Daily Archives: September 17, 2026

Student Blogs

RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION AND LITTLE ME

This week’s reading prompted me to reflect on my own communication style specifically, the language and writing methods I employ. It made me consider how I integrate the art of persuasion or rhetoric with the practical process of crafting texts, known as composition.


Through the lens of rhetoric, I was able to examine how the messages I convey in my frequent leadership roles can leverage logic, emotion, and sometimes even credibility to persuade audiences and coordinate collective action. As I read, I kept thinking about how symbols and language can persuade, shape meaning, and coordinate social action.

Reading about composition reminded me primarily of my current job, which involves writing numerous case notes for my superiors to review later. It particularly brought to mind the practical process I use to draft documents or texts tailored to a specific audience, a discipline centered on a structured writing process that includes planning, invention, drafting, revision, and finalization to ensure effective communication in professional settings.

I appreciate that the author portrays invention not merely as an innate talent, but as an art grounded in inquiry strategies and cognitive frameworks. She also views composition as a multifaceted discipline that is enriched by crossing the boundaries of other fields such as psychology, philosophy, and linguistics.

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Rhetoric… Composition… English Studies

I find it shocking we fared so far from incorporating, or even acknowledging, rhetoric. Mainly because it was such a prevalent discussion topic during my time as an undergrad. How could it be that those lessons I had on rhetoric—so influential to my to my writing today—weren’t regularly discussed in classrooms pre-1960s?

It makes me think back to my elementary school experience. The work, or what I mainly remember of the work, was focused mainly on not writing run-on sentences, getting the distinction between there, their, and they’re right, and using correct punctuation. I don’t remember practicing prewriting-writing-rewriting beyond using an outline and reading out loud. And, as discussed in the chapter, high school’s english classes only really ever focus on the literature end of what we know as english studies (writing and lit).

Now, to move the lens a little, I wanted to talk about prewriting. Prewriting has alwaaysss been an interesting part of the writing process for me. Not only because there are so many ways to approach it, but because for so long (K-12) the concept of prewriting was encompassed solely on the process of outlining. So… that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it isn’t exactly a good way to get students to acknowledge the power in effectively using language to get a point across. Not addressing it, and all the ways it may be approached, limits writers from finding their voice (which is so detrimental to their quality of expression in any discipline: creative, historical, research, etc.).

And to go even further, secondary education doesn’t really pin down students purpose as more than something to appease a teacher’s expectations. Most of my undergrad I worked towards rewiring my brain to stop writing for my professor and to start writing for my intended audience. And most of that is hard to do when you’re writing an outline that you’ve very conscious hits all the expectations written on an assignment sheet.

…

It’s funny how something so impactful to someone’s writing identity could have been put on the sidelines for that long. Look at what we uncovered (in vast disciplines and modes) when we focused less on the mechanics of our writing and focused more on rhetoric.

Adamari 9/17/2026

Student Blogs

Rhetoric and the Engfish

So this week’s read was quite the mixed bag, Dear Reader. On one hand, it was really enlightening because it was so relevant to my career field. On the other hand, it was painful because it was so relevant to my career field.

Now it goes without saying that there are a lot of issues with the way that we teach, because I want to be as broad as humanly possible, English. Despite the fact that this piece was written in 2006, it aged startlingly well. While there would have been no possible way for McComiskey to have known the absolutely earth shattering, pedagogically shifting, classroom breaking, shifts that we would face in the forms of: the rise of social media, the fall in media literacy, and the utter monstrosity that is Artificial Intelligence. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

There were a couple things that definitely stood out to me.

Issue #1: Teachers don’t know the content

While, I do think that it is pretty funny that they say it so bluntly, there is a really depressing truth to it. In all of the classes I have taken, both while I was majoring in education and my alt route courses, they never really focused on rhetoric. If I am being completely honest, those classes only really focused on lesson plans and Danielson. It is expected/implied that we will learn rhetoric in our content specific class, it rarely happens like that. It’s one of those things that sounds really good on paper or at a board meeting but it doesn’t happen like that in life.

Education majors are still people.

If it is easier to pass a children’s lit class than a rhetoric class, 9 times out of 10 *Not actual statistics* the educator to be will take the easier class. I have coworkers that never needed to study rhetoric, despite its relevance to the curriculum.

It’s a sad truth of the profession; due to complacency, many teachers can’t provide the instruction they should.

Issue #2: Grammatical correctness and grades

So I’m going to expose myself a bit. I used to be one of those “Erm actually…” grammar police people. Now, I did it because I was a know-it-all brat; however, now that I’m a teacher, I see the real time impact of enforcing grammatical correctness.

I’ve had plenty of students who can convey their thoughts and ideas verbally. They don’t care about following norms. They don’t care about punctuation (mainly because they aren’t writing). They don’t care about any of that.

The only thing that matters is getting their point across.

One of my best/most verbal students was one of my lowest scoring students. While she struggled with certain aspects of writing, she could convey her thought like no joke. She would also pick up on themes and ideas unlike anybody else’s business.

I think that by focusing on grammatical correctness, we deter students from interacting with not only the text, but also with their classmates.

There is also the issue of grades.

I hate grades, and I hate grading. Point blank, period.

Whenever I give an assignment that will be graded, students will do whatever they can to find the straightest path to 100. They don’t feel a need to go above and beyond. They don’t think outside the rubric. They just check boxes. The amount of times I’ve heard, “Mr. Martin, I wrote [X] words but my story isn’t done, what do I do?”

What do you mean, what do you do?

Keep writing.

But it is easier to squeeze blood from a stone, than to get a student to complete more work than the rubric asks.

And, again, one of my best students, pretty regularly, scored low. A lot of students, had they been in her spot, would have just given up on themselves. Why put in effort if I am only going to fail?

Again, I hate grades.

Both of these also tie into academic writing, which clashes with the student’s normal voice.

Issue #3: Engfish

That is all.

Until next time, Dear Reader.

Student Blogs

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

Hi everyone,
My name is Itana, but my friends call me Love. I am in my second semester as a master’s student in Communication Studies. I also earned my bachelor’s degree at Kean University in 2024.

Four things I love most are praying, spending time with my family, especially my one-year-old son. I also love books and music. My family is the center of my life; I truly view them as a blessing and cherish every moment we share, always looking for ways to create new memories.

I currently work as a refugee case manager, a role that brings me great joy because I can help people in need, especially in the times we are living through. Every day, I do at least one thing to make someone else’s life a little easier, and that makes me feel useful and lifts my spirits.

I am also a singer. I have been making music for as long as I can remember. My genre is jazz, but I also love gospel music. I was part of a church worship team for six years, until I no longer enjoyed doing it. Now, I leave that role to people who are passionate about it.

I have always loved books. When I was younger, especially when I was a teenager, they were my refuge. Whenever things weren’t going well, I could always find an interesting book to escape into and forget my problems for a while. And that is what often inspired me to write myself.

Student Blogs

My brain after reading Lauer: Enlightened

Photo Credit: Pixabay/Gerd Altmann

Rhetoric & Composition by Janice M. Lauer made me realize that, although I had taken classes that explored rhetoric studies and pedagogy, it wasn’t until this article that I gained a deeper understanding of the foundations of rhetoric and its impact on English and writing studies. Rhetoric became an evolving disciplinary study in the 1960s that broadened pedagogy for writing scholars, teachers, and students. Lauer emphasizes that over the past thirty years, “rhetoric and composition” has become a full-fledged discipline within English Studies (Lauer, “Composition”). According to Lauer, composition was once considered only a teaching practice, and contingent faculty typically taught writing. Over the following decades of the 1960s, rhetoric and composition saw an explosion of theory-building (Lauer, “Composition”). Before rhetoric became a full-fledged study, it seems to me that writing and English teachers had a monotonous and limited way of teaching writing because that was what they had learned in the past. Before the emergence of rhetoric, students and writers were limited to their own ideas and could not explore their writing processes. The emergence of rhetoric opened the door to new theories and features of writing that impacted not only an academic field across the country, but also created social change.

One key factor I reflected on in this article is that it outlines the foundations of rhetorical theory and its influence not only academically but socially as well. Rhetoric was overseen in the past because the study of composition was prioritized. With its metamorphosis into a full-fledged study, scholars were able to see the relevance of rhetoric in communication and social circumstances. According to Lauer, rhetoric didn’t become a field of study because universities suddenly established it overnight, but because struggling professors needed it. There was no academic foundation for scholars to teach writing before. Professors lacked research in the field of writing because its origin—rhetoric—had been set aside until a group of scholars interested in written discourse paved the way for rhetoric to emerge in universities.

Through Lauer’s article, I’m able to acknowledge the importance of recognizing rhetoric as an interdisciplinary, multimodal, and transformational study because no single field could fully explain or compare to how writing works, as it’s intertwined with many other fields. Rhetoric comes from Western studies (the time of the ancient Greeks), crossing the fields of anthropology, history, and philosophy. Since its emergence in writing studies in the 1960s, rhetoric has crossed with many other fields such as linguistics, psychology, sociology, literary studies, and, prominently, has developed new cognitive theories of writing.  For instance, Lauer mentions the development of a cognitive model of writing designed by Linda Flower and John Hayes based on experienced writers. The model consisted of writing features that were goal-directed to reshape the writer’s cognitive process. The study of rhetoric reshaped the writing and cognitive processes of writers and scholars in ways that allowed them to find new pedagogical methods.

Another key point in the article is rhetoric’s social impact outside the classroom. The study of this field extended beyond academic institutions because there was a growing focus on technological writing when computers emerged. Rhetoric and composition influenced theorists to study the relationship between technology and writing (Lauer). One of my biggest takeaways is that rhetoric becoming its own independent field was one of the first milestones for writers to be seen as thinkers rather than just students. Writers gained the freedom to explore their writing processes through new research. I feel that students experienced a sense of freedom in writing to diverse audiences once rhetoric was implemented as a study because they were no longer limited to directing their papers to just one audience (teachers).

I could say much more about what struck me in Lauer’s article, but I would end up writing twenty pages. What I want to emphasize is that only writers can truly feel and understand the impact of rhetoric in our writing. We can say that through writing, we can explore tone, style, genre, and direct our work to specific audiences. Because of rhetoric’s emergence, we can choose to study writing and have access to a plethora of research from scholars who devoted themselves to studying rhetoric and composition. And for that, I am forever grateful. 

My thoughts on the highlights emerging from our first two classes are that I feel at home here. I feel rooted in this community because we are all so alike yet so uniquely and beautifully different. We all share a passion for writing, and we have transformed our life experiences into insight. Since the first class, I have felt it was a safe space, and I genuinely enjoy coming. I love the writing exercises, and I feel we can truly express our thoughts here through writing. So everyone, thank you for being a lovely class, and thank you to Dr. Zamora for making it a great one ❤

Student Blogs

The Reemergence of Rhetoric

 

I don’t know if anyone else had the same experience, but I was somewhat shocked to read that rhetoric had a reemergence during the 1960’s. In the practice of ‘good’ rhetoric, I took a page from Kyla Wazana Tompkins. Though she isn’t discussed exclusively in this reading, chapter two of Rhetoric and Composition by Janice M. Lauler, I still found some overlaps between the two:

“This brings me to another exercise I do in class, which is to actually write out the model that I learned as an undergrad across the top of a blackboard (Wollstonecraft then Friedan then National Organization of Women then Radical feminism then Women of Color feminism etc etc, an obviously reductive and flawed genealogy) and then underneath to chart out other revolutionary timelines…” (p. 5, “We Aren’t Here to Learn What We Already Know”)

That brings me back to my initial shock of rhetoric in the 1960’s. The first revolution that came to mind to chart out was, the civil rights movement. Never in my educational career did it even come to mind that both sides, those for and opposing civil rights, used, studied, and analyzed rhetoric. Take, for example, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” written in 1963, written at the height of the civil rights movement, which heavily “persuaded” the masses of the injustice of Jim Crow segregation. 

If Rhetoric and Composition are now synonymous with one another, then why am I learning about it just now?

Traditional English Teaching

That’s because, as Lauler reveals: 

“…teaching also focused on reading and discussing essays, completing exercises on style, and repeating drills on grammar. Little, if any, attention was paid to helping students get started, investigate ideas, consider readers, receive feedback on drafts, or revise.” (p. 7)

All of these aspects are of huge importance when it comes to composition. Without rhetoric, how does a student even begin to form a thought or question that engages and challenges themselves and their readers? Sure, I learned about Martin Luther King; no, I did not learn about his letter and what makes it successful writing. Successful in that it made people think, question, and eventually change their behavior, beliefs, and even racial laws:

He uses ethos by presenting himself as a minister and a scholar, thereby establishing credibility. He appeals to pathos by vividly describing the suffering and injustice faced by African Americans in Birmingham. King writes about the brutality of segregation, the bombings of African American homes, and the emotional toll it takes on the community. These emotional appeals elicit empathy and anger from the readers. King also uses logos by presenting a logical argument for the necessity of nonviolent direct action. He explains that negotiations with white authorities have failed, and waiting for justice is no longer an option. He argues that civil disobedience is a moral duty when faced with unjust laws. King invokes the moral and ethical principles of justice and equality, drawing upon his deep knowledge of philosophy and theology.” (ProfessorCatMaster607)

How can we expect students, or anyone, from that matter to write using rhetoric if there’s still a major emphasis on ‘correct’ grammar (p.20), which, ironically enough, makes grammar worse.

This is written after a nice meal of soup con mi madre. Consider my mind blown and zen.

Student Blogs

like a kid in a candy store, except everything is free and made of big words

In reading Janice Lauer’s “Rhetoric and Composition”, I find myself thinking about my experience with the act of writing throughout my years in school. It feels odd to be able to put a name to all the work I’ve done before, both as a student and during my experience as a tutor. The margins of my print-out copy of the reading recall my experiences in the classroom: “i always talk about how students consider themselves ‘bad writers’” and “dr. walters is that you” in response to the idea of revision.

i come with receipts

In particular, I found myself reflecting on what Lauer calls the current-traditional paradigm, and how for most of my life, writing was taught to be a challenge with subjective parameters. There was an idea of what good writing was, who did it, and where it could be found. Rhetoric was a two-day unit (vocabulary test included), and feedback from teachers focused on punctuation and sentence counts. This experience with writing often extended past me. When I talk about how people learn to write, I tend to refer back to a student of mine who considered herself a “bad writer”. In reality, her issue was a weak grasp on things like comma placement, something that we were able to fix in just a few tutoring sessions. Her voice, however, was something that seemed to come naturally. She was adamant that she wasn’t good at writing, and for the first half of the semester, was hesitant to engage with our class. I think years of being told writing could only be done a certain way taught her to feel shame in her work. To coax her out of her shell took delicate care and, unconsciously for me, many of the ideologies Lauer covers.

there’s a joke in here somewhere

Only in college did I realize what studying English could entail. For the first time, I was able to see English as not just Shakespeare and five-sentence paragraphs. I fell in love with writing as a craft and being able to help others understand it. I know now that this is because of the nature of rhetoric and composition, being a “human science”, as described by Louise Wetherbee Phelps. I found it funny that as I read, I was able to connect ideas with experience: the theories of invention I had come across while generating writing across classes or the factors that influenced my feedback to students I tutored. What a surprise, I thought, that although I was not aware of the science, there exists a reason for the things I learned to do. More than that, while reading about the growth of the field of rhetoric, I was fascinated by the idea that composition had been, “considered only a teaching practice”. To me, it only made sense that the field grew. I was reminded of the saying: “how you do something is how you do everything”. The way we compose—the way we put together our words—is the basis of almost everything we do. It is how we express ourselves, why we write to-do lists, where we get the information to write a report. Of course it is natural that we study it.

“it is ALL connected” – me, re: writing being interdisciplinary

I am excited to finally “put a name to the face”, or so to speak, with all I have learned about writing so far. During our check-ins last week, I spoke about how, for me, returning to school meant practicing being more deliberate. The information in this reading is similar. It forces me to look back on my learning experience with a new lens and pick it apart. When was I taught this idea? How? Which of these ideas do I subscribe to, and what experience taught me to think otherwise? Even the philosophical aspects, which I sometimes struggle to wrap my brain around, excite me. It feels like I am about to open a whole new set of toys with which to write with.

Student Blogs

like a kid in a candy store, except everything is free and made of big words

In reading Janice Lauer’s “Rhetoric and Composition”, I find myself thinking about my experience with the act of writing throughout my years in school. It feels odd to be able to put a name to all the work I’ve done before, both as a student and during my experience as a tutor. The margins of my print-out copy of the reading recall my experiences in the classroom: “i always talk about how students consider themselves ‘bad writers’” and “dr. walters is that you” in response to the idea of revision.

i come with receipts

In particular, I found myself reflecting on what Lauer calls the current-traditional paradigm, and how for most of my life, writing was taught to be a challenge with subjective parameters. There was an idea of what good writing was, who did it, and where it could be found. Rhetoric was a two-day unit (vocabulary test included), and feedback from teachers focused on punctuation and sentence counts. This experience with writing often extended past me. When I talk about how people learn to write, I tend to refer back to a student of mine who considered herself a “bad writer”. In reality, her issue was a weak grasp on things like comma placement, something that we were able to fix in just a few tutoring sessions. Her voice, however, was something that seemed to come naturally. She was adamant that she wasn’t good at writing, and for the first half of the semester, was hesitant to engage with our class. I think years of being told writing could only be done a certain way taught her to feel shame in her work. To coax her out of her shell took delicate care and, unconsciously for me, many of the ideologies Lauer covers.

there’s a joke in here somewhere

Only in college did I realize what studying English could entail. For the first time, I was able to see English as not just Shakespeare and five-sentence paragraphs. I fell in love with writing as a craft and being able to help others understand it. I know now that this is because of the nature of rhetoric and composition, being a “human science”, as described by Louise Wetherbee Phelps. I found it funny that as I read, I was able to connect ideas with experience: the theories of invention I had come across while generating writing across classes or the factors that influenced my feedback to students I tutored. What a surprise, I thought, that although I was not aware of the science, there exists a reason for the things I learned to do. More than that, while reading about the growth of the field of rhetoric, I was fascinated by the idea that composition had been, “considered only a teaching practice”. To me, it only made sense that the field grew. I was reminded of the saying: “how you do something is how you do everything”. The way we compose—the way we put together our words—is the basis of almost everything we do. It is how we express ourselves, why we write to-do lists, where we get the information to write a report. Of course it is natural that we study it.

“it is ALL connected” – me, re: writing being interdisciplinary

I am excited to finally “put a name to the face”, or so to speak, with all I have learned about writing so far. During our check-ins last week, I spoke about how, for me, returning to school meant practicing being more deliberate. The information in this reading is similar. It forces me to look back on my learning experience with a new lens and pick it apart. When was I taught this idea? How? Which of these ideas do I subscribe to, and what experience taught me to think otherwise? Even the philosophical aspects, which I sometimes struggle to wrap my brain around, excite me. It feels like I am about to open a whole new set of toys with which to write with.

Student Blogs

Rhetoric & Composition Chapter 2 Reflection

For those new here, I take quotes and comment on them as I go.

“In high school, most students in English classes read literature, and some may write research papers, personal narratives, and book reports.” I don’t think I ever did a research paper in English class. I know history had us research a specific time or event and do a paper on it, but English class for me was always some sort of essay on the readings or personal narratives on the topics presented on the readings. Though, in two of my grade levels in high school, there were options to not write papers but present instead. I presented as I figured it would be less work for me (the one who writes too much), and I was always one of the only presenters. So, truly, high school is a free for all. The teachers in the class probably know more than what I remember from six or more years ago.

“From these experiences, most students conclude that the field of English studies entails the study of literature and, to a lesser extent, the teaching of composition. In most cases, if students decide to major or even to do graduate work in English, they assume they will be studying literature.” I did think for half my degree that English was just reading passages and writing essays on those passages, as that was all I have done. But then I switched majors to English writing and hardly ever had to just write about a passage again. I semi miss getting books for class (I loved being able to say I read more and more classics, hated having to read around five books per class). But after the switch I truly learned so many different writing styles and ways to write I did not think grad school was more passage reading. Glad I had my past experiences, as they seemed to really help out with this grad school journey.

“But only recently (in the past thirty years) has “rhetoric and composition” become a full-fledged discipline within English studies, with its own professional conferences, journals and monograph series, and graduate degrees and undergraduate majors.” I know this book is from like 2006, so this information isn’t recent, but I still find it super cool to learn about the history of this subject. Cause I have heard it said so often together that I didn’t realize there was a time they were separate (makes sense, as one thing has to come before the other). I also think it is cool there was a time when rhetoric was even more involved with our learning (though, I feel like I hear about rhetoric all the time now).

“Rhetoric and composition scholars conducted the above studies from a new perspective based on issues pertinent to the emerging field, examining such matters as whether writing constructs or only transmits knowledge, whether writing is social or individual, what the province of rhetoric is, who can be a writer or rhetor, and what the relative importance is of ethos, pathos, and logos today.” I like that rhetoricians expanded the field to include further studies, and expanding questioning. I will say a lot of the stuff brought up in this section, like questioning who is a rhetor and ethos, pathos, and logos, I have done in multiple classes. So, I can confirm Kean is good at the combining of rhetoric and composition, as I reconogize/know a lot of what was just brought up.

“Now in the new millennium, a Consortium of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition includes over seventy-four programs. The discipline has become extremely complex and networked with other organizations in which members conduct research on writing.” 74 is a crazy amount of programs. I think it is cool to note it expanding into conducting research on writing. The discipline already got a crazy number of stuff going on and now it just expands to include research. I need an updated book to hear how crazy things have gotten since this book was released. Did we keep growing or are things standing still now.

“Little, if any, attention was paid to helping students get started, investigate ideas, consider readers, receive feedback on drafts, or revise.” I could never. Feedback and revising is like my favorite thing to do. Ask Dr. Friend. If he gave feedback, I always fixed up the essay based on that feedback. Why not?
Well apparently people were rude rats back then. No feedback? Now, that is crazy. Way crazier than 74 programs. How does one not do feedback. No one thought to tell the people what was up with their work? No one conversed? That is crazy. No fixing up work? No working with each other? Little learning was done back then.

Again, obviously things had to be invented and come from somewhere. But with writing, some of these things needed to be thought of for students to do is wild to me. And like people had to write papers that introduced this idea or defined it and made it real. Like no prewriting either? I am sure people did that, they just didn’t call it that or get all specific about it. Everyone prewrites a tiny bit. Well, for the blogs I do not. But for papers I always start somewhere. The background lore for creative works come first. Research I always gather quotes on the topics I think I am going to cover, then once I have all the stuff that stood out to me I make categories of similar themes, then I write 100 pages (joke, only done it two times, it is not a standard). Seeing/reading all these things come about is so wild as we all know of these writing steps/do them. Man, writing back then was a whole different beast.

Audience is another thing we are always taught to consider. Super wild to see step by step my lessons coming about.
Yes yes we love hearing about discourse! The different writings of students at different ages, very important to know.
But, something from discourse communites is also here: Genre. That is something unique in writing, that usually genre is like horror, romance, stuff like that but for writing genre is the document. Like essay, resume, etc.
This reading sure is hitting all the notes so far.

“who suggested that students could reach self-actualization, their authentic voices, by using the journal, meditation, and analogy.” Interesting, I never heard about self-actualization or authentic voices. I was always taught to just write in the academic language or “write in your voice” but never really told how to do that other than Dr. Jette mentioning to type it out on your phone first. Angel (my sister) has always said I type in a specific way that it is like I am speaking. I would think my typing is different per device I am on, topic I am writing, or audience, but I think you guys can be the judge. I just be writing and not really thinking specifically on “I must sound like this” unless it is academic. If it is a “write in your voice” I do not TRY to sound like myself, I just type. Say what I want to say. Not worried about being scholarly, just type. I do not journal or meditate, so maybe there is a way to find your voice? No clue, I just be doing whatever. Interesting in the sense I never thought about people having to learn or find their voice.

“responses as aimed at improving students’ abilities and indicating what needs to be done, addressing large-scale problems, taking into account rhetorical processes, and offering comments with transfer value.” I agree with this. Writing is one of those things that can never be perfect. Improvement is always possible. You will always be fixing things here and there, always coming back to work, always finding something to change. Writing needs to live, which sucks cause it also needs to be published to get out there.

“With the introduction of open admissions policies at many universities, students brought a range of writing problems with them to college writing courses. Responding to these needs, scholars conducted research on writing dysfunction and other prob lems characteristic of underprepared students.” Reminds me of the embedded tutors/writing center/LSS in general. They saw students weren’t doing well in 1030 and put tutors in there to help. Kinda crazy how these issues are still happening now. Writing is always in trouble, huh.

“another kind of diversity has concerned the field- second-language writers and cross-cultural literacy”. I do not relate to this, but I always think about it every time we are told to write how we want to write. I always think “well, what if someone writes in a different language?” I always worried how that would be checked, how people might feel like they are better writers in a different language. For Guitar, there was someone in the Chamber whose first language was Spanish. When things got close to deadlines, it was so interesting working on papers with her, cause randomly I would go, “… huh… either it is reeeeally late and I need to go to bed now, or this isn’t English.” Sure enough, she would randomly switch to Spanish in the middle of papers. Sucks for me, I couldn’t understand her amazing work. But, good for her, as she got her ideas out quickly and didn’t worry about translating in that moment, just getting the thoughts down on paper. Guitar would sometimes tell her to just talk to him in Spanish, to get her frustrations out. There would be times all three of us were in his office, and I could tell she was getting frustrated and couldn’t figure out the words. All he had to say was “Spanish”, and she just went OFF. Everything just flowed. She was still frustrated at the end cause Guitar doesn’t speak much Spanish and I don’t at all, so we still wouldn’t know how to help her. She got her thoughts out, instead of having to pause to translate and stopping the flow, but no one really understood her. I always felt bad, that she had so much to say in Spanish but no one would ever hear, and she always had to limit herself for us to understand what she wanted to say. All these papers and conferences, everything in English, I always wonder how many amazing ideas we are missing out on by people having to translate to English. Does everything even translate to English? Do we lose greater meaning by translating, as we sometimes have to find the closest word? How many ideas have been passed on because English wasn’t able to convey them? How many papers have great ideas or lessons that I pass on because I only speak English? (I have found so many articles in different languages while working for Guitar, where the abstract is in English and has everything I would want to use for a source, but the rest of the paper isn’t translated)

“A corollary of social-construction theory that began to enter the classroom was the practice of collaboration. The first efforts involved students in writing groups responding and giving feedback and advice on their final drafts before revising. Later, groups collaborated throughout the composing process.” Now, see, collaborating in general is great. People always bring up new things I never thought of or considered to discuss. But, working together on one thing is hard. Unless everyone gets a specific job. Like you write this section, someone else does that section, AND THEN someone edits it all. Trust me. Someone will need to edit it all. Goes back to voice. If everyone takes a section, it is sometimes VERY clear there were multiple different authors, which isn’t always liked. You gotta make it seem like one, and sometimes the only way to do that is to have one person edit it all to sound like them. Gotta leave one person to edit cause everyone also edits in different ways. Personally, I know I do too much, so I just gotta take an axe to the paper and CHOP A LOT. Others might just have to make simple edits. But, we usually do MLA. Communication usually does APA, so sometimes it is easier to just let people work how they work. Everyone makes their edits. And then someone else makes it all sound the same. I am all for working with others and learning new things, just sometimes gets crazy with everyone working on one doc.

We skipping forward cause a lot of what was next didn’t really describe much about the thing, it was just like “We got this section, it is basically what the title says, find more elsewhere” and moved on.

“The field of rhetoric and composition has also maintained an abiding interest in another context-civic rhetoric, the original emphasis in classical rhetoric. In terms of pedagogy, students have more recently received instruction in writing texts for various communities to which they belong, including neighborhood groups, churches, state organizations, and public media, addressing issues of concern to members of these communities.” Now this is fun. I would wanna know how to do this. It should be a part of some class at some point, cause it is cool to know how to advocate/make change. That is indeed a writing I do not know anything about doing. I mean I learned how to write a podcast and how to write in digital spaces, but I think we should also teach how to write to make change or to talk to various important communities to us.

Ideologies and Methodology was interesting. I never know how else to comment on soome of the things people say. Like “oh… interesting you thought that..” and we just go with it because you managed to get that paper published. Sometimes they some good stuff like that writing repeats the student’s knowledge, yes yes that is good I agree. I mean, some writing is just nonsense. We have all writen something after just skimming the reading and not really having knowledge on the topic, but that still (in a way) shows what knowledge we have. This was a good point.

Then it turns into a “who hurt you” thing cause… “that master narratives of human progress or human rights should be rejected and language should be considered the start of knowledge” what in the world is all this. Everything else was short, but this point was like so long and kinda two points in one. What happened, why did you write the point this way, why are we rejecting things, I am interested. What happened here. This is why I hate summaries sometimes cause what in the world caused this. Langauge as the start of knowledge, to me, feels like a whole different point. That in itself is a whole paper, tell me more, I am interested. But the first half felt like there was some tension. Maybe I just view “rejected” that way and I am just reading too into it, but truly why we throwing things out. I wanna know the story. It be like that when reading the methods of a paper, just randomly see this one summarized line that makes you go “… wait, what was that?” cause it is so out there in the stream of peace it makes you wanna read the paper that made that point, but truly who knows if it was just interpreted that way or summarized. Like what if that paper doesn’t even go deep into language being the start of knowledge and I spend all that time reading a thirty or so paged paper for nothing. I just wanna talk to some of these people to go “now, what did you mean by this, cause I read it this way and I think I am wrong”

And then the conclusion. Well. What does the book on rhetoric from 2026 look like? Cause did things change in twenty years? I mean I could point out a lot of the stuff still happening. I think I would add a section on social media maybe, as that has for sure been a change since 2006. But other than that, not much else seemed to really be all that different if I could relate to a lot of the topics. I could be wrong, maybe new stuff is out there, I do not keep up to date with all this. Very interesting crazy stuff learned here today for sure.