journal entries for WR593 The Rhetorical Tradition

I just posted most of my journal entries (and one of the presentations) from WR 593 The Rhetorical Tradition and the Teaching of Writing (from winter term). Half-a-year delay, but I finally get it done! ;-)
They’re found under the WR 593 Rhetorical Tradition category and/or January and February 2008

[journal entry] on Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory (part 2)

Quintilian was nothing if not thorough.  In this line, he’s referring to the practice of imitation, but it seemed to epitomize his whole pedagogy: “If we gain a thorough conception of all these matters, we shall then be such imitators as we ought to be” (403b). The detail with which he outlines the teaching of [...]

[journal entry] on second part of Murphy’s “The Key Role of Habit in Roman Writing Instruction”

I really like the idea of using incremental steps to teach composition. I love how it helps build up students’ fodder for future writing as well as helps learn “to see both sides of a question” (69). It makes me think there’s got to be a way to accommodate the progymnasmata to the 21st century [...]

[presentation] on Cicero’s De Oratore

Cicero’s De Oratore
The question: To what extent ought the orator also be a philosopher?
Orators are rare because oratory requires comprehensive knowledge (290, also 291b and 292a)
Crassus’ view:
1.    Crassus echoes Cicero’s view by praising the rare power of the rhetorician: “For what is so marvelous as that, out of the innumerable company of mankind, a single [...]

[journal entry] on Cicero’s De Oratore (315-339)

Book III (as excerpted in B&H) of De Oratore is probably one of my favorite sections of this entire anthology, since in it Cicero has Crassus discuss Greek philosophy, the ideal of the orator as philosopher, and lament that what was once joined so fruitfully (philosophy and rhetoric) are not separated.
Crassus speaks of Athenian philosophers [...]

[journal entry] on Murphy’s “Roman Teaching Methods”

It’s hard to read about Roman pedagogy and not feel frustrated that rhetoric is not taught with equal intensity today.  It’s hard to fault any of their steps.
It does makes sense, as Murphy points out, that the “ever-practical Romans” continued this system most likely because it worked 50-51).  And the fact that it was so [...]

[journal entry] on first part of Murphy’s “The Key Role of Habit in Roman Writing Instruction”

It’s amazing how influential Latin rhetoric was.  It makes me wonder if this influence was due mainly to its being so systematized and organized. It seems that is at least one reason Aristotle’s Rhetoric has been so influential: its breakdown of every aspect of rhetoric into learn-able parts.  (Of course Aristotle’s Rhetoric has also been [...]

don’t-forget-to-do list

respond to N.L. and T.
practice with my own enthymeme
take Seligman’s signature strengths questionnaire at authentichappiness.org
arrange date to present Weaver’s “Language is Sermonic”
finish revising letter and c.v.
copy Mills’ Discourse (due Feb 4)
[Heheh, here's what you call a fascinating blog post!]

[journal entry] on Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Books II and III

Aristotle obviously does take up Plato’s challenge that the rhetor must know his audience and what is likely to persuade them and must know each “class of speech” well enough to choose which is the most advantageous in the situation (Phaedrus 167). I imagine Aristotle didn’t even wince when he read Plato’s criteria. Aristotle [...]

sources to check out for rhetoric and epistemology paper

Atwill, Janet M. Rhetoric Reclaimed: Aristotle and the Liberal Arts Tradition. Cornell UP, 1998. Chapter 7.
Gage, John T. Review of Rhetorical Traditions and the Teaching of Writing by C. H. Knoblauch, Lil Brannon. Rhetoric Review, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Sep., 1984), pp. 100-105.
Gage, John T. “An Adequate Epistemology [...]