What is Composition?

Simply put, I think that overall, in this class I have learned that there is no single definition of what composition truly is. It may span from persuasive rhetoric to the physical process of writing, from writing papers as a student to grading papers as a teacher. I think that what composition does most effectively is challenging people to be innovative, persuasive, and understood.

As we learned in James Miles’s “Born Cannibal,” language is the reason that humans can be good and love to overcome inherent evil, and language is a form of composition. Yet, we also learned that language alone is not enough to make humans what they are; language must be abstract. Joseph, a feral child, lived without any abstract language, and so although he was not a cannibal, he was not on the same developed level as other humans. We then learned that language works through rhetoric, which Aristotle states is persuasion, encompassing logos, ethos, and pathos. Toulmin argues that logos, ethos, and pathos still are not substantive enough to thrust humans into their upper intelligence because they simply explain why people do things and are convinced; we still need to understand how. Toulmin claims that you must have a claim and data that cannot be challenged, but that a warrant can be made, and must be challenged. This cognitive challenge of ideas is another progression into composition, but we as students still have not reached that point.

We were then told that language is a technique for changing people, but writing is the technique used for shaping and changing an entire civilization. (Enter composition.) At this point, the combination of simple language, abstract language, rhetoric, persuasion, and the Toulmin model have all progressed into what composition really does: challenges the mind. Yet, composition on its own is not powerful enough to provoke change; the composition must somehow be shared with the world, and so the printing press was invented. Printing produces powerful ideas, yet students and people in general still claim to hate English. Why? Because the subject matter is abstract, teachers should try to teach thinking instead of teaching to the grade, which so many people learn to hate.

Jim Berlin states that “we’re not just teaching to write, we’re teaching epistemology,” the search for truth. There are three basic ways to know something: the objective, the subjective, and the ideal rhetorical. Composition offers this rhetorical way to know things in that it offers interaction between individuals, so long as it is used effectively. One way that we have learned to effectively communicate this knowledge is with the internet and most specifically the idea of “Web 2.0,” which enables interaction across mass media. Yet, even still, it is not always effective, as we have seen with Texas Tech’s own TOPIC/ICON program for first-year “composition” students.

So if we have overcome the barrier of physical communication, how can composition be as effective as possible in challenging thought? Lanham proposes that writing should be a fun activity, and that we should look at language, rather than through it. We should learn to enjoy playing with words, and we should encourage our students to do the same. As future composition teachers, we must understand that innovation leads to learning, and so we cannot confine our students to predetermined standards of how to run a classroom, or even write a paper. We must rise to the challenge of teaching something that cannot be defined. We must teach our students how to think, so that perhaps they can challenge our ideas, and what it means to truly compose a poem, an essay, a book, or even a blog.

What This Class Means to Me

I think that I can definitely apply the more practical teaching theories to my future pedagogy. I think that it is important to consider different writing styles, and I think that it is imperative to get students interested in reading and writing again. I absolutely believe that writing is crucial to thought development, and no matter what the students' future profession will be, he or she WILL use some form of writing.

In my discussion about my final paper, Kevin and I discussed the importance of writing. I briefly mentioned that even writing your name is saying something. By writing your name on something, anything, you are claiming it. You are taking responsibility for it. We stated that if it was possible, someone could, in theory, go back and collect everything you had ever written your name on to create a sort of biography or life history. Why, then, are people so quick to sign papers, to write their name, to sign into class, but they claim that they hate writing. I think that people too often underestimate the importance of writing, and I think that it is our job as teachers of composition to reinstate this interest and importance of writing to our students.

"Clarity"

I know I mentioned this in class as being inaccurate, but I wanted to actually talk about WHY more, since most of the people in our class (if not everyone) does not understand/speak French.

Lanham says: "D'abord la clarte," Anatole France exhorts us, "puis encore la clarte, et enfin la clarte"---clarity first, last, and always.

I cannot get past this "translation" because it is so incredibly inaccurate! The LITERAL translation of this quote is "To begin clarity, then again clarity, and finally clarity." That absolutely does not mean the same thing as "clarity first, last and always."

"Then again" is not a translation of "always," and so for Lanham to try to translate this French phrase to illustrate clarity, he is making a mockery of his own argument. I agree that it is bad to encourage students to write in a transparent manner, where their writing doesn't have a true purpose. However, without any sense of clarity, the argument makes no sense. He cannot argue that "clarity" is inadvisable when students should write with a voice. But while he is trying to find weaknesses in Anatole France's argument, he himself loses all credibility.

**For those of you wondering, or even if you don't really care, the correct way to say "clarity first, last, and always" would actually be "Premiere, enfin, et toujours, la clarte."