Week 4, Assigntment 1, Part 1

1.) Consider what is rhetoric and what is composition. Do you think that there is a difference between rhetoric and composition, or do you think they are both the same? Explain your answer.

2.) How has the field of rhetoric and composition evolved over the years? Consider what was valued and what is valued now to answer this question.

1.) Rhetoric is a broadly used technique across varied forms of communicated information, used in our daily conversations and used by media, writers, educators and as employable by our own body language as it is in visual concepts such as art.

English majors may use it to analyze the modes of persuasion in text and in speech to further discern, and then exercise similar methods when answering essay questions or forming a clear, concise and effective persuasive argument paper.

I might consider rhetoric in a more familiar way than a new and foreign thing; it has been loosely defined as “putting a name to what I already know”.

For example, when writing a paper, students are instructed to form a thesis. To form a thesis, it would be necessary to first decide on a subject and assess what we already know about that subject by gathering our own personal experiences and opinions. To be more of an effective writer, we would also need to consider the audience that we are speaking to, perhaps their general education level, their class and status, their concerns, questions and knowledge about the subject. We would also need to distinguish ourselves as a knowing, well-intentioned speaker; to do that, we must add to those personal experiences by dedicated research and familiarize ourselves with the subject so that we can assure our audience that we are well informed and mean them good will.

I’ve been taught this technique since grade-school, but it has never been as distinct and universally useful as it is now. Rhetoric has become more and more conventional the more times I read about it.

I believe that composition and rhetoric are very different. Composition is the ingredients of a paper: a thesis, a premise, evidence for the body of the paper and a conclusion. It is just that; composing. "Rhetoric" is how to compose. Its the tools given to us to make a convincing argument, to persuade effectively, to use with ethos, pathos, logos and deliver it with gestures and the appropriate tone of voice and presentation of information.

2.) The valued steps of composing an effective speech have been gradually shaped and modified over time. They first began as a five-step model containing what we still consider important aspects today and what are known as the “canons” of rhetoric: invention (discovering ideas or arguments), arrangement (organizing ideas), style (putting the organized ideas into words), memory and delivery. Classical rhetoricians maintained that we first learn knowledge and then put it into words, but it was argued that knowledge is created by words. Aristotle solved this by creating a system of inquiry—questions to ask to analyze and renew interpretations made by audiences [and students].

It was said that classical rhetoricians divided discourse forms according to different social functions. There were speeches that were formed for politicians, for clergymen and for lawyers; these categories were later transformed into ways that the “audience or social context affects the interpretation of written text”.

During Medieval and Renaissance years, rhetoric transformed from “deliberative” discourse intended for the speech a politician might employ into one used for religious purposes, perhaps to persuade or redirect the audience from a different form of religion to a Christian one. “The goal became saving souls, not leading the state”.

Students studying grammar, rhetoric and dialect would be studying them for preparation of logic in oral argumentation on historical, religious or legal issues and were techniques to continue their profession into the art of composing official letters through which church and state were conducted and the art of preaching. Poets also studied rhetoric.

If we were to fast forward to the 20^th Century study of rhetoric and composition, we would see that rhetoricians have considered it crucial to include in the language an understanding of the importance of diversity, not only in terms of race, but in gender (including sexual identity), marital status and class. 
While rules of rhetoric and composition were once more important, it has become the practice of goodwill towards the audience and an understanding of the audience that is the priority.