Week 6: Duffy, Hmong, Internal Rhetoric

 

As I was reading my last post about Duffy, I noticed a phrase that I used: “Internal Rhetoric.” At the time of the post, I didn't know what it was and I actually just used it as a catch phrase to best describe what I was discussing about the reading. Well, upon investigation of the phrase, I discovered it had already been used and there was actually a book written on the subject: Internal Rhetorics: Toward a History and Theory of Self-Persuasion ( Neinkamp, 2001). The notions expressed in Neinkamp's book focus on “self-persuasion” and how something as such will produce the “rhetorical self.” She explains that the rhetorical self develops rhetoric to "maintain a fragile equilibrium of personal identity and to resolve ambiguous or conflicting imperatives for attitude, decision, and action" (128).

Based on this, one can see how the rhetorical self relates to the Hmong . The fact that Hmong language is not an exact one, but is created by different forces ( governments, missionaries, other races), one can see how personal identity became paramount during the conflict that occurred in Wausau. I guess I am trying to make the connection between the internal rhetoric of peoples, like the Hmong, and how it worked with other literary forces to inspire literacy and social change. My definition of “literate,” in this context, means being aware of something and how to manipulate and utilize it to some advantage, e.g., letter writing:

Some of the Hmong who wrote letters as a form of self-defense and self-preservation were becoming literate of a form of public discourse. Duffy explained how they became literate of how to construct arguments, effectively use diction and how to concisely express their thoughts. Now, how did all of this occur? How did a race of people looked down upon and against great odds come to define themselves and develop something that could be called “Hmong Rhetoric?” My opinion is that the rhetorical self, traditional rhetoric (learned, erudite persuasion) and literacy were all interwoven to create this phenomenon. Again, this is one isolated case that was studied, but similar occurrences can show how internal rhetoric, traditional rhetoric and literacy frame how people learn and make change. For example: The internal rhetoric of Egyptians, coupled with the traditional rhetoric of what ignited all the writing about their revolution and the literacy many of them had toward technology (facebook), created another interwoven phenomenon similar to that of the Hmong.

A lot of these ideas are borderline cultural studies, psychology, anthropology...etc, but within the lens of the internal rhetoric connection, one can understand the value and gravity rhetoric has. This is also not meant to be taken too seriously, as I would have to do much research to refine and make clearer examples of what I mean by internal rhetoric, but I hope this post sufficed as a jumping off point for conversation.

Thoughts for week 5: Duffy

Amazon has yet to deliver the book we were to have read for this post; however, I improvised and blogged about Duffy:

     I was confused by this article, but I was also inspired. It's nothing new for some Americans to be prejudiced and racist, but I was surprised to see that there was this public outrage against a minority group in Wisconsin. A lot of the American, anti-Hmong rhetoric was similar to that of what gets voiced about African-American communities. It seems that people want to blame crime, exploitation of government systems and use of resources on minorities. I have always found this idea flawed: Sure, statistically, minority groups may use more government assistance and such, but it is the system that has disenfranchised them that is the root of the problem. I think the government likes giving minority groups stipends for being unemployed and also making it difficult for them to get jobs. This may be for another discussion, though.

     As far as the Hmong people, this is where the inspiration came. It was expressed in Duffy's paper that freedom of speech only applies to those that can use it. This means that our freedom of press can be used against a non-English speaking group and that seemed to be the case for the Hmong people. However, those people used their freedom of expression to take the offensive and use the very means that were keeping them condemned as an agent of liberation: This is the constitution at its best. It also shows how rhetoric can engage and encourage literacy. As Duffy addressed in his paper, there are several different rhetorics going on at once: “For example, the languages of governments, schools, and media I think of as offering diverse rhetorics” (226).

     This made me think of the rhetorics I am studying or just exposed to on a daily basis. Everything has a rhetoric: The media, pop music, government, the English department, etc. I know this is nothing new to this class, but it made me think of how all rhetorics and what they have in common. I'm not sure as to where all the connections are, but there are plenty. I think my own conscious has a distinct rhetoric that is a creation of all the things I've heard, read and been exposed to throughout my years. I'm curious as to what each person's individual rhetoric is and how that applies to the separate rhetorics in which we are all exposed. Is my internal rhetoric different than each person's in class? Could you classify a rhetoric as biology classifies kingdoms and species? I know that is the aim of the rhetoric/composition discipline, but do we adhere to a rhetoric that blinds us and keeps us from being able to discern certain truths from not? (I swear I'm not high) I just got these thoughts all the sudden and thought I may as well document them. Sorry if this post took a tangent. What a curious notion: Rhetoric.

Duffy: "Letters from the Fair City: A Rhetorical Conception"

Amazon has yet to deliver the book we were to have read for this post; however, I improvised and blogged about Duffy:

     In this article, John Duffy explores the different rhetorics that were learned, interpreted and utilized by immigrants of the Wisconsin town, Wausau. The Hmong people of Southeast Asia began immigrating to this town in the 1970s and most were political refugees due to their assistance of CIA efforts in Vietnam. After being assimilated in the town for a decade or so, their population began to increase and non-immigrants of the town (US Citizens) began publicizing their opinions in a local newspaper that the Hmong people were exploiting welfare and other government assistance programs. It was also a large issue that a lot of the Hmong people didn't speak English and the townspeople thought they should learn: “Our American society . . . can no longer support a segment of the population that is under-educated, unskilled and ultimately nonproductive.” was common sentiment help by the townspeople. Articles like this and with similar themes surfaced in the 1980s and 90s in the Wausau Daily Herlad.

     Duffy, intrigued by the resistance the immigrants were receiving, conducted dozens of interviews with the people in order to understand how they learned to read and write. It was through the opinion letters that a certain level of literacy was achieved by the Hmong's. What started as a denunciation of the whole people for exploiting government systems and “promoting” criminal behavior gave the Hmong people a chance to defend themselves: “This rhetoric, however,did not silence Hmong residents of the city but spurred a literate response as some Hmong writers took up the themes and forms of the rhetoric to present alternative conceptions of themselves and their place in the city” (232). By engaging with the anti-Hmong rhetoric, it gave the people a chance to develop their own rhetoric and create a “civic identity” (Sandra Stotsky). The opportunity to have their voice heard and use constructs of the English language also helped the Hmong people gain a certain level of legitimacy and, somewhat, subvert the rhetoric that was speaking against them. This development of literacy among the Hmong people is Duffy's key notion of “the rhetorics of literacy.”Duffy believes that the dynamic rhetoric and literacy shared can be used to dissect and learn about the dissemination of literacy by use if rhetoric.

Overall Response: Week 4

     After reading some of Brandt, I started trying to analyze my own writing process. How I write depends on what I'm writing, actually. If I am composing something scholarly, I will write not to keep the reader engaged, per say, but write what “needs” to be written. By “need,” I mean that structure has a lot to do with something scholarly. One needs to expertly place this subject in this paragraph and this topic sentence above this paragraph in order to make the paper, overall, appear more sound and coherent. I'm not sure if this means I am placing more value on the end product rather than the process or if it ,actually, is all about the context. I need to better understand the processes that are a cause of any form of composition. At times, I feel that I am making corrections to my own writing and not really knowing why I corrected it; This all applies to structure, syntax, diction...etc. I'm trying to trace the cord back to the wall and better understand the processes that have caused me to think the way I do. I think that understanding these processes, and I believe Brandt would agree, is the best way to understand how one composes. Like I said before, context means a lot, too, but context is a generic word at this point and understanding context leads to a perpetual cycle of tracing the cognitive processes. A lot of what Brandt was getting at made sense, but some was just too subjective and could have been refined a little more. I could be wrong, though; That's just my opinion.

     The Heath text made me think of how people outside of the English department think about English. I noticed that a lot of the townspeople Heath was studying valued reading, but didn't necessarily see value in acquiring knowledge from reading. I see this as somewhat of a paradox: You don't do the very thing you value. I guess I can relate, though. I haven't read some texts because of how dense they appear. I didn't think the text was too hard to read, but ,rather, the time taking to read and understand the text wouldn't translate into something of value. I think of time and energy as a resource, just like anything else. For people in these mill towns, reading isn't going to yield something the same way a day of working will. I think this is a sentiment held by people, even within academia. I could spend days on end reading a book about farming, but actually doing it and seeing results is what is tangible and needed in an agrarian (or industrial) society. I'm still trying to figure out how to actually spend my time and energy towards something that will yield and intellectual crop of fruit. This is done by trial and error. I see the inherent value in reading and literacy, but the extent to which I am supposed to understand it can be overkill, even for an English major. This, again, brings to mind what it means to be literate. Being literate of the written word is one thing, but being literate of how to accomplish a task such as farming/building is another. A person can be illiterate of the written word, but through oral tradition and observing elders, one can be literate of how to do things ( like working in a mill). I believe there has been much revealed about literacy, but it is still changing and lots left to be learned.

Brandt Ch. 2: "What Now?" The Process of Involvement

 

In chapter 2 of this text, Brandt explains some different methods of understanding the writing process. In some attempts to explain these processes, Brandt takes the reader through a journey of what the writer is actually thinking at all stages of the writing process. Although not an entirely new attempt to further understand writing, actually saying aloud what is going on in one's mind can offer several perspectives as how that translates to what is written. This has been challenged, though, as many critics claim much more, i.e., context plays a large role in understanding the writing process: “Understanding what writers do when they compose, critics argue, requires a wider view of both writers' social identities and the cultural resources sand constraints that they contend with” ( 34). Brandt uses two writing models, “Mark” and “Paul,” to dissect two different types of writers. “Mark” represents the “expert” writer and “Paul” the novice and Brandt explains how each approaches a composition task.

One of the best ways to understand the oral process, within a limited context, comes from analyzing what the writer attempts to write when they have two different outcomes in mind. There is the what “to say”( novice) plan of writing and the what “to do”(expert) plan of writing. The “what to say”model makes sense as far as structure goes, but the “do” is when a writer attempts to keep the reader engaged, regardless of what may make sense to write. What the writer is thinking will keep the reader engages or what should come next, say chronologically, has social implications as well. The two oral protocols of “Mark” and “Paul” display this idea that writing is more than an individual process. Brandt explains that “expert” writing is part of a social act in that writers are part of something that is moving and evolving. It is in understanding the social implications and seeing writing as a force of nature that can, hopefully, be harnessed by the writer in order to write more effectively.

Brandt makes several arguments that display cognitive abilities for the expert to be superior due to his being able to perceive the meta narrative and see writing as part of a social context, but doesn't explain how to bridge the cognitive gap between the two. Also, this chapter doesn't bring to light and new ideas, but addresses them in a different way. This is where the value of this text actually is. Looking at two different writers and considering what exactly makes one “good” can be confusing, but placing the writing within the social context helps one better understand just how much social context of a writer plays.

Overall Response: Week 3

From this weeks readings, well, all of the readings, actually, I get a sense that educators in the discipline of English can't seem to agree on much. From reading Berlin, I see that decades and decades of research in rhetoric and composition lead to theory after theory and learning model after learning model. I feel that if I arrive at teaching composition courses, I will have to do mass amounts of research to define what I am teaching. I see all of these theories as promising, to an extent, but think some can be counter productive. I think politics does play a role in all of this, though.

I saw that some people mentioned politics as a contingency as to what is taught and why it is taught. I'm not sure how well new ideas flourish in a system that is reliant on old politics, but I doubt every idea is nurtured—to say the least. This also goes back to what we talked about in class as the “economy” of literacy. It does seem that literacy, if looked at within the context of an economy, will bring a new understanding to what literacy means. Teaching what a student “needs” to learn is also part of this economy. It is practical to teach a student of engineering differently than someone who is going into English, but each is taught the same. I think that, maybe, writing courses should be more diverse and serve different purposes. I know that the basic premise of English 101 is to serve as a blanket for all skill level, but changing the curriculum may offer new jobs or new concepts into learning and teaching composition. I know they have technical writing and the such, but dividing composition a little further may be useful.

On a slightly different note, now, I would like to discuss Trimbur's article. I know that we live in America and the dominant language is English, but I would like to see some diversity. This calls to mind something that I remembered from the first day of class: I believe the statistic was that 100 percent of all college graduates from India speak some English. This is kind of embarrassing, but it does put emphasis on how important it is to know English. It is almost that English is imperialistic. I think Trimbur's ideas are ambitious, but definitely not lofty. It would take decades of work to achieve a mulch-lingual composition class, but it is possible.

Each week, these readings continue to raise my awareness of literacy in its several different contexts. I am now becoming literate of the many facets that define literacy—hope that made sense. I would also like to bring up the fact that lot of what we read is also very old. Now that we've finished Berlin, there is 26 years in which are unaccounted—at least from he. I feel like, as noted before, there is a large disagreement as to what and how to teach composition. I am curious to see where this class is going and how it can help define rhetoric and composition in the 21^st century.

Executive Summary: Ch 7: Rhetoric and Reality

In chapter 7, Berlin introduces the composition rhetorics that had developed out of the 1940s and 50s to birth the writing styles/models of the 60s and 70s. The two main rhetorics delineated are “Objective Rhetoric” and “Subjective Rhetoric.” The first is comprised of “positivistic theories that locate reality in the reality in the material world” and the second “locates reality within the individual, the lone agent acting apart from the material or social realms” (139). There is, also, a third mentioned ( transactional) that is a product of three schools of rhetoric: classic, cognitive and epistemic.

     Objective theory is heavily steeped in behaviorist psychology; it relied on theorist and psychologist observing how composition is“taught" in order to understand how one also "learns." Some of these theorist believed that “grading” or placing corrections on a paper may not be the best way to teach; they (theorists) believed that grading was only one small peace to an entire sequence of events in which a student is actively learning and comprehending how to write. This model was largely based on what a student considers “rewarding” about the writing process. Understanding what a student considers "rewarding" about writing can be applied to developing a learning model. Other ideas introduced were by virtue of Zoellner's model of teaching composition. Zoellner explains that previous models to teaching composition were “ product oriented rather than process-oriented” (143). Zoellner argues that writing being too thought oriented has lead to problems and it (writing) should shift to more “talk” oriented styles as it is more accessible.

      Subjective rhetoric ,also known as expressionist, focuses on the notion that the writing process is something that is individualistic and each person develops internally. This put more emphasis on the process rather than product. Subjective rhetoric is aligned with the thought that writing is an art that is experienced; they, too, beleive composition can be learned, but not taught.

     Lastly, there is “Transactional Rhetoric” that includes: classical, cognitive and epistemic rhetoric. These all are different, but each does inform the other; they are not all independent, existing as an island. Classical, as Berlin mentions, is concerned with Aristotelian concepts of rhetoric: “interlocutor, audience, reality and language” are the integral parts to this model. This camp also sees persuasion as key in understanding the nature and purpose of writing. Cognitive Rhetoric has a stance that the mind develops thoughts and ideas in a chronological sequence and deciphering that sequence will serve to understand writing; This group also believes the relationship between language and thought is one of the most crucial elements to understanding the composition process. There is, then, Epistemic Rhetoric; this group believes the discovering of “truth” is achieved, highly, by virtue of rhetoric. These are all considered to be transactional and part of a dynamic process of obtaining knowledge and, subsequently, truth.