Browsing by Subject "English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching (Higher)"
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Item Critics, classrooms, and commonplaces: literary studies as a disciplinary discourse community(2003) Wilder, Laura Ann; Charney, DavidaThis dissertation aims to complicate current understanding of disciplinary discourse communities though an investigation of the disciplinary values of literary studies, a discipline that for a variety of reasons has been under-examined in “writing in the disciplines” research. The first half of the manuscript examines the assumptions imbedded in the professional rhetoric of literary studies. Adapting methodologies used in analyses of professional discourse by Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor, I analyze the stasis issues and special topoi appearing in the first volume of PMLA 1884-5 and in a more recent sample of the discipline’s discourse, journal articles published between 1999 and 2001. These analyses demonstrate the rhetorically conservative and progressive functions special topoi serve in professional discourse, allowing literary scholars to argue for new directions for the profession by appealing to shared values and practices. They also suggest that, despite a currently pervasive ethos of anti- disciplinarity, the discipline is refashioning itself as a knowledge-building discourse community. The second half investigates the previously unexamined role of these assumptions in a site that is simultaneously central to this discipline's work and low in its hierarchical structure: the frequently required undergraduate introductory literature course. I triangulate ethnographic observations of a large undergraduate literature class’s meetings, textual analyses of a sample of students’ essays, and questionnaires to explore the extent to which the special topoi of professional-level discourse are present in a class intended for non-majors. I also present the results of an interventional quasi- experiment that seeks to distinguish the weight given to the use of discipline-specific rhetorical strategies and more general stylistic strategies in evaluating undergraduate writing. Although the professor whose course was studied stated his course objective was to teach “general-purpose” argumentation, analysis of student papers and grades indicates the use of discipline-specific special topoi was rewarded, underscoring the situated nature of “good” writing. The results of these studies suggest that the literature course intended for non-majors may be a borderland of discourse communities and a site of value formation and conflict. Thus the boundaries of disciplinary discourse communities may be more complex and permeable than current descriptions of them relate.Item The rhetoric of self-promotion in personal statements(2005) Brown, Robert Moren; Faigley, Lester, 1947-Rhetoricians have all but ignored what may be the single most important text that students write in their undergraduate careers, a personal statement for a postbaccalaureate degree program. Business school, medical school, law school, and graduate school all require one with an application, but nowhere in the curriculum are students taught how to write it—an irony, it would seem, for institutions to overlook the document demanded of any who wish to rise in their ranks. Filling this void, a plethora of popular guidebooks promise to lead applicants through the narrow rhetorical straits of writing a personal statement; unfortunately the advice therein suffers from an unsettling amount of inconsistency. The asymmetry between popular and scholarly literature on personal statements may owe to their being a “homely discourse” (Carolyn Miller)—too instrumental in function and limited in circulation to have attracted much scholarly notice. Since the time that Miller called upon researchers to regard workaday genres, many have taken heed, but comparable attention to the personal statement is long overdue. The genre deserves critical attention, not only for the sake of future applicants, but for the sake of elucidating the interplay of some abiding interests in rhetoric and composition— genre, identity, and professional socialization. This dissertation brings together a series of empirical studies on personal statements written for two different programs of study: doctoral study in clinical psychology and medical school. Methodologically these studies coordinate data from multiple sources: discourse analyses of original texts, interviews with applicant writers and expert readers, and observations of writing center consultations. Results show how a profession’s partisanship along the research/practice divide requires strikingly different self-identifications from its novitiates: apprentice scientists of psychology must craft identities as empirical problem-solvers in service to the scientific community; aspiring doctors must craft identities as altruistic healers in service to humanity. The writing center study proposes a method of conversation analysis based on politeness theory in sociolinguistics in order to analyze the co-invocation of absent audiences in tutorial. The project concludes with a defense of personal writing against the denigration it has suffered under the epithet of expressivism.Item Techne in action online : rhetoric and the webcenter(2003-05) Cambridge, Darren Robert; Syverson, Margaret A., 1948-; Slatin, John M.The study examines the application of rhetorical theory to the design of Web-based online community systems intended to promote the public good. It describes the rhetorically-informed process used to design an online community system, the American Association for Higher Education Carnegie Teaching Academy Campus Program WebCenter. Drawing on contemporary readings and classical rhetorical theory and complexity theory, Chapter 1 examines the limitations of existing software engineering methodologies and describes rhetoric as a theoretical, practical and productive architectonic art which is distributed within a rhetorical ecology and can be deployed to encourage invention and judgment. Chapter 2 articulates the rhetorical ecology into which the WebCenter was designed to intervene, tracing the evolution of the "scholarship of teaching and learning" and examining the institutions, groups, and technological environments involved in the discourse around this term using concepts from publics theory and organizational learning theory. Chapter 3 explains the design of the WebCenter as a rhetorical forum, making use of Star's concepts of infrastructure and boundary objects, and introduces elements of the resulting design. Chapter 4 explores the use of artificial intelligence systems within the WebCenter as heuristic devises for invention and judgment by drawing on studies of scholarly communication and Burke's rhetorical writings. Chapter 5 compares the expectations charted throughout the design process with the observed use of the WebCenter as implemented and suggests improvements to the existing system based on the results.