Author Archives: ghw

american dialogues: composition course description

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I’m considering using two quotes as epigraphs for the course:

  • “Democracy begins in conversation.” -philosopher John Dewey
  • “Go f— yourself.” -Vice President Dick Cheney

Course Description

The theme of this course is “American Dialogues,” and we will focus our attention on political discourse in the contemporary American public sphere. Some fear that American citizens are not well served by the prevailing political discourse, that it is more focused upon butting heads and scoring quick points with the media than it is with thoughtful consideration of the issues. We will use a variety of critical tools to consider the messages of political campaigns, the information published by news outlets, and the commentary provided by a wide range of individuals.

In this course, you will develop your skills as a careful, thoughtful, and effective reader and writer. You will become better at the kinds of reading and writing expected of you as a college student, in your professional career, and as an American citizen. You will learn what it means to identify or construct an issue to write about, to consider and reconsider that issue as you investigate it further, and to craft the best available means of support and expression given your audience and your purpose. You will learn a set of language- and logic-based concepts and a vocabulary of language analysis and rhetorical strategy. As you learn more about how language and persuasion work, and as you learn to recognize and use more features of style and argument, you have a greater range of choices to make in crafting your own writing.

september: national preparedness month?

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Hot on the heels of their “most liberal senator” strategy, the Republicans have a new tactic in the wings. I haven’t seen many references to this in the blogosphere, (although it looks like they’re out there) but Bob Harris, on the This Modern World blog, points out that September will be “National Preparedness Month,” and asks some important questions as to the timing. It does seem suspiciously like a Bush-Cheney re-election campaign ploy, funded at taxpayer expense. As he puts it, “It’s three years after 9/11, and less than three months before an election, and now we get a National Preparedness Month.” So what were the previous 35 months for?

american dialogues

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I think I have a name/theme for the composition course: “American Dialogues.” In browsing through various political blogs to list for my students this fall, I discovered that Katherine Allen will be contributing to Blog for America, “posting commentary on the politics of language.” This might prove interesting, but no details of Allen’s background are easily accessible, aside from the explanation that she works for the Rockridge Institute. Anyone know?

In her first post, Allen references two potentially useful sources: both Deborah Tannen’s article “Let Them Eat Words” and the book Moral Politics by George Lakoff. (Update: Excerpt from Lakoff’s book.)

The following is a preliminary list of blogs in no particular order (I’m sure it will grow). Thanks to everyone who has made suggestions. Keep ’em coming, if you have more.

More on media critique sites and sources in a later post. I’ll certainly point students to Andy Cline.

fall 2004 composition: request for suggestions

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Because I have to put this course together rather quickly, I could use your help, gentle reader:

  • What readings on blogs and blogging should I assign?
  • What political blogs (of all stripes) should students be encouraged to read?
  • What critiques of the media should they read and/or view?
  • What online archives of campaign rhetoric (in word or image, still or moving) should they visit?

I am after sources of information that reflect a range of political positions.

And while I’m discussing rhetoric and composition, check out today’s post from Calamity Jane on using episodes from Law and Order in the classroom to help students understand argumentation.

tannen on “argument culture”

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I started reading Deborah Tannen‘s Argument Culture (Booksense) today because I am considering using it for my election-themed composition course this fall. Tannen’s view of the contemporary state of argument and debate is strikingly different than that of Gerald Graff, who basically advocates acknowledging and even embracing conflict. (Granted, these are pretty different projects: one on academia and the other on public discourse.) Tannen, by contrast, questions the prevalence of argumentative conflict to begin with, asking if it sometimes gets in the way of real understanding and, importantly for my purposes, the democratic process. At the end of her first chapter, she writes

Philospher John Dewey said, on his ninetieth birthday, ‘Democracy begins in conversation.’ I fear that it gets derailed in polarized debate.

In conversation we form the interpersonal ties that bind individuals together in personal relationships; in public discourse, we form similar ties on a larger scale, binding individuals into a community. In conversation, we exchange the many types of information we need to live our lives as members of a community. In public discourse, we exchange the information that citizens in a democracy need in order to decide how to vote. If public discourse provides entertainment first and foremost – and if entertainment is first and foremost watching fights – then citizens do not get the information they need to make meaningful use of their right to vote.

Of course it is the responsibility of intellectuals to explore potential weaknesses in others’ arguments, and of journalists to represent serious opposition when it exists. But when opposition becomes the overwhelming avenue of inquiry – a formula that requires another side to be found or a criticism to be voiced; when the lust for opposition privileges extreme views and obscures complexity; when our eagerness to find weaknesses blinds us to strengths; when the atmosphere of animosity precludes respect and poisons our relations with one another; then the argument culture is doing more damage than good.

I offer this book not as a frontal assault on the argument culture. That would be in the spirit of attack that I am questioning. It is an attempt to examine the argument culture – our use of attack, opposition, and debate in public discourse – to ask, What are its limits as well as its strengths? How has it served us well, but also how has it failed us? How is it related to culture and gender? What other options do we have?

…There are times when we need to disagree, criticize, oppose, and attack – to hold debates and view issues as polarized battles. Even cooperation, after all, is not the absence of conflict but a means of managing conflict. My goal is not a make-nice false veneer of agreement or a dangerous ignoring of true opposition. I’m questioning the automatic use of adversarial formats – the assumption that it’s always best to address problems and issues by fighting over them. I’m hoping for a broader repertoire of ways to talk to each other and address issues vital to us (25-26).

I hope to finish this book in the next day or so, but I’m already leaning towards using it.