I guess that makes it a rhetorical question....
On Dec 24, 2008, at 1:59 PM, Ken Steele wrote:
I waited a couple of days to read the comments (mainly critical
of the original article and defenses of "Rhetoric"). After all
the comments, I have no clear idea still of how I might recognize
the teaching of rhetoric in operation or what outcome would
constitute success.
Ken
Christopher D. Green wrote:
I spend a fair bit of my time thinking, reading, and occasionally
writing about higher education. So I find it rather jarring when I
reading something that demands and end to what is purported to be a
widespread practice that I had never heard of before. Actually, I've
long thought that we should be more open to, and more reflective
upon,
the rhetorical practices in which we (academics, scientists,
psychologists, teachers) engage. But I've never thought that teaching
Aristotle's rhetoric had come to displace "critical
thinking" (vague as
that phrase is) in the undergraduate curriculum. Then again, I don't
hang out near composition classes much. Has anyone else run into this
recently?
Here's a long column decrying the rise of rhetorical analysis as
having
been a key part of the academy's response to the pressure put upon
it by
conservative critics over the course of the past eight years.
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/12/23/kugelmass
Paul Brandon
Emeritus Professor of Psychology
Minnesota State University, Mankato
[email protected]
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