Trees, Trujillo, and our Trabajo

In his article, "Recovering the Lost Art of Researching the History of Rhetoric," Richard Enos addresses "a serious problem that constrains the field today: the belief that research in rhetoric is retrospective or, at best, static" (8). When I read this quote and think of our hot-off-the-glue-gun board, I want to laugh. Retrospective? Static? Our primary research in rhetoric--weeks of digging through names, dates, universities, e-mails, books, CV's, resumes, etc.--has yielded a living, breathing, messy entity. It's as far from static as you can get.

Throughout these weeks, I've learned that primary research creates an opportunity to say something original. In writing our major research papers, we may be goaded by the goblin fear that someone, somewhere has written about this before, but we can pretty confidently say that no one has ever done research connecting Patricia Trujillo to Immanuel Kant. As Enos says, primary research is what "advanc[es] basic knowledge." Rather than getting stuck in the ruts of "critical posturing" and "speculative theory," we have, in our own small way, made progress in our field (12).

Working with Dr. Trujillo was certainly a major highlight of the project. She told us about both her academic influences and her personal influences. Dr. Trujillo’s academic contributions are impressive, but she has also been very socially active and involved in the life of her community. So she told us of talking with Meleah Powell from Michigan State University, who was the first person who inspired her to attend graduate school. She also told us of working with Estevan Rael-Galvez, state historian of New Mexico and executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center. And she told us how deeply inspired she was by the examples set by her mother and grandmother, who are both college graduates.

Another highlight of the project was hearing from Dr. Ben Olguin of UT Austin. When I asked him who his influences were, his response was brief and almost poetic. He replied, "My mother taught me how to read, Karl Marx taught me how to critique, and Mao Tse-tung taught me how to fight." Both his response and my work on this project have caused me to ponder my own influences. I wonder where my place will be on this family tree and who my strongest influences will prove to be.

Through this process, I was reminded of a quote from Kenneth Bruffee's article in Norton entitled, "Collaborative Learning and the 'Conversation of Mankind.'" Bruffee writes, "Collaborative learning provides the kind of social context, the kind of community, in which normal discourse occurs: a community of knowledgeable peers. [Students] converse about their own relationship and, in general, about relationships in an academic or intellectual context between students and teachers." This captures the essence of the family tree project. It is something we have done in collaboration, and it has centered on conversation and relationships. How are relationships formed between student and teacher? How do ideas travel from one generation to the next? These questions are crucial to establishing ourselves as teachers, scholars, and writers, because this is part of our kairos. When we write in an academic community, we write not only within our current context, but also within the context of those who have gone before us--our intellectual ancestors, so to speak. If we write without reference to them, we build a house with no foundation.

Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned from this project is that we are not only interconnected, but also interdependent. We rely on our teachers and mentors for guidance, ideas, criticism, and good sense, and we are indebted to them for their help just as they are indebted to others and just as others will one day be indebted to us (even Aristotle was indebted to the influences of his teachers!). We are helped, and we help others. And as we do, a little piece of our “ancestors” passes on to our “descendants,” keeping ideas flowing and thriving in lively conversation from one generation to the next.

The Academic vs. the Writer: Do We Really Have to Decide?

The Elbow/Bartholomae conversation may be the most valuable reading I've done all year. It made me aware of a debate of which I was an unconscious participant--the question of whether we as teachers should help our students see themselves as academics or as writers. Reading this article helped me realize two things: 1. I've been coming down squarely on the side of the academic, and 2. I like the writers' side better and I want to (mostly) live there. Not that you can't have it both ways; Elbow rightly states that "students should be able to inhabit both roles comfortably" (489). He also identifies areas of apparent conflict, such as deciding whether to read established works by well-known authors or to focus on students' writing, and demonstrates that no actual conflict need exist. I loved the idea he presented about using texts to "wrestle with, to bounce off of, to talk about and talk from, to write about and write from" (491). Texts kept under glass like museum pieces rarely teach us anything except our own inadequacies. Working with texts as dynamic entities rather than as static artifacts also empowers us to write in conversation with them rather than merely in imitation of them. And writing is, after all, "an act of finding and acknowledging one's place in an ongoing intellectual conversation..." (495).

I believe that Elbow's perspective can help provide solutions for a variety of tough situations in the composition classroom, including the problem presented in Lisa Delpit's article (from the Norton readings) entitled "The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse." Delpit addresses the issue of teaching academic discourse to students whose familiar discourse is far removed from the academy. She answers critics who maintain that it is neither possible nor desirable to teach "literate discourse" to those outside the dominant group. She says that teaching the dominant discourse to "outsiders" can "provide a way both to turn the sorting system on its head and to make available one more voice for resisting and reshaping an oppressive system" (1320). The problem is that students who feel rejected and alienated by academic discourse tend to reject it in turn. Here's where Elbow comes in. If all we're doing is teaching academic discourse, it will probably only increase that sense of alienation. However, if we also provide opportunities for students to feel themselves as writers comfortable in their own voices, they will hopefully come to value writing as a means of expression rather than oppression.

Joining a New Family

I've always been fascinated by researching my family history, but until this class, I had never considered the concept of ideological ancestry. My connection to a broader legacy through the books I read, the classes I take and teach, and even the informal conversations I have with students, professors and co-workers puts a lot of things into perspective. Over the past several weeks, my research for this project has led me to discover the deep connections and profound complexity that exists in our discipline. I'm just now starting to see a pattern emerge within this tangled, messy network.

Marilyn, Michaela, and I interviewed Dr. Trujillo, who told us about a host of diverse people who had influenced her. We then began the process of researching these people and their many influences; I focused on Barbara Harlow and Ben Olguin. Dr. Olguin responded to my inquiry by writing, "I have had many influences in my life: my mother, who taught me to read, Karl Marx, who taught me to critique, and Mao Tse-Tung, who taught me to fight." Dr. Olguin credits both his biological family and his ideological family with making him who he is today. That's the biggest lesson I've taken away from this project so far: entering a field of study is like joining a family. As you listen to arguments, form ideas, and eventually enter the conversation, you are actually becoming part of a rich legacy of thought.

One idea I had for the board was some kind of "ripples in a pond" aesthetic. Each figure is the center of his/her own ripples. Some of the ripples overlap, and some are far removed from each other, but all of them are in the same pond. Whatever the result, I hope that our creation reflects both the order and the messiness of our rich rhetorical legacy.

Dewey, Burke, Berlin, and the Power of the Pen

As I was reading the handout Erin gave us to supplement her presentation, I saw several threads connecting John Dewey to Richard Burke. But the most prominent thread by far was idea that society and its pressing concerns are the driving force behind the educator's rhetoric. Both men held the pragmatic belief that our rhetoric should be shaped by what benefits our world. Dewey said in his Pedagogic Creed that "the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself." Burke "attempts to solve the problems of education that, he believes, eventually lead to Cold War competitions" (Enoch 278). Both men believed that rhetoric had the power to change society, and that it should be used for the good of all people (it helps that Burke explicitly made the connection between himself and Dewey, saying that he had a "Deweyite emphasis" [Enoch 278]).

In her article, Jessica Enoch makes sense of the often complicated mess that is Burke's philosophy and draws out some outstanding applications for the composition classroom. Teachers should help students learn how to examine both sides of controversial issues before making judgment calls. "Burkean debate" has students writing for both sides of an issue and then write a third piece that simply and objectively analyzes the rhetorical techniques used to persuade.

Most people don't realize what a rhetoric-saturated world they live in. Advertisements jump to mind first--and they are indeed ubiquitous--but consider also political speeches, sermons, songs, class lectures, textbooks, novels (yep, narratives wield a mighty rhetorical power as well!) your elderly neighbor trying to convince you to get rid of your pink flamingo lawn ornaments, and yes, even this blog. The problem, and often the tragedy, is that we allow ourselves to be affected by it without recognizing it for what it is, analyzing it for effectiveness and evaluating it for accuracy. Even the simple act of saying to yourself, "This person/ad/book is trying to persuade me," has the power to objectify you as audience and enable you to make a more reasonable decision about whether or not to allow yourself to be persuaded. Burke's theory of critical reflection goes beyond such a simple statement and presents a complex means of diffusing the inflammatory power of rhetoric. I loved the idea of giving students the tools to take a step back from writing and observe the various aspects of the rhetorical situation carefully (purpose, audience, tone, etc.). He advocates the cultivation of a "distrustful admiration," a phrase which I loved, and a healthy fear of the power of language. I think that getting students into the habit of analyzing before they evaluate--carefully weighing the techniques and merit of both sides of an argument before deciding which side they agree with--would benefit every area of society, from politics to the stock market to the workplace.

James Berlin in his essay "Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class" presents some very similar ideas. "A rhetoric can never be innocent," he writes (Norton 667). He argues that all rhetoric is ideological. Burke would agree and add, "So we need to teach students to evaluate the rhetoric before agreeing with the ideas." Dewey would agree and add, "So we need to find the ideas that work in our social context." All three of them would see the pen as both an invaluable tool and a potent weapon of destruction.

Feeling Inspired? A Look at How We Begin the Writing Process

I love Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I love Linda Flower. But Flower sure didn't love Coleridge; at least not when it came to the theory of inspiration. I was only able to touch briefly on this point of connection in my presentation, and I wanted to explore it in more depth in my blog. Initially, I really liked Coleridge's inspiration theory. I like how he merged various views, didn't discount the possibility of an external influence (as the Enlightenment philosophers did), but also didn't buy the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" theory of the Greeks. I loved the idea of the human mind working in concert with sources of inspiration in the world around us to create writing. And as an inveterate metaphor addict, I loved the picture of the Aeolian harp: the writer as the instrument, a mysterious wind, an undefined locus of inspiration creating the haunting and beautiful music.

However, Linda Flower (along with John Hayes) came up with a compelling metaphor of her own to describe the writing process: the metaphor of discovery. Her metaphor suggests that, unlike the stationary harp that sits and waits for the inspiring wind to blow in its strings, we ought to start the writing process by picking up our tools and digging--both inside our own minds as well as in outside sources. She states, "A writer in the act of discovery is hard at work searching memory, forming concepts, and forging a new structure of ideas, while at the same time trying to juggle all the constraints imposed by his or her purpose, audience, and language itself" (468). Far from sitting passively by, the writer in Flower's concept of discovery is using all available resources to construct the text.

Flower certainly doesn't soft-pedal her disdain for the Romantic view. She states that "the notion of discovery is surrounded by a mythology which, like the popular myth of romantic inspiration, can lead writers to self-defeating writing strategies" (468). Flower argues that belief in an inspiration that comes unbidden and leaves without warning can discourage writers and make them feel that good writing is something beyond their control. I would also add that there is a potential, under the Romantic theory, to create an intellectual laziness in writers. Belief that good writing is something that comes to us rather than something for which we must work provides a convenient excuse for us to do nothing. It is maddening to think that a poem as brilliant as "Kubla Khan," which supposedly came to Coleridge in an opium dream, was left unfinished because the inspiration had "vanished," when he might simply have sat down and hammered his way through the rest of the 250 lines and produce a finished masterpiece.

Flower believed that "discovery" was a cognitive process that could be documented, and she worked to demonstrate how that process was different for expert versus novice writers. Coleridge, on the other hand, would have probably been horrified to think that someone was trying to examine, quantify, and neatly package something he saw as almost mystical.

Is there a happy medium between these two diverse views? I think there is. I can't deny that there have been moments when great writing comes to me in a flash of inspiration. The source of this inspiration may well have been my own subconscious, but it certainly seemed external. However, the vast majority of my best writing has come into being through blood, sweat, and more than a few tears. Breeze or no breeze, our harps have to play; we have to become our own source of inspiration.

PowerPoint Presentation

Here is a link to my PowerPoint presentation on Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Grand Rhetorical Achievement or Grand Rhetorical Manipulation? The Role of Emotion in Rhetoric

I think that George Campbell would have made an excellent politician. I was intrigued by his views regarding the importance of appealing to the emotions in rhetoric. While not discounting ethos or logos, Campbell seems to make pathos the central feature of rhetoric, the foundation upon which everything else is built. This stands in contrast (although not necessarily contradiction) to Aristotle, who asserted the foundational nature of logos. In our assigned reading, Arthur E. Walzer provides a complex definition of Campbell's "grand art of communication" involving the interrelated "sentiments, passions, dispositions" (73).

The first thing that jumps into my mind is "manipulator." Yet Campbell spends a great deal of space addressing the moral component of rhetoric. He insists upon "the inability of reason to establish a hierarchy of values that would meet reason's test for truth" (75). Without emotion, Campbell claims that we are unable either to do or to choose what is good.

I started warming up to his ideas a little bit more when I read about that all-important distinction between the calm and violent passions. The violent passions, Campbell claims, are easily excited and can quickly spiral out of control. These are the emotions to which I see many politicians appealing. They want a quick rise; they speak for maximum emotional effect without perhaps weighing the consequences of their words. The calm passions, however, have more depth and more persevering power than the violent passions. Calm passions are more closely related to character, and I see an appeal to these emotions as not only moral, but absolutely necessary. Without engaging the audience's emotions in a fair and honest manner, how will they care about what the speaker has to say? Is it not likely that, regardless of how reasonable the rhetoric was or how much you trusted the speaker, you will walk away and never think about his or her ideas again? Appeal to the calm passions ought to be closely related to the speaker's purpose in writing. This seems to connect to Hugh Blair's writings about taste. Calm passions relate to the cultivation of "the power of receiving pleasure from the beauties of nature and of art" (Blair 1). On a side note, I definitely did not find Blair's ethnocentrism tasteful at all! His statement that nature "in the distribution of those [talents] which belong only to the ornamental part of life, she hath bestowed her favours with...frugality" was quite shocking to a 21st century mind.

The problem is that we almost exclusively see appeals to the violent emotions in public discourse. Because our culture is so oriented toward instant gratification, we grab for the techniques that will get us the best results the fastest. This problem is intensified when rhetoricians avail themselves of Campbell's advice that "art must be concealed" (81), and the best way to get a rise out of your audience is to not let them know that you're appealing to their emotions. To me, this seems to walk the fine line between persuasive techniques and outright fraud. As teachers, as rhetoricians, and as compositionists, we ought to model and encourage openness of discourse that enhances our ethos. We ought to appeal to the emotions judiciously, but we ought always to strive for Quintilian's ideal of "a good man speaking well."

Blog 5: The Man Behind the Curtain: Ideas that Influence

No matter how far we go back in the history of rhetoric, we always seem to find thinkers whose ideas were influenced by others. I always tell my students that no author writes in a vacuum; she is shaped by the history and culture and context in which she lives. Likewise, no philosopher thinks in a vacuum and no rhetorician speaks in a vacuum. Vico, who is almost as far back as you can go in the history of rhetoric was, according to our readings, strongly influenced by Plato and Grotius. In our readings, I also detected influence of Socrates in Vico's ideas. Vico writes, "Through application and study we can seek to discover the potential of our soul and attempt to exploit it in order to examine our own consciousness." This echoes Socrates' belief that knowledge is innate and that the job of the educator is to draw that knowledge forth through the use of questions (that infamous "Socratic Method").

Conversely, we see thinkers whose ideas were strongly influential in realms beyond the academic. Locke's beliefs that "all men are created equal" and that people have a right to "life, liberty, and property" were instrumental in our own country's ideals and founding documents. In class, we discussed what Locke meant by "all men" and how greatly it differs from our idea about the same concept. While almost all people today believe that this phrase refers to both men and women of all races, creeds, and ethnicities, Locke was probably referring only to privileged white men. Initially, this seems infuriating, but as we discussed this issue in class (especially thanks to Dr. Souder's comments), I softened a bit towards Locke. It is important to remember that he was a man of his time, and while this doesn't excuse wrong treatment of other human beings, it does shed light on what we see as a glaring contradiction. Locke was working with a different definition of "human" and was not immersed in a culture that taught respect for all peoples. If we were to accept his idea of the tabula rasa, or blank slate, his environment gave him no tools for seeing both women and men as they ought to be seen--fully human, fully equal, fully worthy of respect. Instead the prejudices of his ancestors were wholly transmitted to him. Interestingly, we also see the same aggravating dichotomy present in Jefferson, who penned the immortal words, "All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" and yet owned slaves.

Hume was a true Renaissance man who influenced the worlds of politics, trade, philosophy, and religion. According to Marilyn's presentation, echoes of Hume's ideas are present in James Madison's Federalist Papers, again a major influence on the early stages of our nation's development. Contributing to the Enlightenment ideals of skepticism and testing through evidence, Hume was in turn influenced by the historian Tacitus, among others.

So what does this all have to do with the modern composition classroom? Well, as we have been pondering our pedagogy statements, I have been struck by the vital importance of understanding what theories are shaping our practice. I often dwell on the practical out of necessity, but it is essential for me to take a step back and think about what ideas are driving my practice and what consequences my philosophies are having on my students. This class has been incredibly helpful for me in both contemplating and shaping my personal philosophies of writing. Ideas have influences. The best way to deepen one's understanding of any influential figure is to closely examine his or her influences and the consequence of his or her ideas in politics, society, and the academy. And it is of critical importance that we as educators make choices about the ideas we allow to influence us.

Blog 4: Enos, Kinneavy, and the Critical Importance of Audience

According to Richard Enos, there is a serious problem in the discipline of modern composition: there is not enough new research in rhetoric. We're getting our information, not from primary sources, but from critics. Sometimes we're getting it third- or fourth-hand. And like the popular children's game of telephone, by the time the information works its way into our writing, it's often hopelessly distorted. What's holding us back from getting our hands dirty with the primary stuff? False belief "that research in rhetoric is retrospective or at best, static," says Enos. He claims that research in rhetoric is far from static. Instead, the new evidence and data we gather can enable us to develop "new methods to refine our theories and analyses." We are not burying ourselves in an irrelevant past; we are adding our voices to a great conversation.

According to James Kinneavy, there is another problem in the discipline of modern composition: the concept of kairos has been largely neglected in the contemporary comp classroom. Kairos, he says, "might be defined as the right or opportune time to do something, or right measure in doing something." We must devote renewed attention, Kinneavy argues, to "the appropriateness of the discourse to the particular circumstances of the time, place, speaker, and audience involved." Kinneavy places heavy emphasis on what he calls "situational context." That is, he wants to move away from a myopic focus on adding commas and combining sentences to writing for clear purposes and real people across the curriculum.

So what's the connection?

While there are several possible areas of overlap between these authors, I think that one critical point of connection is contextualization--tailoring the message to the audience. Kairos is all about audience. It's about students writing about ethical matters, issues that concern them, topics that interest them, and then keeping their audience in mind when they write. And the application of Enos's article is that by conducting primary scholarship, we have the ability to pull ancient rhetorical theories into modern times, framing them in light of current issues. We must spurn the temptation to only regurgitate what we've heard from other people and instead bring new perspectives.

For Enos, it's about contextualizing research through fresh takes on primary sources. For Kinneavy, it's about contextualizing writing through renewed awareness of kairos. Both are concerned with how classical concepts influence modern writers.

Blog 3-Comp Pedagogy in Light of Comp Research

"Today's research in composition, taken as a whole, may be compared to chemical research as it emerged from the period of alchemy: some terms are being defined usefully, a number of procedures are being refined, but the field as a whole is laced with dreams, prejudices, and makeshift operations" (196).

Richard Braddock, Richard Lloyd-Jones, and Lowell Schoer set out to conduct scholarly research in composition, rectify some mistakes of their predecessors, and make a "genuine contribution to knowledge." They seemed to achieve success on all counts, taking neither the painfully scientific approach of Francis Christensen (a.k.a. "paragraph dude") nor the rather artsy-fartsy approach of Ken Macrorie. Although my concern is with pedagogy rather than research, many of this article's sound research principles carry over into sound teaching practices, especially in assessment.

The authors begin their discussion of research by talking about "the writer variable" and the need to distinguish between "writing ability" and "writing performance," a principle that has tremendous implications for assessment. Six years in the trenches has taught me just how wide the gap between ability and performance can be. When I evaluate a student's work, there are no guarantees that I am looking at a true indicator of her ability. The "Research" authors wrote about the multitude of variables that can affect students' work: everything from noisy lawn mowers to illness to personal issues. It is true that environmental and psychological factors can heavily influence how well a student writes. However, teachers can narrow the ability/performance gap and provide the best possible conditions under which students can succeed. Although I cannot control all variables, I can maintain a connection with students so that I know what personal issues might influence their grades (one reason why it's so important to me to teach at a smaller school). As the authors discuss under the "examination situation" variable, I can monitor the classroom environment and be aware of potential distractors, from lighting to the temperature of the room to how I organize my seating chart.

The scariest part of this selection was the rater variable--"the tendency of a rater to vary in his own standards of evaluation" (200). Specifically, the author referred to two factors that most strongly impact outcomes: "personal feelings" and "rater fatigue" (200). Grading English papers is maddeningly subjective, despite the most detailed rubrics. My personal feelings must be put aside as I simultaneously try to grade content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and grammar. It doesn’t matter how I feel when I'm grading a multiple choice test. I could be about ready to take a baseball bat to my china cabinet and smash up 12 place settings of Noritake; it wouldn’t affect the student’s grade. But if I start to feel cranky grading papers, there’s no hunkering down and powering through until I reach the end of the stack. I have to step away for a while, at least until sanity’s circulation is restored to my cramped brain.

The bottom line is awareness. Part of good teaching is being aware of the variables that affect both teachers and students and adapting in response to those variables. In comp teaching, as in comp research, we need to leave behind the alchemic dreams, prejudices, and makeshift operations and conduct the work of our respective disciplines with "strength and depth" (197).

Blog 2: From Stupidity to Engfish

It sounds like English departments in the 60's and 70's must have been hell.

First, we read William Riley Parker's scathing diatribe against freshman composition courses that were "fumbling and faddish and lacking well-defined goals," (6) against theme-writing that was a "dismal and unflowering desert," (14) and against a profession characterized by "acquisitiveness, expediency, and incredible stupidity" (15). Then came Kitzhaber, more balanced in tone and systematic in presentation than Parker, but still insistent that many comp teachers were "bored or resentful," (261) and that rhetoric textbooks have "probably done a good deal more over the years to hinder good writing than to foster it" (263).

We polished off this week's assigned reading with another caustic critique of postmodern English departments: an excerpt from Ken Macrorie's Telling Writing. Macrorie tackles the issue from a different angle than either Parker or Kitzhaber. Rather than addressing problems with instructors, methods, or textbooks, Macrorie focuses on the writing itself. Poor instruction has left students' writing sucked dry of power and vitality by forcing them to speak in a "phony, pretentious language" that he calls "Engfish" (297).

According to Macrorie, English textbooks and teachers alike encouraged students to write in ways that had no connection to the real world. It's interesting that the pragmatic push that started during the Industrial Revolution, the movement that kicked out the classics to make room for relevancy, wound up stranding English teachers in sterile wastelands of "A Happy Vacation" (Kitzhaber 261) and "impressive impressions" (Macrorie 298).

However, Macrorie says, there are simple cures for bad cases of Engfish. Write truthfully, he pleads. Honest expression. No facades. Your own unique voice. Write freely first, then write with focus. "Reward them [your readers] with meaning" (313). Thankfully, most English departments have pulled out of the dismal slump that characterized them in Parker's, Kitzhaber's and Macrorie's day and have allowed fresh ideas to blow through stale classrooms. Today's English departments teach students to write in ways that speak.

While I enjoyed most of what Macrorie had to say, I found myself a little disappointed by the end (maybe if I read the whole book, I would be satisfied). I guess I'd hoped for a magic potion for getting students to drop Engfish. I spend the first half of the year in sophomore comp trying to get my kids to write for the real world using their real voices. Some of them spend all their sophomore, junior, and senior years in my classroom feeding me sickening Engfish, convinced that it's what I really want. Although I didn't get my magic potion, Macrorie did inspire me to focus on reading (not just correcting!) students' writing, to help them find their authentic voices, and to reward honest writing with honest praise.

Blog 1: Cicero vs. Quintilian

Roman rhetorician Cicero posited the idea that success in rhetoric was measured by the response of the audience. A rousing response meant that the speaker had achieved his goal; the lack of strong response indicated failure. Quintilian challenged this idea by asserting that the virtuous character of the speaker and the quality of his content were the primary indicators of success. According to Quintilian, a cruel dictator may elicit impressive responses, but because of his nefarious character and corrupt message, he is not a successful rhetorician in every sense.

As a high school teacher, part of me wants to believe that Quintilian got it right and Cicero was out to lunch (although admittedly, lunch is difficult without a tongue). I stand before an audience and use rhetoric all day long, and the responses I get are far from what Cicero would term "rousing." My students are often bored with the content and express little interest in learning the material for its own sake. Their response is typically, "What do I have to do to get the grade I want?" I'd like to think that if my character and content are sound, that one day my students will look back on my class and appreciate everything I tried so hard to give them. I'm an idealist, clinging hard to the notion that the stuff I'm teaching is not only opening doors for the kids' immediate futures, but also expanding their universes, helping them see life through different points of view, and simultaneously building self-esteem while squashing narcissism. "They'll get it someday," I tell myself.

Yet I can't ignore the validity of Cicero's perspective. Audience does matter. Response does matter. Kairos does matter. I don't want to be a stuffy intellectual or one of those Oxford "wall lecturers" who were content to teach to the tables and chairs when students no longer showed up for class. Just as writers don't write in a vacuum, teachers certainly don't teach in a vacuum. Teaching, like any academic endeavor, is part of a great conversation and should be treated as such. It's vital that I continually reevaluate my content and delivery for timeliness, relevancy, and dynamism.

Although teenagers aren't very intentional about providing positive responses, once in a great while, I get a little exciting feedback. There's nothing better than hearing the occasional, "Wow, that's pretty cool," about Shakespeare or a "Hey, are we gonna read some more Dickinson?" at the end of a poetry unit. Often those responses come from the most unexpected places. My first year of teaching, I had a girl in my Brit Lit class who seldom spoke up and turned bright red when I called on her. Her papers stuck tightly to the prompts and never went a syllable over the required length. Yet at the end of the year, she ducked into my classroom (bright red as usual), slapped an envelope on my desk, and left without a word. Inside, she had written the following: "Dear Mrs. Wilson: I had never really thought of ordinary books having ideas hidden throughout, subtly influencing the mind of the reader. This class helped me to see what power a book can have, even though you might not know it as you're reading it. This has provided very useful insight for me."

Good character is essential. Quality content is imperative. But positive responses are the most tangible, rewarding, and downright exciting indicators of the rhetorician's success.

Sorry, Quintilian.