Rhetoric and Creative Nonfiction

Tearing Down Walls

Rhetorical Triangle

message

Speaker orwriter

audience

KAIROS

AUDIENCE

Rhetorical Triangle

• Audience (pathos)• Speaker (ethos)– Composition teacher– Writing in the sciences, technical writing– Feminist rhetoric• The Mother’s Blessing

– Connections (?) to creative nonfiction• Message (logos)

• Message– Objective• Tear down walls• Genre bending• Look at creative nonfiction through a rhetorical lens

– Working together (with rhetoric in our sites), we can accomplish our common objectives more fully.

Definitions

• Definitions of creative nonfiction– Your objectives?

• definitions of rhetoric

The Seven Liberal Arts

Trivium•Grammar•Rhetoric•Logic

Quadrivium•Math•Geometry•Music•Astronomy

Vos, Marten de - Allegory of the Seven Liberal Arts – Renaissance

Rhetoric

The Five Canons of Rhetoric

• Invention• Arrangement• Style• Memory• Delivery

Making connections

• What kinds of connections do you make between rhetoric and creative nonfiction?

Progymnasmata

• Exercises. . . Might give us some ideas about ways to approach rhetoric.

• Parks / Singer essays– Appeals? Paraphrase? Which is more persuasive?

Why? • Lucy & Diversity of Life essays• Show vs. Tell • http://rhetoric.byu.edu/

My Concerns

• No “I” first person in argumentative essays– “I” is a narrow window through which we see the world

• Student attitude toward research essays• Student attitude toward writing• Compartmentalization of disciplines– Moxley & Bazerman articles (comments?)– You are on the front lines– Help them see the bigger picture

• Genre bending, progymnasmata, communication, rhetoric—on our part!

Charles Bazerman (2010)

• Our profession has the responsibility for building the skill of all to participate in the powerful interactions of our documentary society. . . Engineering. . . psychology, philosophy, or medicine. Our field is as central to the production of knowledge as any discipline. . . Higher education that produces critical, articulate, inventive individuals is dependent on writing “The Wonder of Writing” 2009 CCCC Chair’s Address

Chemistry major from a cattle ranch in Monticello, “I’m not very good in English”

• • Chasing the Dragon• At it again, it seems like it will never end. The turbo of our F-350 is

humming as we speed up the highway towards Camp Jackson. We’ve been chasing the dragon all summer and no matter how many times we get her under control, she always comes back. It only takes one storm to blow in and send lightning dancing through the sky before she rises. It starts out as a mere smolder or some small flames, but then the wind decides to play and before you know it thousands and thousands of acres of forest are encircled with flames that can only be described as hell on earth. Most of the world calls this phenomenon forest fire, but those of us who battle her know what she really is, the dragon. Fire is a strange creature, that means as a firefighter you never know what to expect.

The same essay. . .

• “Spot, it’s spotting over the line” was all I could hear over the wind. Squeals over the radio began coming in great force. I looked toward the top of the mountain, but I couldn’t see the spot fire. The wind died down, and it seemed like the closest crew would be able to catch the fire before it got out of control. The dragon however, she had different plans. She had been toying with us the whole time. The wind returned and I watched as 10 or more acres of trees were completely engulfed with the biggest flames I had ever seen. Then the fire grew legs and began to run; there was no catching here now.

• Working together (with rhetoric in our sites), we can accomplish our common objectives more fully.

• Good luck! • Thank you for the well trained students you

send to me.• Questions?

• Ballenger, Bruce. “Our Mornings with Murray.” Writing on the Edge 19.1 (40-46), 2008.

• Ballenger, Bruce. “Donald Murray and the Pedagogy of Surprise. College English 70.3 (Jan 2008) 296-303.

• Murray, Donald M. “Teach Writing as a Process, Not Product.” Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. Ed. Victor Villanueva. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2003 (3-6)

• Bazerman, Charles. “The Wonder of Writing.” ccc 61.3 2010 (571-582).