In the last year, there has been some buzz in the field of rhetoric and composition over a document called the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing, which, from what I gather, is designed to provide some key terms for ongoing debates about what writing instruction should be. The document, however, is rather quiet about […]
“Thesis” Goes Viral
In my previous “Anti-Thesis Thesis” post, I offered some reasons why I have moved away from focusing on “thesis” in my classes. This week, I look at what happens when instructors (broadly conceived) focus on that one-sentence-at-the-end-of-the-first-paragraph-that-crystalizes-the-argument. The form of the forensic argument is often reduced synecdochally to its “thesis statement.” As such, the thesis […]
Improvisation and Composition #1
In an afterword to his extensively researched history, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music, George Lewis expresses his disappointment with the limited rhetorical form of the scholarly book, especially as it pertains to his subject, the Chicago-based musical collective, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Although this […]
What is Parrhesy?
I’ve become interested in the concept of parrhesia or “parrhesy” and its implications for the way we teach writing to undergraduates. My thoughts are definitely still inchoate here, but I wanted to start thinking more publicly about the direction I’m heading and offer a few of the bits and pieces I’ve found and recorded in my commonplace book (which is […]
The Anti-Thesis Thesis; or, Why I Don’t Use the Word “Thesis” [Very Often] in Class
I may well be setting myself up for some charges of “composition” heresy: I try to avoid using the word “thesis” when I’m teaching Freshman English. Although I’ve practiced this erasure for a while, I recently made a public statement about it at our August Orientation and was interested in reactions from several who heard […]
Son of “Panopticism”
I’ve been using Michel Foucault in first-year writing courses since I began teaching, and I’m not alone. There have been portions of Discipline and Punish in Bartholomae and Petrosky’s Ways of Reading for as long as I can remember. I may be misremembering, but I recall Foucault’s first section, “The Body of the Condemned,” in […]
First Words
What to do about beginnings? So self-conscious, so artificial. Well, let’s start with a word of explanation. This blog is meant as a notepad or sidebar to the UConn Freshman English Program, as a place to stash ideas, work through first thinking, or just generally rehearse pieces of our evolving catechism in short form. We […]