Talking points on research

I’d like to explain part of what led me to create this blog, which is the need for me to work through some potential angles for research and, with any luck, receive feedback and share ideas around these topics. As my friends know (and is anyone else even reading?!), I’m studying rhetoric and composition at Oregon State University, and it’s time that I start to focus on my thesis project.

A few of my colleagues studying rhetoric and composition have created research blogs, and when one was e-mailed by Nancy Sommers last term, I was really impressed by the potential for communication within the blogosphere. Sommers is the Director of Harvard’s Expository Writing Program, and reading her article “Between the Drafts” (CCC 43 (1992): 23-31) was a moment of particular inspiration during my first term here, Fall 2007. While I don’t expect Harvard scholars to be contacting me because I created a blog, I do hope that people will pass along some ideas, questions, and insights.

More recently, I’ve been studying Classical rhetoric. Well, to be honest, I’ve really just browsed the surface of rhetoric in a class on the rhetorical tradition and the history of writing instruction. My research for this course has involved Classical rhetoric’s role in pedagogy today, and I am exploring how a reemergence of Classical (Greek, Roman) practices in secondary education and first-year composition courses might have positive affects on civic engagement. I think there is room within curricula for more study of Classical rhetoric, and it could lead to more community involvement, greater knowledge of state and national politics, familiarity with legislative processes, and effective critical analysis of the positions taken by elected leaders. A better world, right? Well, for the moment, it’s making sense on paper. I feel like this could be the starting point for my thesis, but I’m still trying to focus my approach. Two key essays have guided my research so far: Carolyn R. Miller’s “The Polis as Rhetorical Community” (Rhetorica, 11.3 (1993): 211-240), and Mark Gellis’s “Leadership, Rhetoric, and the Polis” (Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 32.3 (2002): 199-208).

A separate area of interest that I might like to develop in my thesis involves preparing high school students for writing in college—not just the first-year composition course (although, that’s important, too), but developing students’ ability to write across the curriculum and enter specialized discourses. Communication between instructors and composition directors at the college level and high school teachers and administrators is, at the very least, lacking; the result is that college professors (particularly those whose students are required to write) openly wonder what the hell these kids learned in high school. Meanwhile, high school teachers, principals, and curriculum coordinators work to meet state and Federal reading and writing requirements in the secondary classroom while feeling uncertain about what’s really important for their students to succeed in college, and how to address those needs. Many educators are frustrated, but few find avenues for communication, time for research, or practical solutions. It might be nice to research these elements more carefully and apply my time and effort toward possible solutions. However, this is a broad, general discussion, and at times I’m not even sure where to start, or how.

Well, I’ve rambled on long enough for one entry! More to come, no doubt.