Blackboard Exercises
Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class
Description
Berlin argues that rhetoric is ideological since it cannot be isolated from the economic, social, political and cultural practices. Applying his argument to the three threads of rhetorics that were common in teaching writing in the late 1980s—cognitive psychology, expressionism, and social-epistemic, Berlin defines, analyzes, and evaluates the three camps, favoring social-epistemic rhetoric. According to Berlin, cognitive rhetoric focuses on thought process, scientific method, and empirical data. Using the works of Murray and Elbow, Berlin notes that expressionism values creative writing, the individual writer, and voice, while social-epistemic rhetoric has ideology at the heart of its philosophy. In his survey of the three competing theories, he adopts Therborn’s definition of ideology that highlights three important questions: “What exists? What is good? What is possible” (719). For Berlin, Therborn’s definition supports his claim that “rhetoric can never be innocent” since it is always “serving a certain ideological claim” (717). In other words, he believes that the most successful rhetoric is the one that has “the question of ideology at the center of the teaching of writing” (735). Berlin argues that ideology and rhetoric are inseparable and constantly changing. It is through language and the interaction of the material conditions of existence, the discourse community, and the observer that knowledge can be achieved (730). Since knowledge stems from ideology, students should be encouraged to question everything and to think critically about things they take for granted. He urges teachers to empower their students through dialogue and interaction in the writing class so as to “reexperience the ordinary” (733). Furthermore, he highlights that what prevents students from considering social change are the forms of “false consciousness” that control their thinking and make them passive receivers of knowledge. In order to achieve social change, Berlin believes that students should be engaged in a constructive dialogue in the classroom and calls for addressing the notion of ideology in the writing class.
Author
Lana Oweidat
Date of Upload
11/3/09