whether or not

the writing has been brought to order. The mytheme of the voyage underlies these feelings too—

the voyage is incomplete.

Aside from issues of placement, ethics, and navigation, Sara interestingly conceptualizes

GENRE AS COLOR: “Typically, this paper isn’t the color that I usually write, so I had to come up

with a new way to deliver information; one that I’m not used to.” Genre colors the writing,

altering the look and feel of it, which adds to Sara’s sense of insecurity because the “color” is not

her usual style. We might talk about how something colors a work or colors an attitude. Using

color to emphasize the type or manner of composition is, again, evidence of the Artist archetype,

which is later explicitly portrayed as the Painter in Sara’s first MIE. Additional artistic

metaphors of crafting (i.e., “snippets”) or cinematography (i.e., “scenes”) identify her as a

collager or filmographer. GENRE IS also (A WAY OF) DELIVERY because it impacts how a

message is presented and received.

Altogether, details of placing, selecting, arriving, and delivering allude to varying degrees

of both insecurity and precision. Sara explicitly refers to INSECURITIES AS VOICES: “My voice

emerges overall confident, but at the back of my head there’s that tiny voice that tells me that I

still need to work on it even further.” In this way, the voice of the Ruler instills a growing sense

that the writing’s potential has not been explored completely, taking on the persona of critic or

coach.

Metaphors of placement, ethics, navigation, and inner voice all speak to the emotive

aspect of Sara’s writing process. Are things in the right place; described with the right words;

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going in the right direction and arriving at the right destination? These are the concerns of the

Ruler. What we learn from the memo is how personal assessment metaphors speak to Sara’s own

concerns for her writing development.

Analysis: Revision Letter

Likewise, in her letter, Sara claims her primary struggle writing the LN was handling the

proportion criteria of the assignment, which involved blending and balancing primary research

and narrative. She addresses, “I had to chop out a lot of my memoir writing, despite it being the

part I loved to write about the most.” Since her metaphor for editing takes on the connotation of

a butchery or rough-cutting metaphor, it draws attention to the negative aspect of editing—

EDITING IS CHOPPING, the reluctant removal of what the writer is attached to. This reflects the

tension between what Sara feels obligated to do and what she would love to do, the rhetorical

tension of being constrained by others’ expectations.

Between the memo and letter, Sara shifts between states of confidence and insecurity.

Metaphors associated with this dynamic become integral to her composing process and sense of

accomplishment. The interplay between insecurity and confidence directly affect the recursive

nature of her composing.

Discussion

Metaphors in Sara’s memo and letter make her editorial concerns apparent, concerns of

placement, ethics, navigation, and cutting. The main insight of both is the characterization of the

emotive dimension of her composing, that is, feelings of not having arrived, getting it right, or

parting with content. These metaphors speak to the motivations of her writing development,

evidenced by the “unfinished”-attribute of each, framing her composition as a literal work-in-

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progress. The writer as voyager, designer, and craftsman highlight: the voyage is incomplete; the

design is unfinished; and the materials are not set.

The emotional nuances of metaphor covered here provide insight into how writers feel

about their writing, reminding us of how important emotion is to motivation, creativity, or sense

of accomplishment, resulting in drives to reinvent, procrastinate, or scrap an idea altogether.

Sara’s Open-ended Survey38

Data-collection

The survey is intended to address what prompts writers to write, capturing descriptions of

their composing process and definitions of writing. Participants were able to provide as little or

as much as they would like in answering each of the five questions.

Analysis

The first survey question addresses what prompts college-writers to read and write. Sara

reveals that she reads and writes from a desire to live through fictional personas: “I like the idea

of forming words to express a meaning, and that’s exactly what it is; a way to express.

Ultimately, I like to write because I can write about virtually anything. I can live through my

characters what I can’t live.” (FICTION) WRITING IS A SIMULATION OF LIFE. Author and literary

scholar, C.S. Lewis claims that reading “can give us experiences we have never had and thus,

instead of ‘commenting on life,’ can add to it,” which is what Sara is alluding to here (310).

Through the development of this metaphor, the Creator archetype reemerges as Sara describes

the author’s incarnation through WRITING IS LIVING. Creator-types live through their writing, so

that they and their readers may experience another life altogether.

Moving from motivation to defining process, Sara posits:

38 Refer to Appendix F for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from Sara’s data for the Open-ended Survey.

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Writing is the ability to express through the formation of sentences using words. I like to do impromptu writing, and then ponder over what I’ve written at night. Then, I go back for one final edit. I tend to fix things as I go, rather than fixing everything at the end, so it saves me time and a headache.

Elsewhere she echoes, “Writing for me is usually impromptu.” Her impromptu style highlights

an important archetypal dichotomy in writing, the Planner and the Adventurer—WRITING IS

PLANNED or WRITING IS SPONTANEOUS. Writing inspiration is something we make happen or

that happens to us. As outlined by Sara, spontaneity, pondering, and review are the phases of her

composing process.

Furthermore, when discussing revision, Sara outlines: “I read through my writing out

loud. I try to express the meaning using my voice, and that’s how I notice what I need to fix. It

doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m always right to edit certain things.” She utilizes the verb ‘fix’

to describe the editing process—EDITING/REVISION IS FIXING. Fixing, however, is a complicated

mechanical metaphor. Fixing assumes that writing is a machine or mechanism. If a piece of

writing needs fixed it is because we conceptualize it as broken, not working or not running

efficiently, much like an engine or processor. This can have negative emotional implications.

When we encounter something broken it costs us time and frustration; it locks us into the binary

of ‘it works’ or ‘it doesn’t work,’ instead of thinking about it organically as a matter of

reconfiguring or improvisation.

All in all, Sara argues what is most significant about writing is “[t]he ability to stir deep

emotion within the reader.” EMOTIONS ARE LIQUID SUBSTANCES/CHEMICALS. DEPTH IS

DEGREE OF MEANING. LITERACY IS AN EMOTIONAL INTERACTION, engaging readers to feel

something. Her rhetorical intent compliments her motivation as a fiction writer, to live through

others’ stories, to essentially feel what others feel—empathy. This draws on the identity of the

Creator as Empath.

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Discussion

Sara’s metaphors about fiction reveal how writing is about simulating life and engaging

emotion. Her focus on the impromptu aspect of the composing process emphasizes a progression

from spontaneity, to pondering, to review. Her simulation-metaphor frames literacy, in the

literary tradition, as role-playing. WRITING IS LIVING posits that writing development is not just

about developing skills but about developing one’s life or one’s emotional intelligence. This

perspective has the potential to impact writing pedagogy because it addresses how we imbue our

writing with life, commentary, and the virtual experiences other narrative possibilities. These

metaphors establish the writerly identities of the Wanderer (i.e., writing is an unplanned

adventure), the Avatar (i.e., writing is a medium to live through), and the Empath (i.e., writing is

a medium to feel through).

Sara’s Conferences39

Data-collection

This final section addresses metaphor in conversation. Writing conferences are an

opportunity to capture the instructor’s and college-writer’s spontaneous ideas about writing

through conversation. Conducting a metaphor analysis of conference dialogue reveals how

students and instructors position, exchange, and negotiate conceptualizations of literacy.

Conversation analysis seeks to represent how “speakers jointly create meaning” (Taylor 16) and

represent the constructive and constitutive nature of the social exchange of meaning and

knowledge: “[D]iscourse is socially constitutive as well as socially shaped: it constitutes

situations, objects of knowledge, and the social identities of and relationships between people

and groups of people” (Fairclough & Wodak 258). Altogether, the data was recorded over the

39 Refer to Appendix G for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from Jason and Sara’s data for the Conferences.

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period of two separate conferences: one about revision and the other about writing development.

Sara’s first conference addresses her revisionary concerns for the LN. Conferencing dialogue

provides different kinds of metaphors for writing that exist on the periphery, like metaphors for

theses, editing, revision, introductions, and themes. Throughout, I highlight the domains and

conceptual keys that were predominant and consider how certain occurrences exemplify how

metaphor is used to position, exchange/share knowledge, or negotiate meaning.

Analysis: Conference 1

First, positioning metaphors are used to educate, persuade, or establish a perspective. As

the instructor, my commentary positions that THESES ARE ANSWERS, INTRODUCTIONS ARE

EXPECTATIONS, DRAFTING IS A STORM and REVISION IS RESHAPING. In addition, I position

READING AS COLLECTING (pull out), IMPACT (hit), and MOVEMENT (jump to). Furthermore,

WRITING IS positioned as ARCHITECTURE/FRAMING, DELIVERY, DESIGN, DISCOVERY, and

PHYSICAL STRENGTH.

From the student’s perspective, WRITING IS positioned as COLLAGING.

Metaphors of exchange occur when speakers concur by implementing similar metaphors,

such as with both our reliance on EDITING IS CUTTING and WRITING IS BOUNDED SPACE. Sara,

too, emphasizes that WRITING IS PUZZLING, which correlates with my conceptualization that

WRITING IS A CHALLENGE. Another correlation of this type occurs when Sara refers to WRITING

AS MUSIC and I later mention the ‘musicality’ in her writing.

Lastly, metaphors of negotiation result in proposing different metaphors. Let us take for

instance the following dialogue:

Jason [24:00]: I would say that there is some theme with imagination. I don’t know. What, what do you think you could say about imagination in the introduction and conclusion that would . . . Sara [24:05]: . . . tie everything together?

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Jason [24:07]: Yeah. Or is there a link between imagination and enlightenment?40

One metaphor is a textile activity, and the other is a metal-working activity. The implicit

figurative language enables us to negotiate what a theme does by employing figurative

reasoning. Tying and linking both serve the rhetorical goal of synthesis and emphasize the shared

property of connection through different visual arguments. Negotiation of a similar sort may also

occur when different metaphors are proposed by the same speaker, such as with my emphasis on

THEMES AS HIDDEN OBJECTS or THREADS.

Analysis: Conference 2

Sara’s second conference addresses her developmental concerns with the Argumentative

Research paper. While much of Sara’s figurative content repeats from her first conference, I,

however, utilize metaphors of SHARING, TRANSFORMATION, and VOICE, attempting to

communicate how revision writing is concerned with how the writing is changing the writer,

how writing involves sharing that change, and how that change develops a voice around the

impact that change has made or is making. I mention, “To me, that’s what writing is all about . .

., sharing your viewpoint with someone else.” Capturing the transformative power of writing, I

comment, “[W]hen I am interested in any argument, usually it’s something where its changing

me in some way.” I propose that writing is about sharing our voice, “developing your voice on

the issue;” writing is a medium where you can “get your voice out,” “have our voices heard,” and

add “your voice to an issue.”

Discussion

40 Idiosyncrasies such as the use of “um” and “like,” where they function as pauses, have been removed from all transcriptions to ensure improved readability.

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Being aware of the natural metaphors that occur in talk with our students says something

about the identities that situate our views of literacy, such as with Sara’s view of the artistic

experience or my position on literacy’s ability to incite change.

Interpretation

The previously discussed data-collection methods are by and large the result of analyzing

implicit levels of metaphoric conceptualization, which means that none of the data-collection

explicitly asked the writer to use metaphor, for all metaphors are the result of natural dialogue. I

summarize here the predominant genres, themes, archetypes, and teaching points that can be

gleaned from Sara’s use of metaphor.

One of the reoccurring highlights of Sara’s data showed how different metaphors are

associated with different genres of reading and writing. For instance, with the writing quote

analysis, metaphors of demonstration, instruction, and magnification were associated with

conceptualizing what quoting is. In addition, Sara’s peer-review and memo focused on the

metaphorical concerns of spatialization, with relation to matters of placement and navigation,

addressing the figurative, ideational space of reading and writing.

While it is quite clear that the primary genre Sara is drawn to is fiction, she associates

fiction with themes of imagination/visualization/sense perception, painting, collaging, film,

release, and simulation/living. As I’ve previously mentioned, particular genres are associated

with particular archetypes, that is, to summon specific writerly identities. With regard to fiction,

the Creator archetype is dominant, with the subtypes of Novelist or Avatar (i.e., living through

one’s characters) and Artist—Painter, Collager, Filmographer, and Musician as subordinate. The

Artist even influences how Sara addresses genre and style as “color.” The subtype of the Altruist,

the Empath is also another important archetype for Sara, with an emphasis on expression,

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feeling, and release. As a fiction reader, the subtype of the Warrior, the Underdog is apparent in

her affinity to plots about overcoming.

Sara also develops certain archetypes associated with the genre of argument. She

associates argument with themes of positive political action by means of the hybrid archetype of

the Altruist, Idealist, and Revolutionary, the Activist.

The predominant themes that emerged from Sara’s data tended toward the emotional or

spiritual dimension of her composing process, such as the ritual of writing in solitude, using

solitude as a means of purification. Likewise, the Wanderer archetype is apparent in her general

approach to composing as impromptu. In the end, her metaphor of inkless writing, too, speaks to

her sense of self as a critical thinker and poet, applying literacy as a metaphor for understanding

linguistic expression as a whole.

For Sara, other emotional concerns involved editorial issues, such as puzzling things out

or struggling to arrive at a destination or having to chop out content she was proud of. As with

the memo and letter, the archetype of the Ruler is present in the emotional tension to keep

pushing the writing further, to put things in the right place, to describe things with the right

words, to go in the right direction, and to arrive at the right destination.

Metaphor can tell us something about the spiritual/emotional state of a writer, about their

predominant identities grounded in specific genres of writing, and about the cognitive dimension

of conceptualizing literate activity. Researchers and educators alike can use metaphor analysis

and archetypal analysis to inquire into how individual writers conceptualize their literate activity,

discovering what that means for their evolving literate identities as well as aiding in the

development of those identities. Using metaphor analysis these ways expands our notions of

what it means to be a reader and writer the more metaphors we catalogue for reading and writing.

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To speculate about the pedagogical value of the data-collection exercises, I want to

reflect on how the exercises encourage different aspects of writing development. With regard to

the writing quote exercise, having college-writers reflect on what writing is by using another’s

quote allows the students to teach themselves about what writing is, to personalize what writing

is. With regard to the LN, identifying a college-writer’s emergent archetypes aids the instructor

in being able to incorporate different genres to develop certain writerly perspectives. This aspect

of writing development is more about developing the motivations behind the text. Because Sara

is drawn to the Underdog (in reading) and the Activist (in writing) we can encourage her to

explore these identities in framing future texts. Applying metaphor analysis and archetypal

analysis are important ways to repurpose LNs. LNs teach to the writerly identities our students

are developing, those that have played significant roles in framing their history as readers and

writers. With regard to reflection, using memos and letters to reveal metaphors about students’

own editorial concerns and how they are dealing with them on an emotional level are vital for

meeting students where they are at developmentally. With regard to the survey responses, they

allow the participant to offer definitions of writing that naturally utilize metaphor, yielding

results that reflect what prompts a writer to write. Surveys also reveal unique aspects of a

writer’s composing process or what they consider to be most significant about writing. And,

lastly, the conferences allow one to observe and record metaphor in interaction.

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CHAPTER 5: DAVID’S TEXT AND TALK DATA

We are simultaneously readers and writers. . . . As a writer, you live while you watch yourself living. You write while you watch yourself writing. You are simultaneously the director and the actor. You are the performer and the audience at the same time. You enter constantly into an internal dialogue. Writers are by nature ‘schizophrenic,’ not in any psychotic sense, but in the sense that you can’t help splitting yourself into two.

—Lawrence K L Pun from “The Writer as Reader – the Complexities of ‘as’”

In the following case-study, I construct a detailed profile of David’s metaphors. While it

may be permissible to suggest that the textual metaphors and their archetypal counterparts

discussed here assert something about the person existing outside the text or possibly how that

person orients themselves in the world, I am only asserting that the claims I make about David’s

identity are situated in textual representations, no matter the extent to which they apply to the

embodied person.

Continuing with the same format, this chapter performs a close reading of David’s

writing quote analysis, literacy narrative, reflection memo, revision letter, open-ended survey

response, conferencing, and argumentative research. As I consider his responses to the various

exercises, I provide a detailed analysis of the metaphorical landscape and development of each

text. The chapter moves from analysis to discussion, drawing on the relationship between

metaphor, identity, and pedagogy. I demonstrate the relationships between these areas of inquiry

by identifying the metaphorical themes and archetypes that reveal how David conceptualizes his

literate activity.

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A close analysis of David’s metaphors teaches us how he conceptualizes literacy through

personal reflection, self-improvement, and therapy. For example, his mirror metaphor reveals

how literacy provides a reflection of ourselves, while his conversation metaphor invites us to

think about literacy as a way to talk things out. Metaphors of embodiment and health teach us

about how writing is an extension of ourselves and can serve to mend and heal. Embodiment

deals with how cognition is influenced and shaped by our bodily experience and, like writing

itself, is a tangible representation that gives form and expression to ideas and emotions (see

Dabrowska & Divjak). Metaphors of morphing, piecing, placing, puzzling, and capturing

exemplify editorial concerns. Even when faced with being unable to produce content, he

embraces the metaphor of inner-struggle. With regard to reading, the simulation-metaphor

teaches how reading mimics experience. David’s emphasis, too, on poetry as a language of

emotion and connection teaches us about the unifying power of literacy. Likewise, as an aspiring

educator, he perceives literary education as breaking students’ illusions or misconceptions and

providing counsel on how to deal with the depth and complexity of language. The value of

understanding how these metaphors coalesce is foregrounded in the archetypal expressions of the

Philosopher/Sage and Altruist, using knowledge to better himself and others. These are the

metaphors David reads and writes by.

In addition, the instructor marginalia for David’s LN, like Sara’s, reveals different

compositional procedures, that is, stages of mapping, mining, constructing, organizing,

clarifying, and weighing/impacting/balancing—the roles of developer, cartographer/surveyor,

archeologist/miner, architect/engineer, designer, chemist/optician, and the athletic concerns of

power, agility or dexterity. Continued research into instructor commentary may confirm that

there are, in fact, consistent metaphorical heuristics that pervade all composition commentary.

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Because this chapter replicates the format of the previous one, with the exclusion of the

introductory data-collection sections, it is important to note that David’s discussion sections now

include comparative commentary, to explicate what we are learning by comparing Sara and

David’s responses. This chapter, again, argues for ways to use metaphor analysis to interpret

college-writers’ literate identities. Here I build a case for the dominant themes and archetypes

associated with David’s figurative thinking.

Case Introduction

David identifies himself as a Philosopher and Poet and hopes to become a Language Arts

teacher: “I consider myself a poet and poetry as a whole has influenced my life immensely.” In

general, David too desires to “improve [his] grammar and writing style.” He mentions this

includes learning new and different “writing techniques.” Within the classroom setting, David is

often contemplative in his responses. And music and lyrics are also among his primary literate

interests.

David’s Writing Quote Analysis41

For David’s response to the Writing Quote Analysis, he chose a common quote by

American novelist and short-story writer Ernest Hemingway: “‘There is nothing to writing. All

you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed.’” He interprets Hemingway as alluding to writing as “a

mirror of the self”—WRITING IS REFLECTION. David’s metaphor emphasizes how writing is an

act of identity. The mirror-metaphor reiterates how writing allows us to re-encounter ourselves.

While David acknowledges the quote is geared more toward fiction, he recognizes all

writers have “a natural bias and lens that they cannot escape from; it is a blessing and a curse.”

Bias is conceptualized as a constant constraint—LENSES ARE INESCAPABLE CONTAINERS. The

41 Refer to Appendix H for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from David’s data for the Writing Quote Analysis.

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lens-metaphor pervades academic discourse through the SEEING IS UNDERSTANDING conceptual

domain, and THEORIES AS LENSES is a predominant way we refer to the affect our beliefs and

philosophies have on our experiences of the world. Continuing with the theme of perspective,

David explains, “One cannot experience something wholeheartedly through someone else’s eyes,

but they can get as close as they possibly can through reading what a person has written.”

Analogically, he is relating that reading is a type of experience: Reading : Writing :: Simulation :

Experience. This dynamic portrays the act of READING AS EMPATHY/SYMPATHY/A SIMULATION

(OF EXPERIENCE). We read to relate to others’ experiences or experience what we have not or

even what we cannot.

Furthermore, writing may also allow us to reshape our thoughts. David expresses that a

writer may “morph whatever topic or situation they are expanding on into a new piece of art that

has their signature branded within it.” WRITING IS MORPHING (OUR LIFE EXPERIENCES INTO

ART). He explains, “When a person truly is passionate to put their heart and soul into writing, it

can easily become something of intellectual beauty.” WRITING IS A CONTAINER (FOR HEART

AND SOUL). He establishes the analogy Physical Beauty : Vision :: Intelectual Beauty :

Imagination. David later remarks that Hemingway’s quote inspired him “to put [him]self

[emphasis in original] into [his] writing.” WRITING IS A CONTAINER (FOR THE SELF).

Discussion

While Sara focuses on literacy as a sensory, imaginative activity, David’s analysis deals

with the theme of perspective as well as the topics of reflection, embodiment, and identity. His

metaphor usage is suggestive of the Wanderer archetype because Wanderers tend to perceive

WRITING AS INDIVIDUATION. A Wanderer’s primary drive is to find one’s Self, to let the creative

process take over for the sake of personal revelation. The pedagogical application of David’s

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metaphors resides in asking questions about, “How does mapping the discourse of identity onto

the discourse of writing reveal new perspectives for what it means to be a reader and writer”?

How are writing instructors cultivating identity, the projection, formation, and representation of

the Self in writing? How do we teach writing as identification and identifying, as an extension of

our mind, body, or sense of being? These metaphors teach us how literacy is an extension of

what makes us who we are, and, when we develop our writing, we are developing our sense of

self, making the body of the text a virtual body for ourselves.

David’s Literacy Narrative42

In David’s LN, he develops the archetypal identities of Philosopher/Sage, focusing on

embodiment and self-improvement. First, reflecting on past literacy sponsors, David begins by

remarking that one of his past language arts classrooms was “a sanctuary of thought and joy for

[his] unimpressed, unmolded mind.” He expresses that many of the authors introduced to him

during this time were doors to new experiences: “These are just a few of the many writers [i.e.,

Ernest Hemingway and David Foster Wallace] that [my teacher] exposed me to, opening new

doors for me.” AUTHORS AND THEIR WORKS ARE DOORS (TO NEW KNOWLEDGE). This class

taught him “reading and writing can be joyful [emphasis in original]—once an individual finds

literature that has meaning to them,” giving them “a love for composing essays and devouring

literature.” On an emotional level, LITERACY IS represented as A JOY AND LOVE. David also

associates these emotions with the synesthesia of eating—“books that I really spent time

consuming and digesting.” The religious and emotional language, too, illustrates the spiritual

affect this period of literacy has had on him.

42 Refer to Appendix I for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from David’s data for the Literacy Narrative.

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Building on the emotional psychology of composing, David intersperses quotes from

literary influence, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche himself admits how he is

“‘annoyed and ashamed of [his] writing’” and David empathizes, stating, “[A]t times it is a

bothersome and vulnerable thing to put your thoughts down on paper; into form and solidity

where they are naked for all to see. In this way they can be shameful in a sense, but also very

real [emphasis in original] at the same time.” THOUGHTS ARE PHYSICAL OBJECTS/BODIES that

experience vulnerability or shame as well as take on a life of their own. The embodiment

metaphor highlights the vulnerability and shame associated with the emotional psychology of

writing, which is juxtaposed with the earlier influence of joy and love.

David again references Nietzsche, “‘I have not discovered any other way to get rid of my

thoughts,’” which he interprets as meaning “writing can be equally stressful as well as

therapeutic.” WRITING IS THERAPEUTIC because “the act itself [medicates] our brains.” He

further explains, “The real questions that stick out to me most is ‘Why I want to [get rid of

them]? Do I want to?’ For me, this becomes the essence of philosophical writing: in that there

are these emotions, thoughts, feelings, and questions that will either torment or really excite us to

put down on paper.” The stress of writing can be torture, while the therapeutic value is exciting.

EMOTIONS/THOUGHTS/FEELINGS/QUESTIONS ARE TORMENTS OR EXCITES. The affect writing

has on the body is emphasized in the binary of stress and therapy.

Next, David asserts that LITERACY IS PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT/SELF-HELP. While

observing his reading habits, he notes, “I spent half hours and full hours reading, underlining,

and struggling to comprehend . . . to be reflective towards myself.” READING COMPREHENSION

IS A STRUGGLE or a “consciousness altering challenge.” Additionally, he explains,

“[P]hilosophers and writers inspire me to write and read as hard as they did, hopefully improving

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myself in some way through the process.” For him, the struggle and challenge of writing

hopefully result in inspiration and personal growth.

Lastly, defining the social aspect inherent in literacy, David relates, “To me reading and

writing can be as social as talking to another person.” LITERACY AS CONVERSATION is

encapsulated in two distinct ways in the actual development of David’s LN: one, because he is

figuratively conversing with Nietzsche throughout; and, two, because he is dialoguing with

himself, as explicitly demonstrated in the use of rhetorical questions. Nietzsche’s quotes are

points of invention, talking us through his interaction, interpretation, and application. The

conversation-metaphor is practical because writers talk things out with themselves and talk

through others’ ideas, and the result is like Freud’s ‘talking-cure’.

Discussion

LNs, such as Sara and David’s, give us a much more detailed sense of how archetypes

influence or situate a reader and writer’s identity. Though LNs have not been previously used to

research college-writers’ metaphors, I have demonstrated the significance of using them for this

level of inquiry. Sara foregrounds her identity as Activist, whereas David foregrounds his

identity as Philosopher. David has a tendency to compose from an emotional spectrum of joy,

stress, shame, and love, emphasizing the mental health associated with his literate behavior.

David’s Instructor Marginalia43

Turning from the composing of the LN to the assessment of it, I advise, “[The memoir]

really replicates the memory in a strong narrative sense. Reflect more on the importance of

reading/writing mentors, in general.” MEMOIRS ARE REPLICATIONS. AFFECT IS PHYSICAL

43 Since David was unavailable for the peer-review, that data is not available, which is why the focus of this section is on the instructor commentary solely. Refer to Appendix J for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from the Instructor Marginalia.

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STRENGTH. DEVELOPMENT IS REFLECTION. Next, I implement the navigational/construction

metaphor of ‘transitioning’ for the purpose of getting David to think about how we get the reader

from one place to another or draw connections (e.g., “rethink the transition here”), followed up

by the metaphor of ‘giving’ to visualize what content still needs delivered (e.g., “give an

example???,” meaning EXAMPLES ARE OBJECTS). Occasionally, I offer brief comments like

“good” to describe the quality or development, implying the metaphorical relationship: SUCCESS

IS MORALITY (i.e., it denotes if something is pleasurable or sufficient). Generally, these quick

criticisms undergird a major part of the literal meaning of any review, that is, if certain parts are

structurally weak or strong, or bad or good.

Lastly, I utilize archaeology or mining to get David to visualize how themes are the result

of an iterative process of discovering and making connections. I offer: “You could possibly

reread the paper through this lens. It’s kinda a buried theme that might be worth digging up. This

is really your own answer to ‘Why write?’ isn’t it???” The metaphorical lens to which I am

referring is David’s statement: “improving myself in some way through the process.” THEMES

ARE LENSES. THEMES ARE BURIED TREASURE. RESEARCHING/DEVELOPING IS DIGGING.

Discussion

With Sara’s LN, I addressed the revisionary concerns of construction (structuring),

organization (ordering), clarity (understanding), impact (meaning), and spatialization/navigation

(mapping). Unsurprisingly, most of the metaphorical commentary from David’s LN mirrors

similar concerns: concerns of use, vision, success, size and weight. With the addition of the

archeological trope, the metaphor of digging/mining is a common example of how we talk about

evidence, that is, as uncovering, revealing, or emergent. With regard to genre, in Sara’s feedback

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I framed memoir writing as a portrait and as a replication in David’s, which reiterates how genre

inspires different metaphors.

Overall, these short instances of metaphorical meaning demonstrate why we should not

overgeneralize studying metaphors for writing without considering the constituent parts of

composing—metaphors of thought, development, placement, movement, paragraphing, quoting,

theming, and genre. It is simply not enough to strictly research general metaphors for writing (as

other studies have done). We need to pay more attention to the metaphorical framework that

encompasses the whole figurative rhetoric of writing, from the miniscule to the macrocosm.

David’s Reflection Memo and Revision Letter44

Analysis: Reflection Memo

Transitioning from my assessment to David’s own assessment, he himself addresses

issues of personal growth and structure. Returning to the theme of self-improvement, David

aspires, “Hopefully when I get this paper back I can go over it with the Prof. and better myself in

this way.” (WRITING) CONFERENCING IS SELF-IMPROVEMENT. David focuses on how the writing

process improves a writer’s sense of self.

Employing parallelism, he refers to the basic organization of the paper as both an abstract

structure and a skeleton: “I also learned that length of a paper isn’t that intimidating as long as I

have a basic skeleton for it. A structure can really help sometimes.” WRITING IS CONSTRUCTION

and WRITING IS A BODY. Referring again to WRITING AS CONSTRUCTION, he relates, “I felt that I

did a good job of transitioning in between topics, on a past paper I felt this was a weak point,” as

well as mentioning, “I am proud at how I transitioned the paragraphs into one another.”

44 Refer to Appendix K for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from David’s data for the Reflection Memo and Revision Letter.

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In addition, reflecting on his experience with different genres, David compares and

contrasts his weekly responses with the official papers, noting, “It is odd because for most of the

responses I made up the structure as I went along, maybe it just depends on what I am working

on.” RESPONSE WRITING IS A SPONTANEOUS JOURNEY versus RESEARCH WRITING IS

STRUCTURED. Certain genres require a plan, while others allow us to tinker and innovate as we

go.

Analysis: Revision Letter

In the letter, David alludes to the performative aspects of composition, focusing on the

visual aspects of presenting, displaying, and expressing. Giving an overall assessment of the LN,

he describes, “I feel that my paper and the information is presented fairly well.” INFORMATION

IS PRESENTATION. Along the same lines, structure is conceptualized as an act of displaying—

MESSAGES ARE DISPLAYS: “I think I spent a good amount of time structuring my paper to the

way I wanted it. I think it is interesting and displays my message well. The theme that I tried to

express throughout my paper is about the joy of getting into reading, writing, and thinking,

whether it be in English for [sic] Philosophy.” THEMES ARE EXPRESSIONS. LITERACY IS A JOY,

as previously expressed in the LN.

Outlining his overall impression, David describes: “I think my voice emerges in a

confident way, but I would call it friendlier in a sense, if that makes any sense at all. I feel that I

guide the reader in well with the use of placing my narrative in the start of the paper. Then, I felt

that I smoothly guide the reader into my thesis and the beginning of my argument.” His ethos is

made apparent in the metaphors: AUTHORS ARE FRIENDS; AUTHORS ARE GUIDES. In terms of

expression and tone, David’s emphasis on joy and friendship outline his authorial intentions for

the LN. His purpose, as he states, is to emphasize the theme of joy and establish a friendship

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with his readers. Framing metaphors such as WRITING IS A FRIENDSHIP are crucial for

understanding the kinds of audience relationships a composition inspires.

Discussion

The metaphors in David’s memo and letter make his editorial concerns explicit through

concerns of growth, structure/body, placement, and performance. The difference between Sara

and David’s approaches has to do with their overall sense of accomplishment; Sara feels her

writing is an unfinished voyage, design, or craft, whereas David feels confident in his

performance as a friend and guide. Sara’s memo and letter provide a sense of the felt-difficulties

college-writers encounter through self-reflective writing. David’s memo and letter focuses on

planning, transitioning, and learning. Self-assessment is a genre which gives the analyst insight

into the meta-composing process, that is, the concerns of the writer and their level of satisfaction

with their own work. It is important to see the college-writer’s own assessment of their work, so

that we can engage their metaphorical concerns and assist them, working through them together.

Analyzing metaphors in memos and letters helps to identify how writers see themselves and their

work.

David’s Open-ended Survey45

As we observed in David’s self-assessment, what prompts him to read and write is a

desire “to learn and better [him]self. Reading and writing can be a great way to reflect on

yourself and you’re [sic] thought processes. Reading challenges me to reassess my values based

on what the author is trying to tell me through the text.” Because literacy is about self-

improvement, it is (A WAY OF) RELFECTION or PERSONAL CHALLENGE. LITERACY IS A

45 Refer to Appendix L for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from David’s data for the Open-ended Survey.

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REASSESSMENT (OF VALUES). From a philosophical standpoint, literacy provides a reassessment

of who David is.

Offering his own definition, he claims:

Writing is a medium to trap your thoughts in, before they fly away from you. It is an attempt to capture the dense thoughts that come into our heads. Sometimes this process falls flat on it’s [sic] face and needs to be reevaluated. I would say my process normally consists of envisioning a thesis, and then getting quotes and points to back up the quotes with. After this, I try to puzzle it together in a way that works within the boundaries of the assignment, as well as expressing myself through it.

THOUGHTS ARE WINGED CREATURES. WRITING IS TRAPPING/CAPTURING/BOUNDED SPACE.

WRITING IS PUZZLING. Emphasizing the temporality of inspiration, David conjures the hunting

mytheme: WRITING IS A HUNT. The writer is paradoxically both the hunter and the object of the

hunt, the force doing the containing and the thing being contained. Thoughts are something we

go after or they are the shapes and images we arrange to create the bigger picture.

Lastly, David defines what is most significant about writing as being

that one should put their being into it as much as they can. This can happen subconsciously, because of course only one person is writing the paper. And this can also happen consciously, in that one tries to take their writing up from the bootstraps. A writer then hopes that what they have created will measure up to their goal that they started with.

WRITING IS A CONTAINER (FOR BEING). David often returns to themes of self-improvement and

embodiment, stressing how writing affects who we are and how we present ourselves.

Discussion

In the survey response, Sara focuses on the simulation-metaphor, where writing enables

her to live through fictional characters. David, however, focuses on writing as self-evaluation or

the act of encapsulating one’s sense of being. Both, however, see writing as an avatar. These

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conceptions continue to develop the identities of the Creator as Role-player—living through

characters—and the Magician as Transformer—transforming values or sense of self.

David’s Conferences46

Conferencing gives us a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into a composition. David’s

conferencing dialogue addresses issues of inspiration regarding the development of his

Rhetorical Analysis project. David’s conference data focuses on the theme of tension and how

the instructor and student attempt to resolve or understand it.

The antithesis to David’s quest for self-improvement is self-struggle. David describes that

he is “battling against [him]self” or that he finds himself “in the way of [him] writing.” On two

accounts he refers to this feeling as an attempt “to force” himself to write or that he has no

“drive.” As much as we aspire to be inspired, inspiration can be an internal struggle. There are

times when we feel we have nothing left to give, that we are empty, that we do not want to

pursue what we were after any further. If inspiration is energy or fuel, how do we cultivate it

when we are low? Does it come from some metaphysical place or do we have to labor for it? I

present the argument to David that this feeling can be an illusion: “there’s nothing really in the

way except for us believing that there’s something there when there’s not.” And while this

potentially rings true, the illusion-argument does not get at David’s actual experience or resolve

his conflict. This raises the question of: How might instructors have more fruitful conversations

regarding the psychology of composing?

How we conceptualize writer’s block can also say a lot about how we conceptualize the

creative process. For instance, Sara’s conception of writer’s block is a damming of creative flow,

whereas David’s conception of writer’s block is a struggle with himself. Even the audio-

46 Refer to Appendix M for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from Jason and David’s Conference data.

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metaphor, where he describes his invention process as “jarbled,” reiterates this same sense of

confusion. In sorting out what he has produced, he returns to the puzzling metaphor in an attempt

to turn confusion into inspiration: part, put, fit, and move.

Discussion

David is effective at capturing the visceral experience of writing, especially when he

mentions that writer’s block is an issue of embodiment—his body not wanting to write. While he

often relates the act of composing to one’s sense of being, a writer must feel present in their body

to write. Writer’s block, then, for David, is a misalignment between what he wants to do and

what he feels his body and mental capacity will allow him to do. Being aware of the metaphors

we propose and exchange in conferencing dialogue aids us in understanding how writers make

sense of abstract concepts such as inspiration or the lack thereof.

David’s Argumentative Research47

Data-collection

In addendum to the LN and Rhetorical Analysis, I include an analysis of David’s

Argumentative Research project because he argues for the importance of teaching poetry in

secondary education. The argumentative research paper is the culminating project of the

semester. This paper is another form of data that incorporates meta-writing, as well as producing

unique genred conceptualizations for poetry, allowing us to observe specific metaphors for

poetry. Throughout his argument David exercises the hybrid archetypal subtypes of the Creator

and Sage, Poet and Educator.

Analysis

47 Refer to Appendix O for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from David’s Argumentative Research data.

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David begins with the following exposition: “Writing poetry is a way for me to capture

thoughts and intense emotions that sometimes I cannot express in any other way. I love the way

words can create images in the mind’s eye. I love capturing these images and finding my own

balance between words and the images they paint.” (POETRY) WRITING IS CAPTURING

(THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS). POETRY IS CREATING IMAGES/PAINTING. These

conceptualizations hearken back to the hunting/trapping-metaphor which appears in the Survey

Response, where he emphasizes that inspiration is something that comes and goes and must be

contained, for fear it may escape the writer. In that previous instance, he had paired capturing

and puzzling, where he now pairs capturing and painting.

Detailing his own experiences with poetry, David expresses, “I have often begun poems

off of a single word coming into my head and it then spread into an idea of constructing a sort of

fluid-puzzle that makes a poem. The words in a poem can be constructed like a complex puzzle,

but often blend together the way a painter’s colors on the canvas do—they are less square and

defined and more versatile.” IDEAS ARE EVOLVING ORGANISMS/FLUID SUBSTANCES because

they spread. POEMS ARE FLUID-PUZZLES because they “blend” images, instead of piecing

together images, as in a traditional puzzle. The poet, therefore, is a type of painter.

Furthermore, from a pedagogical standpoint, David sees poetry instruction as an

opportunity for enlightenment and intervention. Arguing for the significance of poetry, he

conceptualizes POETRY AS IDENTIFICATION/EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION: “I believe poetry is

wholly significant and should be taught in high school writing classrooms because it is a mode of

identification and emotional expression, and it also develops critical thinking and close-reading

skills.” Elsewhere, he mentions, “If high school teachers break the negative expectations and

misconceptions of their students’ views of poetry, then the students will be more open (and

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possibly encouraged) to discover poetry that attunes with their identities and sense of self.”

(RHETORICAL) EDUCATION IS BREAKING (ILLUSORY LENSES). Because David hopes to be an

educator, he sees WRITING INSTRUCTION AS INTERVENTION: “I see this as an opportunity for a

writing teacher to intervene and help her student through the complexity, to ultimately get

something [emphasis in original] out of the reading.” The identity of the Poet transitions to

Educator and takes on the attribute of Counselor. The different metaphors David proposes are

pedagogical because they offer a way to teach others how to understand poetry as a means of

representing their identity and expressing themselves. The metaphor of intervention is also

pedagogical in that it demonstrates how teachers are to act as guides for their students, to reveal

to them what is hidden in plain sight.

For David, poetry is connection, escape, and translation. David describes the social

dimension of POETRY AS CONNECTION and POETRY AS EMPATHY: “Poetry is just one of many

art forms connecting people to each other’s minds; it is a way to use language to experience one

another’s thoughts and feelings firsthand.” According to David, poetry is arguably a more

intimate genre of writing because it is the language of human emotion, offering us an intimate

experience. This is the Romantic archetypal quality of poetry.

David too argues, POETRY IS AN ESCAPE: “Poetry opens doors for the people that feel

damaged, broken, and cheated.” Poetry allows one to escape the feeling of being broken because

it repairs. Poetry allows one to experience the positive side of the binaries, the escape of feeling

repaired, fixed, and respected. This is the Healer archetypal quality of poetry.

Lastly, comparing poetry to essay writing, David focuses on translation. POETRY IS

TRANSLATION (OF THOUGHT AND EMOTION): “Poetry becomes the way to express intense

thoughts and emotions which cannot be translated simply, or even specifically in a five

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paragraph essay.” He expresses that poetry is a matter of offering a translation—assuming

emotion/thought are languages—due to poetry’s sometimes mystic, cryptic, or abstract ability to

translate emotion into image or impression. He goes on to describe,

In my own experience poetry is a way for me to vent my intense thoughts and emotions into a tangible, yet open, form. In high school I discovered a love of poetry on my own through Jim Morrison’s writings, and the transparency and creativeness of poetry can be a catalyst for students seeking other means of expression.

Like the escape-metaphor, poetry offers another means for experiencing life and language. This

is the Magician aspect of poetry.

Discussion

David’s data from the Argumentative Research project gives us insight into specific

metaphors and archetypes for poetry: Artist, Romantic, and Healer. Poetry is painting or

translation, because of its emotive ability to speak through the language of imagery. Poetry is

connection, because of its ability to inspire intimacy. And poetry is escape, a way to transmute

negative emotion.

Interpretation

I summarize here the predominant genres, themes, archetypes, and teaching points related

to David’s use of metaphor. A reoccurring highlight of David’s data was the focus on self-

improvement, whether it be by means of essay writing or poetry. For instance, this focus is

apparent in writing as a mirror of the self and therapy as healing and escape. David, too, often

emphasizes the dual aspect of composition: psychology and embodiment.

Because David is drawn to philosophy and poetry, he associates philosophy with themes

of reflection, simulation, emotional psychology, and conversation, and poetry with themes of

hunting, puzzling/painting, connection, escape, and translation. As I’ve previously mentioned,

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particular genres are associated with particular archetypes, that is, to summon certain writerly

identities from which to compose from. The transition from Wanderer/Sage to Magician is

David’s most dominant progression, with the Romantic, Altruist/Healer, and Everyperson

embodying themes of joy/love, therapy, and friendship. More specifically, subtypes like the

Hunter influence how David addresses inspiration, as an act of tracking and capturing.

Additional archetypal concerns, like challenge or self-struggle, stress the attributes of

perseverance and overcoming. David teaches us to reflect on ourselves through writing, to

consider its emotional depth and its ability to provide new experiences.

The next chapter continues to interpret and compare Sara’s, David’s, and my own data. It

moves from individual analyses of the MIEs to a presentation of the comprehensive results of all

participants’ MIEs, highlighting general trends and larger patterns of analysis.

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CHAPTER 6: METAPHOR INVENTION EXERCISES

We are all heroes in our [own] right; we have our own thoughts and in some way[,] shape or form that single thought could be the one that saves someone. . . . By writing today I can do that with my words, I can become a hero in my own right. . . . By becoming a writer we are becoming a hero, we may not [know] it yet, but our writing is the ultimate symbol in the fight against evil.

—Anonymous Student A from their Beginning-of-the-Semester MIE

While chapters 4 and 5 focused on analyzing college-writers’ implicit metaphor usage,

Chapter 6 looks at participants’ explicit use of metaphor. That is, in the former chapters, I

analyzed metaphors which occurred naturally in the course of a college-writer’s writing. All

data-collection in previous chapters neither requested nor encouraged the use of metaphor. In the

present chapter, I request that students use metaphor to develop an exposition on what literacy is.

It is those explicit metaphors I analyze here. In design, this chapter is, by and large, a replication

of Tobin’s original research, with the addition of a comprehensive report of all MIEs. I begin

with a close analysis of Sara’s, David’s, and my MIEs and then move to the larger concern of

cataloguing the entire data-set of MIEs, paying particularly close attention to what metaphors

were predominant and what metaphors were rare. In addition, I employ archetypal analysis to

further categorize all results.

Data-collection

The MIE is an exercise that asks participants to intentionally use figurative language to

define what literacy is. MIEs are valuable because they make explicit how a writer

conceptualizes the composing process and how they see themselves as a reader and writer. Sara

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asserts herself through the Artist and Explorer. David asserts himself through the Healer and

Philosopher. The instructor expresses himself through the Spiritual and Superhero.

An Analysis of Sara’s MIEs48

We should write because it is human nature to write. Writing claims our world. It makes it directly and specifically our own. We should write because humans are spiritual beings and writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us both to our own insights and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance as well… We should write because writing is good for the soul… We should write, above all, because we are writers whether we call ourselves writers or not.

—Julia Cameron from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

The major premise of Sara’s beginning-of-the-semester MIE is: “Writing is like

painting.” The Creator as Artist/Painter is the archetypal nature of her first MIE. It develops her

reflections on imagination and imagery by defining writing as a visual art. The primary

conceptual key of the MIE is WRITING IS A TACTILE/VISUAL ART.

Sara narrates, “You start off with a blank space and you build on it, just like how you

start off with a white canvas.” The creative process is a building process: WRITING IS BUILDING.

Furthermore, Sara’s use of parallelism between “blank space” and “white canvas” implies that

THE WRITER’S MEDIUM IS (LIKE) A CANVAS. Equating the roles of writer and painter, Sara

details that “both work towards stirring emotions, producing thoughts, and creating a picture for

the admirer.” Sara provides distinct implicit metaphors for detailing the artistic process: stir,

produce, and picture. EMOTION IS conceptualized as A LIQUID SUBSTANCE, which is significant

because the act of painting involves liquid substances. This implies that painters/writers paint or

color their work with emotion.

48 Refer to Appendix P for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from Sara’s data for the MIEs.

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Sara describes THOUGHTS AS PRODUCTS and ARTISTRY AS CREATING IMAGES. Like

containers, thoughts store information and are intended to be delivered and unpacked. The

artist’s goal is to be “able to carry their thoughts out efficiently to the receiver.” In this particular

instance, the content is the image. Because the goal of the writer is to create an image, the

reader’s role is admirer—READING IS VISUAL ADMIRATION/APPRECIATION.

Sara also explores the concept of writer’s block. She defines WRITER’S BLOCK AS FEAR

(i.e., “the one thing every writer dreads”), consisting of “stages of inability” to create or satisfy.

What is obstructed is “the flow of ideas,” and this is consistent with EMOTIONS/THOUGHTS ARE

LIQUID SUBSTANCES. She emphasizes that this type of fear is instead a challenge to the artist to

amass additional inspiration until they reach a point of “experiencing an overflow of creativity.”

She refers to this state as the “artistic peak.” Typically, ‘peak’ is used in reference to mountains,

audio, or liquid volume. Whether it be a mountain or dam, this particular creative obstacle

encourages the artist to achieve peak performance, to rise to the occasion—

PROGRESS/OVERCOMING IS UP. For Sara, this obstacle is largely portrayed as a positive

necessity instead of an unfortunate event, even though it may be, as she says, the dread of every

writer.

Sara begins her final MIE by recalling her initial one:

At the beginning of the semester I began this course with a limited view on writing, or at least, with a favorite type of writing; story-telling; novel-writing. I thought of writing as painting, painting a picture for the reader to be able to recreate [i.e., READING IS RECREATION] whatever the writer imagines.

Addressing the limitations of her previous metaphor, she explains, “[W]hen it comes to debate

and argument, I think that writing as painting isn’t the ideal metaphor.” This reflection and

insight reveal a developing sense of genre awareness: “Little by little, I began to realize that for

every type of writing, a different metaphor can be extrapolated.” She goes on to express, “[W]e

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cannot associate one specific thing with writing while disregarding the rest.” Sara has expanded

her view from fiction to argument, thinking of writing as being able to be conceptualized in a

multitude of ways based on genre and context. Getting college-writers to invent and reinvent

metaphors for writing allows them to come face-to-face with their own theories of writing—

applying, problematizing, and rethinking—revealing how those theories, in turn, impact their

writing, which is what Sara demonstrates here as she reorients her understanding of what writing

is through argument.

For Sara, the concepts of writing and argument have merged: “For debate and argument,

writing can be defined as a way to express a person’s opinion, in a sense that it makes an opinion

more concrete.” ARGUMENT AS CONCRETE EXPRESSION entails that the substance of our

internalized opinions, which can be thought of as non-solidified, is converted into a solid through

written expression. Chemical metaphors like this appear elsewhere too: “To begin an argument a

person must develop a clear view on their own opinions, through reading and research.”

ARGUMENTS ARE REFINED SUBSTANCES.

In the final MIE, Sara pivots from Painting to Discovery, summoning the Explorer

attribute of the Wanderer archetype: “For me, to write my opinion on paper means that not only

have I officially announced that I hold a specific stance on something, but I’ve also confirmed it

to myself. Writing is discovery.” The keyword that links argument and discovery for Sara is

“opinion”: OPINIONS ARE ANNOUNCEMENTS, STANCES, and CONFIRMATIONS. She points out

that we confirm what we believe as we write it out, “discovering oneself in a way that had not

been previously thought about.” Narrating how opinions develop, she describes, “[W]hen we

write about an argument, we are exposed to multiple points of views, many of which may be

compelling to consider. Through this exposure we find our own beliefs and points of views

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questioned. Our minds go into a tug of war.” BELIEFS ARE POVs, where the surface level tug-of-

war metaphor expresses how forming opinions involves the pull of belief and push to change

stances. ARGUMENT AS EXPOSURE and EXPOSURE AS FINDING highlight the importance of

social interaction, which had been previously conceptualized in the dynamic of creation and

admiration in the first MIE.

Forming our own opinions through writing, she argues “helps to put our mind at ease. It

is our opinions that help us develop our identity as an individual, and as a nation of people.”

Expressing our opinions in writing settles uncertainty as well as represents those “foundations

[at] our cores.” Argument is an inward journey, where we discover ourselves as we go, where we

center our being and nurture identity.

Discussion

In the first MIE, Sara takes on the identity of the Artist as Hero, focusing on the visual

production or stimulation of the writing process, replete with its adversities and successes. This

mytheme exhibits the basic elements of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey: separation, the

writer sets out on a journey into the unknown—the blank canvas; ritual/test, the writer

experiences the wisdom of fear and joy in the form of some obstacle—writer’s block; and return,

the writer delivers a gift for others’ benefit—the reader’s admiration. The relationship between

these two levels of metaphoric meaning reveal how the target (i.e., writing) and source (i.e.,

painting) are conceptualized in terms of other implicit metaphors. And, as in the case of emotion,

they may be directly complimentary when compared with surface metaphors. This correlation

demonstrates what other researchers have often overlooked in interpreting MIEs, and it is a

significant one.

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While Sara conceptualizes writing as painting, both writing and painting are

conceptualized as JOURNEYING, PACKAGING/SHIPPING, and FLOW. Typically, mixed metaphors

are discouraged in handbooks, despite the fact that they are a common occurrence at the implicit

level. The notion that mixed metaphors should be avoided is misguided, considering that we use

them all the time, as is the case here. Additional research is needed to demonstrate how blended

conceptual spaces generate mixed metaphor synergies. The idea that different metaphors should

not be mixed is antithetical to what metaphor is—a mixture.

In Sara’s final MIE, the archetypal trajectory goes from Wanderer to Sage, moving from

exploring to knowing. It develops her reflections on discovery and identity by defining writing as

expression and formulation. She takes on the Explorer subtype as she focuses on the implications

of the research process.

Sara’s MIEs demonstrate how college-writers sense of what literacy is, is an evolving

process. She reminds us that metaphors for literacy can be specific to genre and situate different

types of writerly identities, like the Painter for fiction or the Explorer for argument. The value of

her first MIE has to do with the cultivation of imagination in literacy, how we occupy an

imagined space as we read and write. The value of her final MIE has to do with the

understanding that literacy is a means to discover our identities, not just as readers and writers,

but as complex, evolving human beings.

An Analysis of David’s MIEs49

Writing is not only a salve but often a tool that opens our minds and hearts to things that are deep inside us.

—Karen Cangialosi from “Healing Through the Written Word”

49 Refer to Appendix Q for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from David’s data for the MIEs.

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David begins the first MIE with the assertion: “Writing is a Surgical Operation.” He

explains, “Writing in and of itself can be a painstaking process,” due to the inherent difficulty of

it “never [being] set in stone.” The surgical metaphor emphasizes the creative pains of writing.

He expresses how part of the pain is acknowledging and accepting that WRITING IS (A

CONSTANT STATE OF) CHANGE: “We envision a sole idea of what our end result ‘should’ look

like in our own mind’s eye and we think before we start that it will be this specific thing.” Such

pain is the result of experiencing discrepancies between the writer’s ideal self and their actual

progress.

Extending the surgical-metaphor, David explains, “A surgeon may be operating on a

patient performing a simple incision and removal of unwanted matter, although complications

may . . . arise.” He refers to the ‘unwanted matter’ as the “worries and concerns” that “bring . . .

to light inner struggles and fears.” Physical surgery allows David to efface the psychological

dimension or pathos of writing. He encounters the paradox of removing what is no longer

necessary to encounter what is.

Furthermore, David describes, “Using the tool of writing can become a scalpel that

breaks the skin and lets us bleed for a moment.” In this scenario, the writer-as-patient is also the

writer-as-surgeon, performing the operation on themselves. Recalling David’s writing quote

analysis, the surgical-metaphor may even draw some inspiration from Hemingway’s WRITING AS

BLEEDING metaphor.

Next, David integrates themes of transformation and antagonism. He mentions, “Our

greatest passions and antagonists can arise from the ashes of our writing.” WRITING IS A

REFINING FIRE. Predominantly, the figurative language of the MIE has negative connotations:

surgery, pain, struggle, uncertainty, change, and fire. But out of this struggle, the phoenix-

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metaphor emerges—WRITING IS TRANSFORMATION—to personify how our passions and

antagonists are what remains after the writing process has burned everything else away. ‘Ashes’

represent the necessary, unwanted matter referred to earlier in the surgical analogy. David’s

metaphorical movement, too, like Sara’s, is reminiscent of the basic structure of the Hero’s

Journey. The writer is taken from his everyday life, experiences some type of threat in the form

of a struggle, and is reborn to face the struggle with renewed energy and power.

Continuing with the theme of antagonism and healing, David explains that the operation

of writing is not without its complications, because, when writers open themselves up to

vulnerability, they may be “infected by the germs of the world,” that is, if an audience “turn[s] it

back on them in . . . slanderous ridicule”—CRITICISM IS INFECTION/CRITICS ARE GERMS. All in

all, David’s closing insight provides: “The upside to all this pain and difficulty of and after

writing is that like stiches writing can close up the wound.” The wisdom of David’s metaphor

speaks to the pain and difficulty of the healing process because, paradoxically, surgery is

simultaneously both pain and healing. Writing cuts us open, extracts content, and brings healing.

On the flipside, David’s end-of-the-semester MIE utilizes identity language and

reflection/mirroring metaphors. He begins with the explicit metaphor “Writing is an expression

of the self,” expressed elsewhere as: “When one writes they are putting a bit of themselves into

their writing, whether it be from their individual reflection or not.” He states that a writer

“creates their own persona,” which is “what makes art human and imperfect—thus immensely

beautiful” (emphases in original).

Next, the MIE transitions to a fictional scene where two friends are walking alongside a

body of water, watching each other’s reflections. David interprets his analogy as follows:

What is the significance of this illustration? Why does it matter if your friend sees you unlike you do yourself? It is the way your reading of your writing is seen

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differently because 1) you have only seen your face in a mirror (and you have never seen your body outside of yourself completely); thus you have only observed your own writing based upon your own [emphasis in original] personal standards and 2) your friend has been the observer of yourself i.e. your physical appearance, but this is rippled/distorted by her own perception of you; she reads you and your writing based upon her own standards . . . .

He depicts WRITING/READING AS PERCEPTION, expressing the paradox of never being able to

observe ourselves outside of ourselves, or someone else never being able to perceive who we are

from within.

Discussion

David’s first MIE—the surgical-metaphor—highlights aspects of the writer’s psychology

we might otherwise overlook, though often experience, that is, the struggle or pain of being a

Creator. What if we had more conversations with our students about the pains of writing? Some

level of pain, whether it be our basic frustration or an audience’s rejection, is a natural part of the

writing process we could incorporate into our discussions about what it means to be a writer, and

metaphors like David’s give us the language to do so. David identifies here with the Magician

archetype through themes of transformation and healing.

Furthermore, David’s second MIE—the mirror-metaphor—emphasizes how writing is, in

part, an illusion as well as a reflection: it gives the sense that we have seen ourselves, or that

others see what we see. The illusion or paradox of finding one’s self is the overarching concept

he continually wrestles with as he develops his writing philosophy, from healing to seeing.

An Analysis of Jason’s MIEs50

Maybe you could change this metaphor to writing is being an anti-hero/dark-hero, being someone who is a hero but maybe isn’t accepted by everyone. / As a high school writer, . . . I was told; how I was going to write, what style I would write in, and that my views on writing were wrong. . . . I felt that I would never write anything worth reading just what the teacher wanted to see. . . . . Coming into this

50 Refer to Appendix R for a catalogue of conceptual keys derived from Jason’s data for the MIEs.

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class and being accepted for the type of writer I am was incredible, then being told that I had great ideas was even better. I felt that I could finally write about what was important to me and that would be something worth writing.

—Anonymous Student A from their End-of-the-Semester MIE

In the following section, I analyze my own MIEs. Each response was composed during

both preliminary MIE sessions. In the first response, metaphors of renewal and power depict an

exploration of the inward, spiritual dimension of writing. The second response, in turn, develops

the altruistic theme of saving ourselves and others.

I title the first MIE “WRITING is A NEW START,” a rephrasing of the quintessential

journey metaphor. Mentioned among my motivations to write are: “to feel the power of

redemption and resurrection” and the “hope that we can be [emphasis in original] our better

selves, that we can be renewed in some way.” WRITING IS

REDEMPTION/RESURRECTION/HOPE/RENEWAL.

Throughout, there is a continued interest in writing as a metaphysical place where “we

can be our better selves” and experience “the opportunity for a ‘new’ you.” This is summarized

in the explicit metaphor: “writing is the writing of an identity.” Arguing that non-fiction writing

is akin to what fiction writers do in inventing characters, I explain: “[W]e can reinvent ourselves:

our values, our beliefs, our relationships with people.” WRITING IS REINVENTION. An essential

part of the spiritual journey is self-discovery, as expressed in: “I always feel like I’m looking for

the me I truly am in my writing.” Writing helps us confront the question of who we are because

it forces us to articulate just that. Likewise, I relate that the revision process is not just about the

words themselves but about “revising the person who put those words on the page.” REVISION IS

PERSONAL REVISION. In the end, I claim, “Maybe I don’t really know who I am until I write it

out.”

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Along with the concept of revising one’s self, I imagine that “[w]riting is a way to come

back to life.” Referring to my history as a reader and writer, I recount how LITERACY IS

RESURRECTION: “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found a new start in a quote, in a song, in

a fantasy narrative, or religious text. I will die and be reborn a million times before I leave this

world because of reading and writing. This is how writing is a spiritual act.”

Lastly, I addresses another spiritual aspect of writing through the theme of connection:

“[S]omething magical happens when we really, truly connect with another human being through

writing—empathy maybe, but also this sense that we’re not alone in our fears and hopes.”

WRITING IS MAGIC/CONNECTION/EMPATHY.

Furthermore, my second beginning-of-the-semester MIE builds on themes of power and

salvation. Archetypal dimensions of the Ruler and Altruist evolve the transformative language of

the Magician. Beginning with the explicit metaphor “WRITING is BECOMING A

SUPERHERO,” I claim that, like a superhero, writers need to learn how to control their power.

In most superhero origin stories, their power is portrayed as “a hidden gift or misunderstood

gift,” and I link this with how writing is a power “inherent within us all.” Like the superhero

origin story, there may come a moment in a writer’s life where the “emergent power” of writing

“awaken[s],” either through “tragedy or an accident or epiphany.” Furthermore, I stress that a

superhero uses their power with the intention “to save lives.” Extending the analogy, I forward

that “writers could be known for the same things: writing is power—there is salvation in

writing.” A writer’s goal is much like a superhero’s because “[s]uperheroes[,] like great

writers[,] can change the world through their own personal transformation, to preserve and

honor life, to fight against injustice, to be the voice of the voiceless.” WRITING IS CHANGE (FOR

THE GREATER GOOD).

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Moreover, “[w]riting unlocks the power of the imagination, an imagination that will drive

us to discover the superhero within.” Bringing attention to the moment we first recognize our self

as a writer, it is accompanied by “a sense of internal power, the discovery of an inner life.” I

restate: “My writing is often the superhero that I want to be.” The struggle or challenge central

to any superhero’s origin story is learning to control their power, so that it does not end up

controlling them—“[t]o have control in writing is to have voice—to become yourself.”

Discussion

I explore the spiritual capacity of literacy as a renewing energy, emphasizing its

inspirational power to incite change in ourselves and use that change to impact the lives of

others. As a spiritual force writing is magical; it connects us and inspires us to be our better

selves. In both exercises, I focus on literacy as a means of finding one’s self, confronting who I

am or what I believe I am meant to be, from spiritual rebirth to rescuing others. The superhero

metaphor carries with it the mandate of the educator, assisting others in the introspective act of

reading and writing, to find the superhero within.

Comprehensive MIE Results

When you’re cooking sometimes you don’t follow all the steps or you add your own special touch, and that’s what writing is all about; finding a way to make it your own. I think when writing and cooking you’re supposed to have a basic outline or recipe to follow, but it comes out better when it’s not the typical structure, you always want something different.

—Anonymous Student B from their End-of-the-Semester MIE

This section recounts the comprehensive results for the entire sample set of MIEs. For

this particular data-collection method, I replicate Lad Tobin’s (1989) “Bridging Gaps: Analyzing

Our Students’ Metaphors for Composing” and Paulson and Armstrong’s (2011) “Mountains and

Pit Bulls: Students’ Metaphors for College Transitional Reading and Writing” to revisit their

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interpretations and results, to compare and contrast how MIEs could be implemented in future

classroom practice and research.

Past studies, however, have not comprehensively detailed their overall results; but rather

have represented their findings as anecdotal evidence, meaning they are used as exemplary

illustrations to develop criticisms and advances in thinking about metaphor without emphasizing

general trends, total quantity or frequency. While Shaw and Mahlios in “Adult literacy students’

metaphors of reading and writing” do present their results comprehensively, they are largely

constrained by the pre-scribed multiple-choice format of their data-collection method (see Shaw

and Mahlios).

Beginning with Tobin’s anecdotal highlights, he claims that certain students’ metaphors

exhibited elements of frustration, powerlessness, and detachment: “Again and again incoming

freshman writers describe writing as doing something they hated—going to a doctor’s checkup,

doing household chores, doing homework” (449-450). Other metaphors of note mentioned being

stranded on an island, visiting the dentist, or jumping into a freezing lake. Paulson and

Armstrong also point out that positive/neutral/negative connotations were useful for coding the

affective quality of their data. My data, however, did not corroborate that negative

conceptualizations were that prevalent. My data-set includes household chore metaphors and a

winter season metaphor, but these types of conceptualizations only contribute to roughly 5.2% of

the entire data-set and are not entirely negative in their emphasis. This inconsistency may reveal

that MIEs are challenging to corroborate over time because of contextual factors like

generational or sociocultural differences or the impact of writing programs or course designs,

which is why it is important to recursively revisit this research to investigate contextual trends. It

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is a matter of conjecture as to why there are differences between the studies’ representations of

negative conceptualizations.

Additionally, Tobin, Paulson and Armstrong constrain how they model their data by

over-emphasizing the use of product and process to categorize their metaphors. Tobin interprets

that students “think of writing in terms of cooking, building, or manipulating objects, but often as

the result of these activities rather than the activities themselves; that is, writing as a pie rather

than baking, a house rather than designing or constructing” (447-448). Tobin seems to see

process-metaphors as more advantageous—a somewhat popular trend in the figurative rhetoric

of writing over the last few decades. I, however, disagree that these delineations aid us in

interpreting the worth or effectiveness of a student’s MIE development. I would even go so far as

to say that I am quite unsure exactly how product can be divorced from process in the first place.

Unfortunately, these categories eventually break down and outstay their usefulness. For instance,

Paulson and Armstrong categorize “College writing is like a video game. Because it will keep

getting harder” as a product-metaphor (497). How is experiencing increasing levels of difficulty

in playing a videogame not a process too? Games are products that engage the processes of play,

intellectual stimulation, efficiency, optimization, and tactical and strategic advancement. Again,

the research itself is constrained by its own framing metaphors. These generalizations are not

inherently bad but are only useful to a point and are often relied upon too heavily. By

overemphasizing product, Paulson and Armstrong are failing to address what the metaphor of

gaming is really communicating or what that might say about the student who composed it. It is

on this point that I believe archetypal analysis is a more sufficient way to code the exigencies

and rhetorical energies present in figurative language usage.

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On the other hand, Tobin advances that MIEs are useful indicators of conceptual change,

that is, change in students’ perceptions of writing across time. For example, 18 out of the 29

students participating in my study chose to change their metaphor before the end of the semester.

However, 37.9% of the students’ conceptions remained the same, revealing that there are

implications that suggest certain conceptualizations remain consistent over time. Additional

longitudinal studies are needed to track semester-to-semester or year-to-year to see how

consistent or in-flux college-writers’ metaphors are over larger timespans. What triggers

conceptual change or reinforces conceptual consistency remains a matter of speculation.

Popular conceptual domains generated by participants drawn from Tobin, Paulson and

Armstrong’s research include: baking, building, drawing, expression, journeying, making music,

playing games/sports, shopping, dressing and cosmetics, and relationships. The most prominent

domains from my study include: art, sports, socialization, identity, technical procedures,

household chores, journey, human faculties, existence, experience, and seasons. Art and sports

metaphors dominated the beginning-of-the-semester data-set, whereas technical/procedural and

journey metaphors dominated the end-of-the-semester data-set. There was a tendency to move

from the themes of discipline and expression to technique and exploration.

Domains, which represent the most generic codes, are further broken into

types/categories (i.e. specifying codes), and are compared using overall percentages. Results

follow in order of quantity, from greatest to least.

Table 1.251

Beginning-of-the-Semester MIEs: Comprehensive Results

51 All percentages have been rounded to the nearest tenth and each count is equal to one student response, as each student generated one overarching metaphor per MIE.

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Domain Art Metaphors (24.1%)

Type

Audial

Performance

Visual

Category

Music

Dancing

Magic Trick/Illusion

Painting

Count

2

1

1

3

Domain

Sports Activity Metaphors (20.7%)

Category

A Sport

Baseball

Basketball

Bowling

Preparing for States

Volleyball

Count

1

1

1

1

1

1

Domain

Social Activity Metaphors (13.8%)

Type

Existential

Relationships

Category

Life

Falling in Love

Meeting New People/Socialization

Count

1

1

2

Domain

Identity Metaphors (10.3%)

Category

Becoming a Hero

Self-Exploration/Self-Expression

Count

1

2

Domain

Technical/Procedural Activity Metaphors (10.3%)

Type

Culinary

Leisure

Medical

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Category

Cooking

Learning How to Ride a Bike

Surgery

Count

1

1

1

Domain

Household Chore Metaphors (6.9%)

Category

Doing Laundry

Loading the Dishwasher

Count

1

1

Domain

Journey Metaphors (6.9%)

Category

An Amusement Park Trip

A Shopping Trip

Count

1

1

Domain

Human Faculty Metaphors (6.9%)

Category

Imagination

Count

2

Table 1.3

End-of-the-Semester MIEs: Comprehensive Results

Domain

Technical/Procedural Activity Metaphors (20.7%)

Type

Culinary

Financial

Leisure

Category

Cooking/Baking

Accounting

Learning How to Ride a Bike

Puzzle

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Count

2

1

2

1

Domain

Journey Metaphors (13.8%)

Category

Discovery

Exploration

Packing for a Trip

Count

2

1

1

Domain

Art Metaphors (10.3%)

Type

Audial

Performance

Category

Music

Dancing

Magic

Count

1

1

1

Domain

Existential Metaphors (10.3%)

Category

Human Development

Life

The Universe

Count

1

1

1

Domain

Experiential Metaphors (10.3%)

Category

Everything and Nothing

Fun

Psychological/Emotional Release

Count

1

1

1

Domain

Identity Metaphors (10.3%)

Category

Being a Hero

Self-Expression

147

Count

1

2

Domain

Sports Activity Metaphors (10.3%)

Category

Basketball

Competition

Count

2

1

Domain

Human Faculty Metaphors (3.5%)

Category

Inspiration

Count

1

Domain

Seasonal/Weather Metaphors (3.5%)

Category

The Winter Season

Count

1

Domain

Social Activity Metaphors (3.5%)

Category

Getting to Know Someone

Count

1

Domain

No Response (3.5%)

Category

N/A

Count

1

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To some extent, Sara and David are outliers, being a part of the 24.1% of students that

identify as readers and writers outside of the collegiate setting. With this in mind, how do their

metaphors compare with the rest of the participants? Sara’s first MIE falls into the category of

art, which makes up 24.1% of the first data-set, with painting contributing to 10.3%. Her second

MIE falls into the category of journey, which makes up 13.8% of the second data-set, with

discovery contributing to 6.9%. David’s first MIE falls into the category of technical/procedural,

which makes up 10.3% of the first data-set, with surgery being unique, as the only one in its sub-

set. His second MIE falls into the category of identity, which makes up 10.3% of the second

data-set, with self-expression contributing to 6.9%. My own metaphors, which are not included

in the statistics, align with journey and identity, which coincide with Sara and David’s own

persuasions.

To give some sense of how the other students perceived themselves, we will consider

how they identify themselves as someone who:

• does not enjoy writing (mentions disinterest)

• someone who emphasizes both enjoyment and difficulty/does not think too much

about writing (mentions writing as a challenge)

• someone who is familiar with writing (mentions specific stages of the composing

process)

• someone who identifies as a reader/writer (mentions either reading/writing outside of

college).

The following are the college-writers’ perceived attitudes about writing and the metaphorical

trajectories of each:

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Table 1.4

Perceived Attitudes and Metaphorical Trajectories

Does Not Enjoy Writing (3.5%)

Trajectory

• SocializationàThe Winter Season

Count

1

Emphasizes Both Enjoyment and Difficulty/Does Not Think Too Much About Writing (27.6%)

Trajectory

• Doing LaundryàAccounting • Falling in LoveàLearning to Ride a Bike • Loading the DishwateràDiscovery • LifeàLife • DancingàDancing • Learning to Ride a BikeàLearning to Ride a

Bike • BasketballàBasketball • VolleyballàCooking

Count

8

Familiar With Writing (41.4%)

Trajectory

• Shopping TripàPacking for Travel • Self-ExpressionàFun • PaintingàHuman Development • BowlingàCompetition • MusicàSelf-Expression • SportàBasketball • Preparing for StatesàThe Universe • ImaginationàExploration

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• Meeting PeopleàGetting to Know People • CookingàCooking • Magic IllusionàMagic Illusion • MusicàMusic

Count

12

Identifies As A Reader/Writer (24.1%)

Trajectory

• Self-ExplorationàPuzzle • Imaginative TransportationàInspiration • PaintingàDiscovery • Amusement Park TripàEverything and

Nothing • BaseballàPsychological Release • SurgeryàSelf-Expression • HeroismàHeroism

Count

7

The metaphors that remained the same over the course of the two MIEs included: life,

dancing, riding a bike, relationship, cooking, magic illusion, basketball, music, and heroism. The

metaphors that changed are significantly larger and consistencies are much harder to pinpoint.

Specifically, there were no general patterns to account for with these metaphors, meaning that

each student moved from one distinct metaphor to another. While general domains were

common among participants, the trajectories with which they shifted from one to the other were

altogether unique. Even the curriculum seemed to play a minor role in impacting these

trajectories, as the class moved from primary research to rhetorical analysis to argument. The

weekly topical metaphors used to introduce new writing concepts, such as writing as

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conversation or writing as therapy or writing as design, were not overtly mimicked in the MIEs,

that is, at least not in any obvious way we could draw distinct connections to.

Some students altered the type of metaphorical activity within the same domain, such as

trip moving from ‘shopping’ to ‘travel’ or a specific sport, for example, like ‘bowling’ moving

to the general category of ‘competition’ or the general category of ‘sport’ moving to the specific

category ‘basketball’. Many of the students’ metaphors simply jumped categories, like ‘baseball’

to ‘psychological release,’ as some metaphorical shifts were more contrastive than others. One

distinct trend that emerged from the data is that a majority of the metaphors appear to be drawn

from students’ everyday experiences, current positions held, or hobbies (i.e., musician, athlete, or

significant-other, etc.); it is these identities which seem to have the most influence on the MIEs.

In terms of archetypal analysis, Creators, Everypersons, and Warriors dominated both the

beginning-of-the-semester and end-of-the-semester data-set, though Wanderers began to emerge

toward the end, reinforcing the trajectory of creating and achieving transitioning to discovery.

Table 1.5

Beginning-of-the-Semester MIEs: Archetypal Results

Archetype Meta-narrative Literacy is about . . .

MIE #1 Total Percentage

Idealist Optimism, trust, and faith.

0%

Everyperson Resilience, survival, and community.

• a shopping trip

• doing laundry

• learning how to ride a bike

• life • loading the

dishwasher

24.1%

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• meeting new people

• socialization Warrior Discipline, courage,

and competition/achievement.

• a sport • baseball • basketball • bowling • preparing for

states • volleyball

20.7%

Altruist Compassion, generosity, and self-sacrifice.

• becoming a hero

3.5%

Wanderer Independence, authenticity, and self-discovery.

• self-exploration

• self-expression

6.9%

Romantic Enthusiasm, passion, and commitment.

• falling in love

3.5%

Revolutionary Innovation, empowerment, and liberty.

0%

Creator Imagination, invention, and advancement.

• cooking • dancing • imagination

(2) • music (2) • painting (3)

31%

Magician Charisma, inspiration, and transformation.

• magic trick/illusion

• surgery

6.9%

Ruler Influence, leadership, and power.

0%

Sage Curiosity, wisdom, and truth.

0%

Comic Play, joy, and freedom.

• an amusement park trip

3.5%

Table 1.6

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End-of-the-Semester MIEs: Archetypal Results

Archetype Meta-narrative Literacy is about . . .

MIE #2 Total Percentage

Idealist Optimism, trust, and faith.

• inspiration 3.5%

Everyperson Resilience, survival, and community.

• accounting • getting to

know someone

• human development

• learning how to ride a bike (2)

• life • packing for a

trip

24.1%

Warrior Discipline, courage, and competition/achievement.

• basketball (2)

• competition • the winter

season

13.8%

Altruist Compassion, generosity, and self-sacrifice.

• being a hero 3.5%

Wanderer Independence, authenticity, and self-discovery.

• discovery • exploration • self-

expression (2)

13.8%

Romantic Enthusiasm, passion, and commitment.

• psychological/emotional release

3.5%

Revolutionary Innovation, empowerment, and liberty.

0%

Creator Imagination, invention, and advancement.

• cooking • baking • dancing • music • the universe

17.2%

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Magician Charisma, inspiration, and transformation.

• magic 3.5%

Ruler Influence, leadership, and power.

0%

Sage Curiosity, wisdom, and truth.

• everything and nothing

• puzzle

6.9%

Comic Play, joy, and freedom.

• fun 3.5%

So, what do MIE case-studies reveal comprehensive results do not? While comprehensive

results reveal general trends in identifying domains, they do not focus on how implicit metaphors

interact with explicit metaphoric invention, such as with Sara’s painting metaphor utilizing the

implicit metaphors of journeying, packing/shipping, and flow or David’s surgery metaphor

utilizing the implicit metaphors of struggle, healing, and transformation. It is on these grounds of

analysis that Rhetoric and Composition has missed applying the full implications of Lakoff and

Johnson’s work. Solely focusing on explicit metaphor invention belies the full extent to which

we might understand how metaphorical meaning emerges and is situated.

Other studies reviewed here do not account for how rhetorical concepts such as

metaphors for emotion, thought, belief, identity, voice, imagination and power are integral to the

figurative rhetoric of writing. Genre is also rarely used to distinguish between types of metaphor,

though it often dictates what metaphor is dominant for a specific kind of writing, such as Sara’s

emphasis on painting for fiction or self-discovery for argument. I have sought to advance and

emend these issues by representing the data as detailed case-studies, demonstrating the

significance of including the interplay of these peripheral elements.

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The final chapter concludes arguments addressing how case-study analysis—in the

context of researching college-writers’ compositional metaphors—allows us to create

metaphorical profiles of our students, to see writing from their perspective and value ways we

might reimagine writing instruction. I reflect on the relevance and significance of my research by

addressing each of my research questions and final interpretations of the case-profiles. Lastly, I

review my study’s contribution to the field and consider its limitations as well as how it

encourages future research.

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CHAPTER 7: METAPHORICAL PROFILES

What makes metaphor possible . . . is what makes truth possible. —Jacques Derrida from White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy

Chapter 7 is the comprehensive interpretation of Sara and David’s data, as well as my

own. Each metaphorical profile presented here is a summary of the participant’s figurative usage

as considered from all data-points. I begin the conclusion by responding to a call from

contemporary research that encourages why we need to continue researching the metaphors

college-writers read and write by. Moreover, I review what we have learned from previous

chapters, returning to the results and findings of the analysis to extend the contributions of my

research. After these discussions, I review each research question to elucidate how the present

body of research advances them in unique ways.

Alignment with Current Practices in the Field

Since the metaphor boom of the 1980s, Rhetoric and Composition has only embraced the

‘conceptual turn’ in part. Daniel P. Richards’ (2017) “Dwelling in the Ruins: Recovering Student

Use of Metaphor in the Posthistorical University” calls attention to how scholarship and

pedagogy, which addresses college-writers’ metaphors, has waned: “Over the last three decades

or so, how much more have we learned about our students’ metaphors? How much effort have

we exerted to designing assignments that uncover their metaphors rather than asking them to

participate in ours” (para. 4)? I have sought to bring renewed interest to this very issue and have

demonstrated the types of data-collection that aid in advancing researching college-writers’

metaphors.

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The case-studies presented here advocate for us to consider our practice from our

students’ metaphors instead of solely from our own field’s assumptions, that is, to reframe how

we teach writing, so that we can teach to our students’ experiences from our students’

experiences. While not all writing instructors explicitly teach writing by metaphor, they do so

implicitly; as the metaphor scholarship has so indisputably demonstrated how our thinking is

guided by and reflected in the metaphors we use. Thus, writing instructors should seek to be

aware of the metaphors that guide their teaching as well as those that guide how students develop

as readers and writers. College-writers need proper access to skillsets for generating and

analyzing metaphor:

For decades we have seen metaphor help us shape our field, our teaching practices, and our work with others, and this has undeniably affected our students in ways beyond their control. We have long honed our skills in and with metaphor and have collectively become quite dexterous in our usage of metaphor, but we have not placed enough attention on how to get students themselves to hone the same type of skills. (Richards, para. 14)

Richards goes on to say, “The challenge here is designing prompts that would help us as teachers

access these metaphors and have open discussions about what this realization of power might

mean.” Within the present body of research, I have outlined the types of prompts that elicit

meaningful metaphorical exchange between instructor and student. We should to continue to

encourage our students to see literacy through metaphor because “[m]etaphor is an accessible

and practical way to bring in different perspectives, . . . encourage student creativity, and develop

critical metacognitive skills to help them understand complex concepts.”

My research exists for instructors who want to pursue how to become better educators

because I believe that increasing college-writers’ experience with metaphor increases the

applicability of literacy to their lives. Kathleen Blake Yancey (1998) points out, “Through

reflection we teach ourselves through metaphor, and that is the primary mode of students’ native

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languages” (201). College-writers need to be taught to make writing their own. Metaphor is an

excellent way to accomplish that.

Chapter Reviews

In Chapter 1, I argued for the value of researching college-writers’ metaphors by means

of case-study. I claim that CMT aids instructors and researchers to conduct a unique type of

identity research. Predominant studies to date have been: Tobin (1989), Miller (1993), Hart

(2009), Neaderhiser (2009), Paulson & Armstrong (2011), Dadurka (2012), and Shaw & Mahlios

(2014). These studies, however, do not provide detailed student cases that engage a variety of

texts and genres, nor distinguished between explicit and implicit levels of metaphorical meaning

or drawn valuable connections between metaphor and archetype. I demonstrate how metaphor

influences how we understand our discipline and how college-writers are impacted by metaphor.

I argue for a metaphorical literacy, that is, teaching students the ability to construct and

deconstruct metaphorical meaning. I define this rhetorical approach as an investigation into how

metaphor structures thought, behavior, and identity. The shift from metaphor as an ornament of

language to a frame for conceptualization is important for the composition classroom because

metaphor influences how we conceptualize the entirety of the composing process and specifics

of individual compositions, not just adding flare or decorum. In Chapter 1 we learned how

metaphor analysis can speak to a writer’s identity and encourage writing development.

In Chapter 2, I reviewed the major shifts in metaphor theory, analyzing the metaphorical

assumptions of each:

• Substitution Theory – Metaphor is allegory.

• Comparison Theory – Metaphor is similarity.

• Interaction Theory – Metaphor is exchange.

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• Conceptual Theory – Metaphor is a frame.

• Archetypal Theory – Metaphor is identity.

In addition, drawing on examples like the St. Martin’s Handbook, I show how our field continues

to subscribe to an old rhetoric of metaphor. Booth, Frisbie, and Seitz have all called for a

revamping of our definition of metaphor to integrate CMT. Early work in metaphor paralleled

the cognitive turn and brought renewed attention to what goes on in the mind of writers while

they compose. Emphasizing cognition and composing led to the study of metaphor in

Composition, which was made more popular by calls like Tomlinson’s and MacQuade’s—the

call to focus attention on how people think about their writing and how that thinking influences

their composing. Or as Seitz offers, we should also investigate student’s implicit levels of

metaphor usage. Or as Eubanks’ encourages, we need to consider how identity is situated in our

metaphor usage. In Chapter 2, we learned what archetypal theory adds to CMT. The

compatibility of the two types of analysis reveal how identity is situated in the stories we tell

about ourselves. The narratives we construct, therefore, result from the metaphors we use, and

the metaphors we use summon certain archetypal identities.

In Chapter 3, I outlined my research design, laying out the importance of integrating

Teacher-Research, Critical Pedagogy, (Auto)Ethnography, and Critical Metaphor Analysis, as

well as drawing from a variety of data-collection methods. These positions allow me to

triangulate the data, to postulate results from multiple angles. I demonstrate the viability of the

following methods for researching compositional metaphors: collecting data on college-writers

analyzing quotes on reading/writing; inventing personal metaphors; composing literacy

narratives; participating in peer-review; reflecting on previous writing assignments; defining the

reading/writing process; and discussing invention and revision. I consolidate methods for

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conducting metaphor analysis by combining procedures and practices from the Pragglejaz

Group, Charteris-Black, Lakoff and Johnson, and Charmaz and Spinuzzi. Furthermore, I

demonstrate how to apply Carol S. Pearson’s archetypal system, repurposing it to identify types

of literate identities. This new approach identifies the relationship between metaphor and identity

using meta-narratives, to make assertions about how literate behavior is motivated by the

archetypal positions we read and write from. In Chapter 3, we learned how to conduct metaphor

and archetypal analysis.

In Chapters 4, 5, and 6, I presented analyses of the implicit and explicit metaphors Sara,

David, and I read and write by. I demonstrated how researchers can construct metaphorical

profiles by identifying themes across various writing samples and talk data. I revealed how

implicit metaphors and explicit metaphors work together to establish mythemes; how different

genres inspire different metaphors; and how metaphors position different archetypal expressions.

In Chapters 4, 5, and 6, we learned about each participant’s predominant and subordinate

metaphors and archetypes, which are summarized and reported here:

The Instructor’s Implicit Theory of Literacy

Writing is how I process everything . . . . It’s kind of my church. It’s my faith. It’s my temple. It’s how I understand the world.

—Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance

For me, writing was my outlet, my church, it was my healing, and my safe place. I would close my room door, and the outside world would melt away into a nothingness that felt so peaceful, a moment of peace when my mind was at war.

—Sunny Red Bear, Native Author and Activist

My data was relegated to the MIEs, marginalia, and conferences. The purpose of this was

to focus on my own spontaneous metaphor usage. I recount here the main arcs of my

metaphorical identity as a reader, writer, and educator across the span of the study. From Acolyte

and Superhero to Craftsman, Designer, Organizer, and Collector, each archetype foregrounds the

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mythemes and discursive metaphors I use to situate who I see myself as, as a reader, writer, and

educator.

Starting with the first MIE, I align myself with the Spiritual archetype, a subtype of the

Magician, because I focus on the conceptualization WRITING IS A SPIRTUAL JOURNEY. In doing

so, I position myself as a spiritual mentor. Borrowing from religious discourse defines the

objectives and motives that influence why I read and write—themes of renewal, power,

redemption, rebirth, and hope. I perceive writing as an extension of spiritual expression. An

important part of that is self-discovery and self-improvement; this happens, for example, when I

stress that the revision process is not just about revising the text but about revising the person

who composes the text. This exposition on spirituality shows how my religious life has

influenced and impacted my views on literacy in unique ways.

Related to religious discourse, I briefly allude to the metaphor of magic to emphasize the

rhetorical connection between interlocutors: “[S]omething magical happens when we really,

truly connect with another human being through writing”—a force that moves us, provides us

with an experience or shifts our perspective. Likewise, Kennedy uses the metaphor energy and

Burke implies a correlation between rhetoric and magic as something that not only persuades us

to think differently but to act differently. These theoretical concepts have had great influence on

my philosophy as a rhetorician.

In the second MIE, the concepts of spirituality and magic morph into a fascination with

superhero mythologies. The prototypical superhero narrative deals with accepting and integrating

some special power, learning to control it, and exercise it for the benefit of all. WRITING AS A

SUPERPOWER establishes my aspiration to write from the identity of the Superhero, a hybrid of

the Warrior and Altruist archetypes.

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The Spiritual and the Superhero establish integral parts of my theory of literacy, that

reading and writing are about personal transformation and the exercise and control of power.

Moving from the MIEs to the instructor marginalia reveals how I conceptualize the

processes of editing and revision. A majority of my commentary utilizes some degree of implicit

metaphorical meaning, whereas the use of explicit metaphor is rarer in these circumstances.

Reflecting on the theme of organization, I hold that writing is about displaying (“setting up”),

fitting (“fit with the rest”), and cleaning (“cleaning up”). Likewise, I conceptualize the external

design of a text through architectural discourse: frame, transition, arch, and extension. While

Lakoff and Johnson demonstrated that we conceptualize THEORIES AS BUILDINGS, this type of

discourse corresponds directly with my own real-world identities as carpenter or craftsman,

visualizing the design space of my writing as a virtual construction. Other discourse terms I

frequent are: lens for perspective, reflection for idea generation, morality for production,

economy for value, focus for emphasis, strength for meaningful impact, mining for development,

cutting for editing, and tying for synthesis. While I speculate that these are common in other

instructors’ responses, the metaphors of cleaning and design are activities I identify with outside

of writing, and impact on how I engage the activity of writing and criticism as a Designer and

Organizer.

Lastly, the conferencing data, like the marginalia, engages review discourse, so again the

emphasis is on instruction and recommendation. In general, the conferencing data contains more

content from the instructor’s perspective.

One of the major discourse frames of the conferencing dialogue is WRITING IS A

CHALLENGE/QUEST, dealing with venturing, testing, answering problems, and

struggling/wrestling with an obstacle. An important part of this dynamic is leveling: “The next

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level that I’m trying to get you at is that you can show me you know how to write a thesis, you

know how to tie it all together.” The challenge or quest of writing relies on issues of navigation,

where spatial-relationships establish how writing is an abstract, mental space, like a physical

space, one we create and move through: location, area, walk-through, go back, start, end, move,

step, and expand; route, stance, and position or ground. In addition, I focus on the discovery of

theme as a matter of puzzling things out: “find a theme.”

In an explicit example, I emphasize that writing is a matter of balance or exploring

multiple ways to construct a message. I see this approach as a solution to relying too much on

templates. The design approach puts power in the hands of the writer, to realize that their writing

can go in many different directions. As such, the designer must reason out why they chose one

over the other: “Yeah, so you bring up two really interesting dilemmas. And this gets at when I

talk about writing as design, this is what I mean. You’re getting at, well, ‘I realize I can design it

two different ways, so what’s the best way?’” In another instance, I explain,

And that’s why I say writing is also a matter of design. You, as the writer, are gonna have to design how you think it’s best to discuss it, right? Realistically, I can tell you what to focus on but I can’t tell you how you need to actually shape the text. . . . . There are various ways that you can envision how this paper gets written.

I often attend to the metaphor of voice as well: “To me it’s [i.e., writing’s] important

because it’s where you get your voice out there. And as humans we have that desire to connect,

to have our voices heard. And for us to be remembered for something. Adding your voice to an

issue like that. That’s something worth being remembered for.” Along the same lines, writing

involves the relational aspect of “sharing your viewpoint with someone else” and “usually it’s

something where it’s changing me.”

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While metaphors for reading were far less common or more challenging to elicit or

observe, one of my own metaphors for reading, mentioned in the conferencing, is collecting:

“Reading isn’t just reading something on paper. There’s a process of, like you pull out things that

affect you.” While we refer to texts as collections, we perceive knowledge as something to

acquire and collect. The identity of the Collector, which is a subtype of the Sage, is another

identity that carries over from my real-world identity as a hobbyist, which is how I conceptualize

and engage the research process itself, as curating a collection.

In retrospect, with the conferences, I myself became more and more aware of the use of

metaphorical scripts. For instance, I begin all conferences stressing how revision is not about

fixing a paper. I refrain from the assumption that revision is the mechanical process of fixing

what is broken, which often leads to students assuming revision is about correcting typos or other

sentence-level errors instead of evolving the writing at a conceptual level. The notion of fixing

tends to focus on what is already on the page, instead of considering what more can be added and

how that might help evolve or improve the text. In my experience, fixing emphasizes editing

over developing. Based on this thinking, I substitute fixing with shaping or improving. Likewise,

metaphorical scripts, such as this, are more prevalent than realized, embedded in prompts and

lectures. How we script out our implicit theories of literacy could lead to other possible research

opportunities.

Sara’s Implicit Theory of Literacy

From Creator, Artist, and Painter to Role-player, Activist, and Investigator, these are the

archetypes that Sara uses to position herself as, as a reader and writer.

From the outset Sara defines writing as “bringing [an] image to mind” or “creating a

picture,” showcasing that she focuses on the imaginative, creative aspect of reading and writing,

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especially with regard to fiction. Verbs such as “paint” are a way for her to express, both

explicitly and implicitly, this aspect of writing. The Painter archetype, a subtype of the Creator,

is apparent in most of Sara’s earlier data. In her reflection memo, she claims, “[T]his paper isn’t

the color that I usually write,” revealing how the Painter is not solely associated with her explicit

conceptualization. Sara also refers to her fiction writing as “snippets,” which showcases the

Artist as scrapbooker, where composition is a matter of collaging images together. In the

conference dialogue, she refers to jotting down ideas as “snippets” too.

Another important aspect of the Creator appears in Sara’s survey data, where she

mentions that her fiction writing enables her to live through her characters. Fiction involves

creating avatars or fictional bodies for the author/reader to live through. WRITING IS

INCARNATION.

In Sara’s second MIE, she expresses how each genre has the potential to breed its own

metaphors. She critiques her first MIE as being limiting, developing the new metaphor of self-

discovery, which now emphasizes argumentative expression and identity. She moves from the art

of creating imagery to recreating one’s self, shifting from Creator to Wanderer, from Painter to

Explorer. While this realization reveals a greater sense of genre awareness, Sara could have also

reflected on how she might approach argument through the lens of imagery, to push the

metaphor even further. This allows one to ask, “What images do writers impress upon their

readers in an argument? How do these images immerse the reader in the content of the argument

or imply claims?”

Furthermore, in her LN Sara mentions her preference to compose in solitude. The

Explorer becomes the Seeker or Ascetic through the metaphor SOLITUDE IS PURIFICATION. And

the Activist, a subtype of the Revolutionary, becomes more apparent as the LN progresses—

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themes of standing for something or standing-up for others. Other identities foreground different

facets of Sara’s Activist identity, like the Underdog, a subtype of the Everyperson; the Enigma, a

subtype of the Idealist; or the Analyst, a subtype of the Wanderer. The main insight of the LN

culminates in the realization that reading and writing themselves can be metaphors—any kind of

meaning-making is writing and any kind of interpretation is reading.

Another important aspect of the college-writer’s creative process demonstrated in Sara’s

reflection and dialogue is her experience with the tensions of decision-making and content

development. Sara’s philosophy of writer’s block, while it brings attention to fear, dread, and

inability, reframes it not as a lack of substance but a damming up of substance until it reaches an

eventual overflow of creativity. This means, for her, writer’s block is much more about acquiring

the patience needed to deal with adversity. She refers to her own personal psychology of writing

being about coming face-to-face with insecurity, the critical inner voice one has to satisfy or

quiet. Lastly, in the revision conferences, we see Sara sorting out issues of proportion, cutting,

and fitting. She even mentions dealing with her own “shifting” views. This posits that refining a

composition often involves the act of puzzling things out.

David’s Implicit Theory of Literacy

From Surgeon and Nature-hiker to Philosopher, Psychologist, and Poet, these are the

archetypes that David positions himself as, as a reader and writer.

From the outset, David defines writing as “a mirror of the self” by highlighting the

reflective aspects of literacy, especially with regard to poetry and philosophy. From his writing

quote analysis to his MIE, metaphors of embodiment are used to express, both explicitly and

implicitly, this aspect of writing.

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David, too, returns to issues of comprehending something from another’s perspective or

seeing beyond his own bias, as with the pond-metaphor in the second MIE, relating how his own

perspective is something he “cannot escape from.” He comes to the conclusion that we may truly

never come to know another person’s experience or intent. From this standpoint, the hybrid

archetype of the Wanderer and Sage—the Philosopher—is prevalent in most of David’s musings.

Furthermore, David attends to the psychology of writing in his surgical–metaphor

developed in the first MIE, which emphasizes pain, inner-struggle, and fear. He, however,

counters these negative connotations through themes of transformation and healing. From the

perspective of a surgeon performing surgery on themselves, we get an intriguing portrayal of

how the psychology of writing is akin to physical surgery. For David, the identities of surgeon

and patient merge to express that writing is not just something writers do for others; writers

cannot separate themselves from what happens to them during the writing process. The subtypes

of the Sage—the Psychologist and Philosopher—are reinforced throughout: “Writing is an

expression of the self.” Along these same lines, in his LN, David explores the psychological

themes of vulnerability, shame, and therapy. Carrying over into the survey data, the archetype of

the Psychologist is again reinforced through his focus on writing as self-improvement, making

the motives of self-reflection and the betterment of one’s self apparent.

In his argumentative research paper, David reflects on the intimacy of poetry, recounting

that it connects people and allows them to experience another’s thoughts and feelings. He even

refers to the poetry of song-writing as a “spiritual experience.” Human connection is brought to

the forefront as he stresses the emotional dimension of writing. The archetype of the Poet as

Romantic is emergent in the theme of empathy, where writing is about feeling something deeply

and sharing that with others.

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Lastly, in the revision conferences, we witness David “battling against [him]self” and

coming up against an unidentifiable roadblock. Much like Sara’s exposition on the frustrations of

generating content, David experiences writer’s block not as a resolve to patience but of admitting

confusion, trying to understand why he is getting in the way of his creative process. This

experience is a timeless paradox for the writer, being the hero who is, at the same time, their own

worst enemy or critic.

Contributions: Research Affordances

Each profile summarizes the character arcs of each participant, reviewing how metaphor

situates and positions their literate identities. My research contributes to previous research by: 1)

implementing the frames of METAPHOR AS MYTHEME/NARRATIVE and METAPHOR AS

ARCHETYPE/IDENTITY to capture how identity is expressed through metaphor; 2) coding for

particular genres of writing; 3) coding for different levels of metaphoric meaning, and 4)

engaging case-studies that present college-writers’ individual literacy-metaphors from a variety

of writing samples and data-points. Overall, I have sought to demonstrate how explicit and

implicit metaphorical conceptualizations translate or tell a story about who we are as readers and

writers. My study amends the limitations of previous research, of relying too heavily on solitary

data-collection methods (i.e., focusing on the invention of explicit metaphors solely); of not

including various genres or analyzing metaphors for literacy that occur naturally in talk, or did

not consider detailed student case-studies.

To explore each contribution, I review my initial research questions, responding to each:

1) How do college-writers’ conceptions of reading and writing—their figurative thinking—

influence, shape and impact their interactions with reading and writing as well as situate

themselves as certain types of readers and writers?

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For example, the different metaphors Sara uses for fiction position her as a Creator, Artist

or Painter. In the case of her expository writing, she is a Wanderer, Seeker and Activist. As with

David, his metaphors for poetry position him as an Idealist/Romantic. In the case of his

expository writing, he is a Sage/Magician, Philosopher or Psychologist. My own explicit

conceptualizations position me as a Magician/Spiritual or Superhero, and the instructive

commentary positions me as an Organizer, Designer, and Craftsman. A distinct reciprocity exists

between the metaphors we use and the archetypal exigencies we embody.

Archetypal positioning has implications for how we frame and shape texts. For Sara, the

position of Artist frames and shapes her texts as visual art forms. For David, the position of

Psychologist shapes his texts as personal investigations and education as counseling. For me, the

position of Organizer captures how I visualize writing as putting everything in its place. The

adage, “A place for everything, everything in its place,” captures, at least, one of the perspectives

for how I perceive composing, from chaos to order. Clearly, metaphors position different

archetypal identities that influence our writing development.

2) What are some of the most prevalent as well as rare metaphors for conceptualizing

literacy among first-year college-writers?

According to the comprehensive data involving the MIEs, the general domains of art (i.e.,

creativity and performance), sports (i.e., preparation and performance), and social activity (i.e.,

life and relationships) were dominant metaphoric responses in the first MIEs. Metaphors of

household chores, journeying (i.e., preparation, travel, and experience), and imagination (i.e.,

visualization and virtual experience) were rare or far less frequent. Technical/procedural (e.g.,

making food, leisure activities involving play, and money management) and journey metaphors

(e.g., discovery, exploration, and travel) were more predominant in the second MIEs. Metaphors

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of inspiration, social activity, and seasons were rare or less frequent. A majority of the results

speak to the college-writers’ everyday experience and how those experiences intersect with their

identities as readers and writers. The MIEs demonstrate how real-world identities crossover with

literate identities, borrowing from common domains of experience to understand other more

abstract experiences, such as writing.

I classify metaphors that occurred once—or are uncommon in the literature on

compositional metaphors—as rare, meaning that they are outliers in relation to other more

commonplace conceptions. Metaphors of this type were heroism, surgery, and the abstract

metaphors of the universe (i.e., limitless) and everything and nothing (i.e., taking nothing and

making it something). Additional research is necessary to garner or confirm, outside of my study,

what metaphors are, in fact, rare examples. The more this type of research is replicated the closer

researchers can get to being able to determine the delineation between commonplace and rare.

3) How do instructors’ and college-writers’ metaphors compare or contrast?

Many of the generic metaphors are universally shared—metaphors of art and journeying,

to name a couple. This is consistent with CMT due to the fact that we all share a common

conceptual un/conscious. As the instructor, my explicit metaphorical identities as Designer and

Spiritual (i.e., focusing on art and contemplation) relate with Sara’s identity as Artist and

David’s identity as Philosopher. This highlights how metaphor helps us understand one another

from different vantage points or establish a common ground of experience. Comparatively, all

case-study participants sympathize with the tensions of writing through metaphor (i.e.,

whirlwind, damming, and inner-struggle) and reflect on finding themselves in their own ways

through metaphor. Distinctively, Sara tends to focus on the imaginative, immersive qualities of

writing; David tends to focus on the contemplative aspects; and I tend to focus on the spiritual

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attributes. When it comes to reading, both Sara and David gravitate toward the simulation-

metaphor, whereas I allude to a collection-metaphor.

Because composition is an established discourse, it is comprised of ingrained metaphors

that are often used by those who participate in that discourse, whether an entry-level learner or

professional. These types of metaphors were predominant across the various writing samples and

were developed explicitly in the marginalia data discussion: mapping, mining, constructing,

organizing, clarifying, and weighing/impacting/balancing—the roles of developer,

cartographer/surveyor, archeologist/miner, architect/engineer, designer, chemist/optician, and the

athletic concerns of power, agility and dexterity.

4) In what ways might college-writers’ literacy-metaphors encourage us to reimagine

composition pedagogy?

From the outset, I have argued that college-writers may have more to teach us about our

craft than we give them credit for; moreover, instructors should actively seek to see things from

students’ perspectives to influence what we teach. This is an essential reciprocity of the

classroom, meaning that we should be encouraging ways that we can learn from one another. An

awareness of our students’ metaphors allows us to teach to their experiences. Enacting this type

of methodology is a valuable way to teach students to see writing as an essential component of

identity representation—to see how the identities we write from shape what we write and how

we write. Sara’s perspective has taught us about creative imagination and activism. David’s

perspective has taught us about the psychology of composing.

In addition, other metaphors mentioned in the MIEs such as heroism bring attention to

the ethical and inspirational components of writing. If we let our students inspire us through their

metaphors, we gain opportunities to integrate their metaphors into how we teach writing.

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Integrating MIE exercises into the classroom as a pedagogical tool aids us and our students in

tracking conceptual development. Perspective-taking is an essential component of metaphor and

using metaphor invention allows one to experience writing from another’s perspective, and

possibly helps us all see literacy in a nuanced way.

Limitations: Research Constraints

Particular constraints of the current research design include: the size of the data-pool; the

length of the study; types of documents excluded, such as instructor syllabi or assignment

prompts; and the absence of stimulated recall interviews to later confirm, extend, or redirect

college-writers impressions of their own metaphoric development. Most importantly, the

research represents certain types of writers, whereas both of my participants identify as avid

readers and writers outside of the classroom. The affordance, though, is the ability to focus more

on the analytic and narrative details of each case, no matter the type of student. If we are to learn

more about how college-writers’ conceptualizations remain consistent or evolve, future studies

will need to consider how time impacts metaphoric development. Researchers might also

consider partnering with students to develop the role of participant-researcher, making an effort

to involve students in the autoethnographic details of representing themselves and analyzing their

own metaphors.

Implications for Future Research

My data reinforces how metaphors create mythemes (i.e., metaphors construct

narratives); are substantiated by archetypal patterns (i.e., metaphors enact roles); and are the

essential components of theory-building (i.e., metaphors construct knowledge). I encourage the

field of Rhetoric and Composition to continue exploring how metaphorical formation,

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construction, and representation impact how we conceptualize what literacy is and does. To me,

this inquiry is at the very crux of defining the intersection between Rhetoric and Composition.

Directions for future research might involve investigating researchers in the field as well

as other professional writers from various discourses, to uncover other ways to research the

metaphors we read and write by. While researching college-writers’ and instructors’ metaphors

inspires ways to integrate metaphor analysis into the classroom, the variability and replicability

of case-study research requires additional data to aggregate and corroborate findings across

multiple studies. I have synthesized previous studies on compositional metaphor, setting the

stage for future investigations. As Tomlinson remarked, “I cannot hope to prove that writers’

representations of their composing—or their conceptions—influence their actual composing

processes until we have gained considerably more knowledge of what goes on during writing

activities” (59). I believe we are much closer to saying that we can prove that writers’

compositional metaphors influence their composing.

Reflecting on My Experience

Overall, how I utilize MIEs and give instruction on metaphor analysis or encourage

college-writers’ to reflect on their identities as readers and writers was the impetus for why I

began this research. Before I found the data-collection methods useful as research tools, I first

found them useful as pedagogical tools, as my research is directly influenced by classroom

praxis. Over the course of the study, I focused on the college-writer’s potential to educate us, that

is, if we allow ourselves to experience reading and writing through their metaphors, because their

“metaphors can help us learn what we need to teach” (Tobin 456). The findings reflect the value

of teaching to our students’ experiences, such as encouraging and reusing Sara’s metaphors of

imagination and discovery or David’s metaphors of healing and reflection. One way I have come

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to utilize my findings is through increased cognizance of how my students talk about writing and

how I respond to the language they use, especially in conferencing. But, in general, I do not

advocate that there is one specific way to teach to our students’ experiences. My research

admonishes us to shift our perspectives as instructors. To that end, a good starting point is,

simply, opening up a conversation about reading and writing metaphors with our students.

Assigning different writers on writing engages this conversation too. The goal, however, no

matter the approach, is to motivate college-writers not only to imagine what writing is but also to

imagine the potential of what it could be.

The pedagogical challenge associated with teaching to our students’ experiences is first

determining what those experiences are, which involves getting to know our students and their

writing practices. While this study achieved that level of knowledge with Sara and David, it was

only after the fact that the information was available to consider how metaphor impacted their

writing development. By its very nature, it is difficult to simultaneously analyze student practices

and integrate them into one’s pedagogy. Conducting invention exercises and class discussions

are a starting point for integrating metaphor analysis into college-writers’ writing development.

But we may need to think more innovatively about how to integrate immediate feedback and

instruction, so that they too can do something with the rich conceptual information.

One way the research has had a residual effect is by increasing my awareness for how

composing felt for the participants, especially in the memos, letters, and conferences. This

insight made me reflect on, what I have called the psychology of composing, that is, what goes on

emotionally inside writers as they compose. As an instructor, I realized that I rarely hold enough

in-depth discussions about writers’ experiences navigating the mental and emotional landscape

of the composing process—what it feels like to be a writer. Metaphor invention and analysis

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encourages conversation around more personal issues related to the composing process. If

anything, my experience with metaphor within the classroom has resulted in more honest and

creative conversation about composing.

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APPENDICES

APPENDIX A – Sara’s Writing Quote Analysis Results

Implicit Metaphors:52

Fiction Writing

WRITING IS A TRANSFER OF IMAGES

“the writer should work on transferring what he sees, in his mind,

to paper”

WRITING IS SPEAKING

“I should not say”

Message

A MESSAGE IS A VALUABLE ITEM/(MEANING IS AN ECONOMY)

“a valuable message”

Quoting

A QUOTE IS A DEMONSTRATION

“not only does [the quote] show you how to write”

A QUOTE IS A MAGNIFICATION

“this quote has magnified to me”

A QUOTE IS AN INSTRUCTION

“quote is able to provide, both, what to do and what not to do”

Reading

READING IS SEEING/(THOUGHTS ARE VISIONS)

52 Refer back to notes 15 and 16 for examples of implicit and explicit metaphoric usage.

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“for the reader must also be able to see what the writer had

envisioned”

Rhetorical Devices

METAPHORS, IMAGES AND WORDS ARE TOOLS

“using metaphors, images and accurately chosen words”

Writing (in general)

WRITING IS A CONTAINER (FOR BEAUTY)

“the beauty in writing”

WRITING IS A VEHICLE

“to drive across”

WRITING IS IMAGINATION

“bringing [an] image to mind”

“to write means being able to show the reader a vivid image”

WRITING IS SHOWING

“to write means being able to show the reader a vivid image”

APPENDIX B – Sara’s Literacy Narrative Results

Explicit Metaphors:

Literacy

Literacy is Tradework

“I’m a mixture of things; a jack of all trades.”

Meaning

Meaning-making is Inkless Writing

“anything that makes us think, can and should (emphasis in

original) be considered . . . a form of impromptu inkless writing”

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Reading

READING IS FOOD

“Food for thought”

Implicit Metaphors:

Literacy

LITERACY IS A CONTAINER (FOR PERSONAL MEANING)

“holding additional meaning”

LITERACY IS A LENS

“looking at life in a novel manner”

LITERACY IS ARCHITECTURE (EXPERIENCE/VALUE—UP IS COMPLEX;

DOWN IS SIMPLE)

“there’s the higher level reading, like reading novels and

textbooks, and then there’s lower level reading”

LITERACY IS ORALITY/THOUGHT

“speak our minds”

LITERACY IS TRANSFORMATION

“the world around us changes”

Meaning

MEANING-MAKING IS MOLDING

“a form of reading”

“a form of impromptu inkless writing”

“The act of forming words”

Reading

(FICTION) READING IS IMAGINATION AND RELEASE

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“in novels it was imagination and release”

READING IS MUSIC

“strikes a chord”

Research

RESEARCH IS ILLUMINATION

“Shedding Light on Reading and Writing”

Self-Reflection

SELF-REFLECTION IS TRAVELING/MOVING

“going back and forth”

“I’ve settled.”

Solitude

SOLITUDE IS PURIFICATION

“clear my mind”

“the key to get rid of ”

Style

STYLE IS DELIVERY

“their way of crafting the image and delivering it.”

STYLE IS IMAGING

“their way of crafting the image and delivering it.”

STYLE IS NAVIGATION/A PATH

“their way of crafting the image and delivering it.”

Writing

(ARGUMENTATIVE) WRITING IS DELIVERING

“delivering a message”

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(FICTION) WRITING IS COLLAGING

“snippets”

(FICTION) WRITING IS PAINTING

“in writing short stories it was a template – an empty canvas rather,

to paint on.”

(FICTION) WRITING IS (RE)CONSTRUCTION/GROWTH

“expand . . . into a novel.”

“[The snippets] continue to grow”

(RESEARCH) WRITING IS SELF-DISCOVERY

“discovering myself”

WRITING IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE

“get ‘in the mood’ for writing”

APPENDIX C – Sara’s Peer-to-Peer Marginalia Results

Implicit Metaphors:

Editing

EDITING/REVISION IS EXPANSION

“Expand more.”

Paragraph

PARAGRAPHS ARE SHIPPING CONTAINERS

“carries that theme.”

Placement

MOVEMENT IS ADDITION

“to add this to the paragraph”

Quote

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QUOTES ARE CONTAINERS (FOR MEANING)

“since [the quote] carries a lot of meaning.”

Theme

THEMES ARE SHIPPING CONTENT

“carries that theme.”

APPENDIX D – Instructor Feedback for Sara Results

Implicit Metaphors:

Idea/Thought

CONNECTING IDEAS IS INTERTWINING

“Is there a way to tie them together???”

INSIGHTS ARE ARCHITECTURE

“your overarching insight”

THOUGHT IS MOVEMENT/NAVIGATION/A JOURNEY

“thinking things through your own way.”

Introduction

AN INTRODUCTION IS A DISPLAY

“setting up the memoir.”

Meaning

(DEGREE OF) MEANING IS PHYSICAL STRENGTH

“the memoir starts things off real strong”

Memoir

MEMOIRS ARE PORTRAITS

“Nice portrait”

Organization

182

ORGANIZATION IS CLEANING (SEPERATING/COMBINING)

“what goes with what”

ORGANIZATION IS DIRECTION/PLACEMENT

“filler paragraphs”

“a discovery draft”

“often isolated--insights”

“a navigation paragraph”

“a hard time locating a thesis”

Revision

RETHINKING/REWRITING IS A (ANOTHER) WAY

“a way that you could be more precise”

Theme

THEMES/MOTIFS ARE FOCAL POINTS

“what you want to focus your attention on”

THEMES/MOTIFS ARE STRANDS/THREADS

“Is there a way to tie them together???”

Transition

TRANSITIONS ARE (CLEAR OR UNCLEAR) SUBSTANCES

“Provide a clearer transition”

Writing

WRITING IS A MIRROR (FOR THE WRITER)

“how these reflections transition or fit with the rest of the paper”

WRITING IS JOURNEYING/CONSTRUCTION

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“how these reflections transition or fit with the rest of the paper”

WRITING IS PUZZLING

“how these reflections transition or fit with the rest of the paper”

WRITING IS (RE)CONSTRUCTION

“extending the definition”

WRITING IS SPEAKING

“this says something”

APPENDIX E – Sara’s Reflection Memo and Revision Letter Results

Implicit Metaphors:

Assignment Criteria

(WRITING) ASSIGNMENT CRITERIA IS A PROBLEM/MATCHING PUZZLE

“The only problem I faced was trying to match up the proportions”

Commentary

COMMENTARY IS GUIDANCE/REVELATION

“comments were made that showed me”

Editing

EDITING IS CHOPPING

“I had to chop out a lot”

Filler

FILLERS ARE (MEANINGLESS) CONTENT

“refrain from writing any fillers”

Genre

GENRE IS (A WAY OF) DELIVERY

“a new way to deliver information”

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GENRE IS COLOR

“this paper isn’t the color that I usually write”

Insecurity

INSECURITIES ARE VOICES

“that tiny voice that tells me that I still need to work on it”

Style

STYLE IS COLOR

“start to take that color.”

Wording

WORDING IS ETHICS

“the right words”

Writing

(FICTION) WRITING IS CINEMATOGRAPHY/MODELING

“scenes that cross my mind”

WRITING IS EXPLORATION

“about finding the right words”

WRITING IS EXPRESSION

“to express meanings.”

WRITING IS FLOW

“the paper’s flow”

WRITING IS NAVIGATION

“it’s not at the point”

“how to transition to it and from it.”

WRITING IS ORGANIZATION

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“the paper’s flow was neat”

WRITING IS PLACEMENT

“placed properly”

“it seems so out-of-place”

“does not seem to fit”

APPENDIX F – Sara’s Open-Ended Survey Results

Implicit Metaphors:

Editing

EDITING/REVISION IS FIXING

“to fix things”

“rather than fixing everything at the end”

Emotion

EMOTIONS ARE LIQUID SUBSTANCES/CHEMICALS

“The ability to stir deep emotion”

Writing

WRITING IS AN ABILITY

“Writing is the ability”

WRITING IS A SIMULATION OF LIFE

“I can live through my characters what I can’t live.”

WRITING IS EXPRESSION

“to express a meaning”

“a way to express”

“to express”

WRITING IS FORMING

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“forming words”

“the formation of sentences”

WRITING IS SPONTANEOUS

“Writing for me is usually impromptu”

APPENDIX G – Sara’s Conference Results

Conference 1

A THESIS IS AN ANSWER

Jason [3:12]: Cause I said a thesis statement is answering the research question.

DRAFTING IS A STORM

Sara [20:17]: She’s going to talk about this, this, and this.

Jason [20:18]: Yeah. Exactly. Now I know how to navigate it. And I know what you’re

struggling with is like you’re kind of in the center of this vortex and you have all of these

different yous swirling around you and you’re like, ‘How do I talk about who I am?’ So there’s

that problem.

EDITING IS CUTTING

Sara [26:06]: That’s why I was saying I had a problem with the proportions because I had to cut

down some of the memoir.

Jason [26:12]: That’s interesting, so you cut it down.

Jason [27:25]: And obviously you’re thinking about how you need to edit and cut stuff. But at

the same time I would sometime take risks. I mean, if you’re like, ‘I’m losing something if I take

this out, that I feel is really important,’ you want to make sure that, that stays.

INTRODUCTIONS ARE EXPECTATIONS

Jason [4:59]: Cause I said introductions set expectations.

READING IS COLLECTING

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Jason [8:35]: Reading isn’t just reading something on paper. There’s a process of, like you pull

out things that affect you.

READING IS IMPACT

Jason [10:19]: You do say beautifully written. There was something that hit you, where you were

like I just have to stop and I have to think about what just happened.

READING IS MOVEMENT

Jason [31:42]: So that when I reread it, I can jump to wherever you added something.

REVISION IS RESHAPING (NOT FIXING)

Jason [00:20]: For conferences what I like to do, instead of focusing on revision as, like a lot of

students look at it as what do I need to fix in my paper, right? Revision is all about ‘seeing again’

your writing. So what can you shape in it, you know to form something new, or reshape to form

something new?

Sara [5:41]: I tend to read about all kinds of things. I mean, I don’t do one specific thing.

Jason [5:47]: Okay. So then you want to talk about how can you break that up enough to where

you get a good view or that your reader gets a good view of what are you reading that help you

form this identity or that have encouraged you to be this type of person.

Jason [19:27]: And you might want to split up reading and writing.

Jason [32:17]: Really, writing is all about the revision process. This is all about getting your

ideas out but then it takes a while to really shape your ideas.

THEMES ARE BURIED/HIDDEN (MEANING)

Jason [21:28]: What do you think is the theme? Did you feel like there was a theme emerging out

of this?

Sara [21:33]: Not really, no.

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Jason [21:35]: Do you think that there’s a place maybe that you see a theme now that you didn’t

or that, is that still a struggle?

Jason [25:20]: I’m just giving you an example of how I would go back and find a theme.

THEMES ARE THREADS

Jason [4:04]: And so for you this, is this [i.e., activist theme] tying in with the memoir? Do you

see that coming out of it? Then this is a reflection that you want to take back and put in the

thesis, right?

Jason [24:00]: I would say that there is some theme with imagination. I don’t know. What, what

do you think you could say about imagination in the introduction and conclusion that would like

. . .

Sara [24:05]: . . . tie everything together?

Jason [24:07]: Yeah. Or is there a link between imagination and enlightenment?

WRITING EXPERIENCE IS ARCHITECTURE

Jason [25:41]: The next level that I’m trying to get you at is that you can show me you know how

to write a thesis, you know how to tie it all together.

Jason [43:03]: But it makes you more aware of the different levels of what’s going on, so.

WRITING IS A CHALLENGE/QUEST

Jason [00:50]: What were the initial problems that you had with the paper that you feel were kind

of struggles that you met along the way?

Jason [1:46]: My challenge really for you would be how can you develop the literacy journal

more, was really what I saw.

Jason [32:27]: That’s why I choose this type of research because it gets at understanding

yourself. And that’s a challenge. Most of us don’t take time to really get to know ourselves,

which is funny.

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WRITING IS A PUZZLE

Sara [44:06]: I realized that some sentences don’t fit, so I don’t know why I had them there.

WRITING IS BOUNDED SPACE/NAVIGATION/MOVEMENT

Sara [1:16]: I personally prefer to have the memoir being longer than the research, so it was kind

of a struggle to keep the proportions right.

Jason [2:25]: So you had a hard time locating it [i.e., the thesis] yourself?

Jason [6:38]: Are there any other specific areas that you want to focus on?

Jason [6:51]: This is where I think real writing instruction takes place. Because it’s me as the

instructor walking through your writing.

Jason [11:19]: I would say go back to this and I mean as we’re going through this it’d be good to

make notes for revision.

Jason [25:32]: Or you could start with imagination and then end with enlightenment. And then

draw the connections. Okay, why did I make this move?

Jason [28:20]: Whether it’s general or specific there always needs to be that one step of

reflection.

Jason [28:40]: I think really, if you could somehow expand your discussion of the literacy

journal a little bit more. But I mean you do give two really clear examples.

WRITING IS COLLAGING

Sara [11:06]: I do stop and sometimes just pull up the word documents and start writing ideas

and snippets.

WRITING IS COMPOSITION

Sara [12:37]: Now I have activism and I have the descriptive type of reader and writer, so I don’t

know how to combine them at the end.

WRITING IS DELIVERY

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Jason [10:38]: Unpack that term.

WRITING IS DESIGN

Jason [1:28]: That’s kind of what was intended in my design of the assignment, was that you

would have to, as a writer, balance, learn balance, like how do I equally talk about these two

different things.

Sara [33:05]: Should I start by order of paragraphs in the article and analyzing each one or

starting by let’s say rhetorical questions—logos, pathos, and just elaborating on each one?

Jason [33:23]: Yeah, so you bring up two really interesting dilemmas. And this gets at when I

talk about writing as design, this is what I mean. You’re getting at, well, I realize I can design it

two different ways, so what’s the best way.

WRITING IS DISCOVERY

Jason [5:24] And that’s typical as we draft, right, we talk about writing as an act of discovery,

and when you wrote this, this was probably more an act of discovery, your like, ‘Oh, this is

something that I want to talk about.’

WRITING IS FRAMING

Jason [4:44]: But that can be a helpful way of framing the type of reading you do.

Jason [22:36]: Could you frame this paper as a discussion on enlightenment?

WRITING IS MUSIC

Sara [10:04]: I was trying to analyze how the writers were choosing there words and they kind of

sounded, it was like a rhythm or like music.

Jason [23:40]: You yourself admire the musicality in other language and you’re doing that here.

WRITING IS PHYSICAL STRENGTH

Jason [25:59]: It’s a really strong piece of writing.

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Jason [2621]: Did you feel like editing this made this stronger or do you kind of regret, that

there’s something missing?

Jason [30:48]: What I want you to show me in revision is that you are still kind of wrestling with

these ideas. If you can show me that you can construct a thesis and kind of expand on some of

the, reflect a little bit more.

Jason [45:19]: You have a really good handle on your writing.

Conference 2

EDITING IS CUTTING

Jason [24:49]: This is great. But can you try to cut it down too?

WRITING IS A CHALLENGE/QUEST

Jason [1:23]: You’re seeing your own views and opinions on the issue changing. That’s really

what research or an argument paper is supposed to do. It’s really all about, kind of, testing who

you are and what you believe.

WRITING IS AN ECONOMY

Jason [25:39]: This shows what kind of researcher you are. That you’re really invested in the

topic.

WRITING IS BOUNDED SPACE/NAVIGATION/MOVEMENT/POSITION

Sara [00:38]: When I started, when I initially started the paper I had a very clear idea and a very

clear opinion about the topic. And after reading and researching more my views are kind of

shifting, just going back and forth, back and forth.

Sara [20:33]: This paper has been difficult because of the shifting views. That’s mostly what’s

been going on.

Jason [20:41]: So what do you mean by shifting views? Are you talking about yourself? Are you

talking about just . . .

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Sara [20:47]: It’s both. It’s actually both. There are so many views about this topic that are so

different. So I just chose the popular narratives.

Jason [21:04]: And I mean I think based on the space we have all of these constraints when we

write. And so you do as a writer have to decide, well this is just too big of an issue to cover in a

small paper, so what can I cover in a smaller paper. So I think that’s probably the most popular

route to take.

Jason [24:46]: But just the way you’ve organized it, it’s already easy to understand the

progression of the paper.

Jason [27:38]: These are the main sources, and these are the stances and positions they represent.

WRITING IS CAPTURING

Jason [26:29]: It’s really about credibility. Why are these credible sources? And then also

making sure that you are getting the big picture. Cause most of the problem that we see in media

is the bias is always too much. Bias isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that when you get so much of one

viewpoint you don’t get the whole story. So that’s really what a literature review is about. You’re

trying to capture the story so far. And I think that would fit in really nicely because of the

historical outline that you’ve created.

WRITING IS COMPOSITION

Jason [00:19]: I’m more interested in the specific pieces that you want to look at, and then we’ll

just take our time looking at each of those pieces.

Jason [16:55]: The main part is that you’re trying to educate but at the same time you want to

think about, ‘Well how can you get people involved?’

WRITING IS FOCUS

Jason [9:43]: And then I like this too because then you’re kind of zooming out and saying . . . .

Jason [11:06]: You have to narrow your topic sometimes.

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WRITING IS PHYSICAL STRENGTH

Jason [17:41]: But realistically you don’t have the opportunity to talk to the politicians or talk to

these different leaders. But how do you still have a voice? And I think that that’s an important

thing to wrestle with.

WRITING IS SHARING

Jason [37:55 ]: To me, that’s what writing is all about—is just talking about specific pieces of

writing, sharing your viewpoint with someone else.

WRITING IS TRANSFORMATION

Jason [23:06]: Sure. So I mean that’s exciting to see how it’s expanding what you believe about

the subject. And for me, when I am interested in any argument, usually it’s something where its

changing me in some way; that’s why I’m interested in it. You know what I mean? The more

you can start to empathize too, with the other sides of the argument, that’s gonna make you

better at arguing about the topic.

WRITING IS VOICE

Jason [23:55]: To be honest, the greatest thing you can achieve in writing is that this becomes

your own thing. Because I would rather have my students write stuff they’re interested about and

excited about because then this becomes your own. This is not just an assignment for my class;

this isn’t about impressing me. Some students that’s, kinda, they don’t get pass that. It’s just an

assignment, it’s just trying to appease the teacher. But what I’m seeing here is you’re really

developing your voice on the issue.

Jason [37:16]: To me it’s [i.e., publishing] important because it’s where you get your voice out

there. And as humans we have that desire to connect, to have our voices heard. And for us to be

remembered for something, adding your voice to an issue like that, that’s something worth being

remembered for.

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APPENDIX H – David’s Writing Quote Analysis Results

Explicit Metaphors:

Bias

A Bias/Lens Is A Blessing/Curse

“a natural bias and lens . . .; it is a blessing and a curse”

Writing (in general)

Writing is a Mirror of the Self/(WRITING IS REFLECTION)

“a mirror of the self”

Implicit Metaphors:

Bias

A BIAS IS A LENS

“a natural bias and lens that they cannot escape from”

Lens

LENSES ARE INESCAPABLE CONTAINERS

“a natural bias and lens that they cannot escape from”

Writing (in general)

WRITING IS A CONTAINER (FOR HEART AND SOUL)

“to put their heart and soul into writing”

WRITING IS A CONTAINER (FOR THE SELF)

“to put myself [emphasis in original] into writing”

WRITING IS A FORCE (THAT CATCHES)

“caught up within [the writing]”

WRITING IS MORPHING (OUR LIFE EXPERIENCES INTO ART)

“morph whatever topic or situation”

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WRITING IS PERSONAL BRANDING

“a new piece of art that has their signature branded within it”

WRITING IS RECONSTRUCTION

“morph whatever topic or situation they are expanding on”

APPENDIX I – David’s Literacy Narrative Results

Explicit Metaphors:

Literacy

LITERACY IS A CONVERSATION

“To me reading and writing can be as social as talking to another

person”

The English Classroom

THE CLASSROOM IS A SANCTUARY

“a sanctuary of thought and joy”

Implicit Metaphors:

Literacy

LITERACY IS A JOY AND LOVE

“reading and writing can be joyful”

“a love for composing essays and devouring literature.”

LITERACY IS PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT/SELF-HELP

“improving myself”

“reflective towards myself.”

Psychology

EMOTIONS/THOUGHTS/FEELINGS/QUESTIONS ARE TORMENTS OR

EXCITES

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“emotions, thoughts, feelings, and questions that will either

torment or really excite us”

Reading

READING COMPREHENSION IS A STRUGGLE/CHALLENGE

“struggling to comprehend”

“consciousness altering challenge”

READING IS EATING

“devouring literature.”

“books that I really spent time consuming and digesting.”

Texts

AUTHORS AND THEIR WORKS ARE DOORS (TO NEW KNOWLEDGE)

“opening new doors for me”

Thought

THOUGHTS ARE PHYSICAL OBJECTS/BODIES

“to put your thoughts down on paper; into form and solidity where

they are naked”

Writing

WRITING IS STRESS

“writing can be equally stressful as well as therapeutic.”

WRITING IS THERAPY

“writing can be equally stressful as well as therapeutic.”

“the act itself [medicates] our brains.”

APPENDIX J – Instructor Feedback for David Results

Implicit Metaphors:

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Affect

AFFECT IS PHYSICAL STRENGTH

“in a strong narrative sense.”

Balance

CONTENT WEIGHT IS PHYSICAL BALANCE

“The balance between memoir, research, and reflection”

Content

CONTENT IS PROPORTION

“overshadowed by the philosopher identity”

Development

RESEARCHING/DEVELOPING IS DIGGING

“worth digging up”

DEVELOPMENT IS ATTENTION

“the literacy journal could use more attention”

DEVELOPMENT IS REFLECTION

“Reflect more on the importance”

Exemplification

EXAMPLES ARE OBJECTS

“Could you give an example???”

“giving a few more examples”

Identity

IDENTITY IS EMERGENT

“What other identities did you see emerge???”

IDENTITY IS SITUATED

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“identity as a philosopher is situated”

Knowledge

UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING

“Good insight.”

“this perspective”

“the reflections here”

Memoir

MEMOIRS ARE REPLICATIONS

“[The memoir] really replicates the memory”

MEMOIRS ARE TOOLS

“Great use of memoir”

Success

SUCCESS IS MORALITY

“Good insight.”

Themes

THEMES ARE BURIED TREASURE

“a buried theme”

THEMES ARE LENSES

“through this lens”

Quotes

QUOTES ARE TOOLS

“Good use of the quote”

APPENDIX K – David’s Reflection Memo and Revision Letter Results

Implicit Metaphors:

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Author

AUTHORS ARE FRIENDS

“my voice emerges . . . friendlier in a sense”

AUTHORS ARE GUIDES

“I guide the reader”

Conclusion

CONCLUDING IS PIECING TOGETHER

“it all comes together”

Grammar

GRAMMARS ARE RULES

“because of the grammar rules”

GRAMMAR IS A STRUGGLE

“the grammar rules I struggle with, in turn my sentence structure

falls short as well.”

Information

INFORMATION IS PRESENTATION

“information is presented”

Literacy

LITERACY IS JOY

“the joy of getting into reading, writing, and thinking”

Messages

MESSAGES ARE DISPLAYS

“displays my message”

Points

200

POINTS ARE (MATTERS OF) MATERIAL STRENGTH

“this was a weak point.”

Response

RESPONSE WRITING IS A SPONTANEOUS JOURNEY

“I made up the structure as I went along”

Style

STYLE IS TEXTURE

“I smoothly guide the reader”

Theme

THEMES ARE EXPRESSIONS

“The theme that I tried to express”

THEMES/TOPICS ARE FOCAL POINTS

“my two main focuses”

Thesis

THESES ARE PLACES/CONTAINERS

“into my thesis”

Writing

WRITING IS A BODY

“a basic skeleton for it.”

WRITING IS CONSTRUCTION

“structure can really help”

“transitioning in between topics”

“how I transitioned the paragraphs”

WRITING IS PLACEMENT

201

“placing my narrative”

Writing Conferencing

WRITING CONFERENCING IS SELF-IMPROVEMENT

“better myself”

APPENDIX L – David’s Open-Ended Survey Results

Implicit Metaphors:

Assignment

ASSIGNMENTS ARE SPACES

“the boundaries of the assignment”

Goal

GOALS ARE MEASURES (FOR ASSESSMENT)

“measure up to their goal”

Literacy

LITERACY IS A PERSONAL CHALLENGE

“Reading challenges me to reassess my values”

LITERACY IS A REASSESSMENT (OF VALUES)

“Reading challenges me to reassess my values”

LITERACY IS CONVERSATION

“the author is trying to tell me”

LITERACY IS (A WAY OF) RELFECTION

“Reading and writing can be a great way to reflect on yourself”

LITERACY IS SELF-IMPROVEMENT

“to learn and better myself.”

Note-taking

202

NOTE-TAKING AS LABELING

“I wrote down a short label”

“the labeled task”

Text

TEXTS ARE COMMUNICATIVE DEVICES

“through the text.”

Thought

THOUGHTS ARE WEIGHTED OBJECTS

“dense thoughts”

THOUGHTS ARE WINGED CREATURES

“before they fly away from you.”

Writing

WRITING IS A CONTAINER (FOR BEING)

“put their being into it”

WRITING IS CONSTRUCTION

“to construct my paper.”

WRITING IS PUZZLING

“to puzzle it together”

WRITING IS TRAPPING/CAPTURING

“Writing is a medium to trap your thoughts in”

“an attempt to capture”

APPENDIX M – David’s Conference Results

(DRAFT) WRITING IS UNCLEAR AUDIO

David [17:58]: It’s kind of. I don’t know if you can understand what I’m trying to say?

203

READING IS EXPLORATION

Jason [7:20]: And we have an interesting, kind of, three-level model for the way this is being,

you know, composed. And then we also, for the audience, kind of want to explore that same

thing.

WRITING/ARGUMENT IS ADHESIVE

Jason [28:58]: Or maybe that mythic appeal, that idea of this freedom-fighter story; that’s gonna

really stick with an audience.

WRITING/ARGUMENT IS AN ECONOMY

Jason [1:58]: You haven’t actually wrote a paragraph worth of information yet on anything.

Jason [5:09]: Because, even in conversation, we might think we are owning what we’re saying

but we’re usually responding to what somebody else is saying, so in a way they kinda have

control or power over what we’re going to say because they’re expecting a certain type of

response or trying to get a response.

WRITING/ARGUMENT IS ARCHITECTURE

Jason [3:29]: So I think the fact that you’re looking at argument on those two levels, right—

that’s really interesting about the type of text you’re looking at. And so, . . .

David: And I’m not sure how to say that, kind of?

Jason: Let’s see. So what’s interesting is you wanna talk about who the speaker is and who the

audience is.

WRITING/ARGUMENT IS BOUNDED SPACE

Jason [7:45]: So there might be, too, some type of middle ground.

WRITING/ARGUMENT IS DELIVERY

Jason [25:15]: Cause the audience is the people who, in a way, matter the most because they’re

either going to take up that message or just leave it.

204

WRITING/ARGUMENT IS DRAWING

Jason [9:57]: Logos is all about tracing the argument, as far as, what is the main argument would

you say, in the, how would you summarize that or where do we get a specific example of what

her main argument is?

WRITING/ARGUMENT IS PHYSICAL STRENGTH

Jason [7:56]: So I think maybe in a way that’s really where the persuasion is gonna be the most

impactful.

David [9:25]: But I just thought that was kind of a weak spot in their logical argument.

WRITING IS A PUZZLE

David [2:56]: I guess for another part of the logos I was putting how they used the audioclips

within the NPR interview.

David [18:59]: So do you think that, that kind of fits better in the pathos then? Do you think I

should move what I’m putting here into the pathos.

WRITING IS AN INTERNAL STRUGGLE

David [36:51]: I feel like I’m battling against myself to be like what do I need to do here?

David [42:26]: Yesterday when I was trying to write it I felt like my body just didn’t want me to

write. I was just uncomfortable and sitting there staring at the page and it was just really

annoying. And I’m just like. I don’t know. I just feel like there’s something, just like, in the way

of me writing it and I think that’s just me. Like a weird writer’s block. But a lot of people say

writer’s block is you just need to start writing it and that’s how you get past writer’s block.

Jason: Yeah, I mean there’s this belief that writer’s block is actually an illusion. Like it, there’s

nothing really in the way except for us believing that there’s something there when there’s not.

WRITING IS COMPOSITION/CRAFTING

205

Jason [17:25]: And music, we have the lyrical content, which is primarily the logical argument,

and then we have the music itself being another layer.

David: Yeah, and I kind of put here . . . .

Jason [39:00]: You might want to try different things, right? Just split it up, and just talk

chronologically.

Jason [40:23]: And then later then you want to reread it and think, ‘Okay, is there a way I can

break this up.’

Jason [41:18]: And that can be kind of a danger too in using procrastination is that there’s this

sense of when it stays so abstract you have nothing to look at and reshape and cut apart.

WRITING IS DESIGN

Jason [39:16]: And that’s why I say writing is also a matter of design. You, as the writer, are

gonna have to design how you think it’s best to discuss it, right. Realistically I can tell you what

to focus on but I can’t tell you how need to actually shape the text. . . . . There are various ways

that you can envision how this paper gets written.

WRITING IS EXPERIMENTATION

Jason [44:00]: Yeah sometimes it’s good to just be experimental too.

WRITING IS FORCE(D)

David [31:52]: And then yesterday I tried working on it and I sat down and tried to force myself

to do it . . . .

Jason [32:27]: A lot of writing is always, not necessarily forcing yourself, but you have to just be

like, ‘I’m going to sit down and do this.’

David [46:41]: I just felt no inspiration and drive to write it.

WRITING IS FRAMING

206

Jason [10:40]: Sure, so I think that’s kind of what you want to frame to when you talk about

logos. Right, this whole idea of, well, what is the big issue at hand.

WRITING IS NAVIGATION

David [44:37]: And I don’t know too it’s just, I’m kind of like, ‘Oh, why is this paper acting as

such a roadblock to me?’

WRITING IS PRACTICE

Jason [41:03]: I mean that’s why drafting can be so important too, is that, writing is practice.

You know what I mean? It’s just a matter of practicing and repracticing until you actually fine

tune.

WRITING IS SHAPING

Jason [27:40]: You might want to shape your definitions in relation to how the article, how the

people talk about . . .

Jason [37:11]: When you’re researching or making an argument you do have to define your

terms because we realize that language is moldable; there’s this idea that words mean different

things in different contexts.

APPENDIX O – David’s Argumentative Research Results

Explicit Metaphors:

Poem

Poems are Fluid-Puzzles

“constructing a sort of fluid-puzzle”

Poetry

Poetry is a Catalyst

“poetry can be a catalyst”

Poetry is Painting

207

“blend together the way a painter’s colors on the canvas do”

Poetry is Spirituality

“words and music together creating an almost spiritual

experience.”

Implicit Metaphors:

Education

(RHETORICAL) EDUCATION IS BREAKING (ILLUSORY LENSES)

“teachers break the negative expectations and misconceptions”

EDUCATION IS INTERVENTION

“an opportunity for a writing teacher to intervene and help her

student”

Emotion

EMOTIONS ARE PRESSURES

“poetry is a way for me to vent”

FEELINGS ARE FRAGILE OBJECTS

“feel damaged, broken”

FEELINGS ARE GAMES

“feel . . . cheated.”

Ideas

IDEAS ARE CONSTRUCTIONS

“constructing a sort of fluid-puzzle”

“constructed like a complex puzzle”

IDEAS ARE EVOLVING ORGANISMS/FLUID SUBSTANCES

“spread into”

208

Music

SONGS ARE SPIRITUALITY

“words and music together creating an almost spiritual

experience.”

Poetry

POETRY IS A CLEAR SUBSTANCE/MATERIAL

“the transparency . . . of poetry”

POETRY IS AN ESCAPE

“Poetry opens doors”

POETRY IS BALANCE (BETWEEN WORDS AND IMAGES)

“balance between words and the images”

POETRY IS CAPTURING (THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS)

“a way for me to capture thoughts and intense emotions”

POETRY IS CONNECTION

“connecting people to each other’s minds”

POETRY IS CREATING IMAGES

“words can create images”

POETRY IS DEVELOPMENT (OF CRITICAL THINKING/CLOSE-READING)

“develops critical thinking and close-reading skills.”

POETRY IS EMPATHY

“language to experience one another’s thoughts and feelings

firsthand.”

POETRY IS FINDING

“finding my own balance”

209

“to discover poetry”

POETRY IS IDENTIFICATION/EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION

“it is a mode of identification and emotional expression”

“poetry that attunes with their identities and sense of self.”

POETRY IS MUSIC

“poetry that attunes”

POETRY IS PAINTING

“the images they paint.”

POETRY IS TRANSLATION (OF THOUGHT AND EMOTION)

“the way to express intense thoughts and emotions which cannot

be translated simply”

Reading

READING IS CONSUMPTION/DIGESTION

“poetry . . . to consume and digest”

READING IS A CONTAINER (FOR RECEIVING MEANING)

“to ultimately get something [emphasis in original] out of the

reading.”

APPENDIX P – Sara’s MIE Results

MIE 1

Explicit Metaphors:

Writing (in general)

Writing is Painting

“Writing is like painting”

Implicit Metaphors:

210

Composition

COMPOSITION IS SPATIAL MOVEMENT

“work towards”

Emotion

EMOTION IS A LIQUID SUBSTANCE

“stirring emotions”

Reading

READING IS RECEIVING

“to the receiver”

READING IS VISUAL ADMIRATION/APPRECIATION

“creating a picture for the admirer”

Thought

THOUGHTS ARE LIQUID SUBSTANCES

“the flow of ideas”

“experiencing an overflow of creativity”

THOUGHTS ARE PRODUCTS/OBJECTS

“producing thoughts”

“to carry their thoughts out”

Writer’s Block

WRITER’S BLOCK IS A DISABILITY

“stages of inability”

WRITER’S BLOCK IS FEAR

“the one thing every writer dreads”

Writing (in general)

211

WRITING IS BUILDING

“You start off with a blank space and you build on it”

WRITING IS PICTURING

“creating a picture for the admirer”

MIE 2

Explicit Metaphors:

Argumentative Writing

Argumentative Writing is Discovery

“Writing is discovery.”

Argumentative Writing is (not) Painting

“when it comes to debate and argument, I think that writing as

painting isn’t the ideal metaphor”

Implicit Metaphors:

Argumentative Writing

ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING IS A WAY

“a way to express a person’s opinion”

ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING IS BUILDING (IDENTITY)

“the foundations for our cores”

ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING IS CONCRETE EXPRESSION

“makes an opinion more concrete”

ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING IS EXPOSURE (EXPOSURE AS FINDING)

“exposed to multiple points of views”

“Through this exposure we find”

ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING IS IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT/GROWTH

212

“our opinions . . . help us develop our identity as an individual”

ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING (EXPRESSING OUR OPINIONS) IS RELIEF

“helps to put our mind at ease”

ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING IS SELF-DISCOVERY

“discovering oneself”

Beliefs

BELIEFS ARE POVs

“exposed to multiple points of views”

“we find our own beliefs and points of views questioned”

Identity

OUR IDENTITY IS OUR CENTER

“the foundations for our cores”

Opinions

OPINIONS ARE ANNOUNCEMENTS

“I officially announced”

OPINIONS ARE CONFIRMATIONS

“I’ve also confirmed it to myself”

OPINIONS ARE STANCES

“I hold a specific stance”

Reading and Research

READING AND RESEARCH ARE PURIFICATION/CL(E)ARIFICATION

“develop a clear view . . . through reading and research”

APPENDIX Q – David’s MIE Results

MIE 1

213

Explicit Metaphors:

Writing (in general)

Writing is Surgery

“Writing is a Surgical Operation”

Writing is a Scalpel

“the tool of writing can become a scalpel”

Writing is a Suture

“like stiches writing can close up the wound”

Implicit Metaphors:

Criticism

CRITICISM IS INFECTION/CRITICS ARE GERMS

“infected by the germs of the world”

Emotion

WORRIES AND CONCERNS ARE (A WRITER’S) ILLUMINATIONS

“worries and concerns . . . bring . . . to light”

Prewriting

PREWRITING IS ENVISIONING (EXPECTATIONS)

“We envision a sole idea of what our end result ‘should’ look like

in our own mind’s eye”

Writer

WRITERS ARE ENTRANCES/EXITS

“open and vulnerable”

Writing (in general)

214

WRITING IS (A CONSTANT STATE OF) CHANGE

“never set in stone”

WRITING IS A CONTAINER (FOR THE EGO)

“When one puts their ego into writing”

WRITING IS AN INNER STRUGGLE (WITH FEAR)

“inner struggles and fears”

WRITING IS A REFINING FIRE

“arise from the ashes of our writing”

WRITING IS BLEEDING

“breaks the skin and lets us bleed”

WRITING IS HEALING

“like stiches writing can close up the wound”

WRITING IS PAIN

“Writing . . . can be a painstaking process”

WRITING IS TRANSFORMATION

“arise from the ashes of our writing”

MIE 2

Explicit Metaphors:

Writing

Writing is Self-Expression

“Writing is an expression of the self.”

Implicit Metaphors:

Reading

READING IS CONSUMPTION

215

“The audience consuming writing”

Writing (in general)

WRITING IS A CONTAINER (FOR THE SELF)

“When one writes they are putting a bit of themselves into their

writing”

WRITING IS ART

“Every writer has a style”

“like any form of art”

“the development of that skill”

WRITING IS REFLECTION

“their individual reflection”

WRITING/READING ARE PERCEPTION

“the way your reading of your writing is seen differently”

“seen your face in a mirror”

“observed your own writing”

“perception of you”

APPENDIX R – Jason’s MIE Results

MIE 1

Explicit Metaphors:

Writing

Writing is a New Start/Journey

“WRITING is A NEW START.”

Writing is Identity

“writing is the writing of an identity”

216

Writing is Resurrection

“Writing is a way to come back to life.”

Implicit Metaphors:

Reading

READING IS A NEW START

“I’ve found a new start in a quote, in a song, in a fantasy narrative,

or religious text”

Revision

REVISION IS PERSONAL REVISION

“revising the person”

Writing (in general)

WRITING IS CONNECTION/EMPATHY

“truly connect with another human being through writing”

WRITING IS HOPE

“hope that we can be [emphasis in original] our better selves”

WRITING IS REDEMPTION/RESURRECTION

“to feel the power of redemption and resurrection”

“restart”

“respawn”

“I will die and be reborn a million times . . . because of reading

and writing”

WRITING IS REINVENTION

“we can reinvent ourselves”

WRITING IS RENEWAL

217

“we can be renewed”

WRITING IS SELF-DISCOVERY

“I’m looking for the me I truly am in my writing”

MIE 2

Explicit Metaphors:

Voice

Voice is Becoming Yourself

“to have voice—to become yourself”

Writing (in general)

Writing is Becoming a Superhero

“WRITING is BECOMING A SUPERHERO”

“My writing is often the superhero that I want to be.”

Writing is Power

“writing is power”

Writing is the Discovery of an Inner Life

“the discovery of an inner life”

Implicit Metaphors:

Imagination

IMAGINATION IS DISCOVERY

“an imagination that will drive us to discover the superhero within”

IMAGINATION IS DRIVE

“an imagination that will drive us to discover the superhero within”

Power

POWER IS HIDDEN/DORMANT/ENCAPSULATED

218

“emergent power”

“awaken”

“a sense of internal power”

Voice

VOICE IS CONTROL

“To have control in writing is to have voice”

Writing (in general)

WRITING IS A CONTAINER (FOR CONTROL)

“To have control in writing is to have voice”

WRITING IS A GIFT

“a hidden gift or misunderstood gift”

WRITING IS A KEY (TO THE IMAGINATION)

“Writing unlocks the power of the imagination”

WRITING IS CHANGE (FOR THE GREATER GOOD)

“writers can change the world through their own personal

transformation, to preserve and honor life, to fight against

injustice, to be the voice of the voiceless”

WRITING IS POWER

“emergent power”

“power inside”

“a sense of internal power”

WRITING IS SALVATION

“to save lives”

“there is salvation in writing”

219

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