The Centrality of Style

THE CENTRALITY OF STYLE Edited by Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri THE CENTRALITY OF STYLE PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING Series Editor, Susan H. McLeod The Perspectives on Writing series addresses writing studies in a broad sense. Consistent with the wide ranging approaches characteristic of teaching and scholarship in writing across the curriculum, the series presents works that take divergent perspectives on working as a writer, teaching writing, administering writing programs, and studying writing in its various forms. The WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press are collaborating so that these books will be widely available through free digital distribution and low-cost print edi- tions. The publishers and the Series editor are teachers and researchers of writing, committed to the principle that knowledge should freely circulate. We see the opportunities that new technologies have for further democratizing knowledge. And we see that to share the power of writing is to share the means for all to articulate their needs, interest, and learning into the great experiment of literacy. Other Books in the Series Charles Bazerman, Adair Bonini, and Débora Figueiredo (Eds.), Genre in a Changing World (2009) David Franke, Alex Reid, and Anthony Di Renzo (Eds.), Design Discourse: Composing and Revising Programs in Professional and Technical Writing (2010) Martine Courant Rife, Shaun Slattery, and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss (Eds.), Copy(write): Intellectual Property in the Writing Classroom (2011) Doreen Starke-Meyerring, Anthony Paré, Natasha Artemeva, Miriam Horne, and Larissa Yousoubova, Writing in Knowledge Societies (2011) Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu, Chinese Rhetoric and Writing: An Introduction for Language Teachers (2012) Chris Thaiss, Gerd Bräuer, Paula Carlino, Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, and Aparna Sinha (Eds.), Writing Programs Worldwide: Profiles of Academic Writing in Many Places (2012) Charles Bazerman, Chris Dean, Jessica Early, Karen Lunsford, Suzie Null, Paul Rogers, and Amanda Stansell (Eds.), International Advances in Writing Research: Cultures, Places, Measures (2012) THE CENTRALITY OF STYLE Edited by Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri The WAC Clearinghouse wac.colostate.edu Fort Collins, Colorado Parlor Press www.parlorpress.com Anderson, South Carolina The WAC Clearinghouse, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina 29621 © 2013 by Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri. This work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. ISBN 978-1-64215-047-6 (pdf) | 978-1-64215-048-3 (epub) | 978-1-60235-422-7 (pbk.) DOI 10.37514/PER-B.2013.0476 Produced in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The centrality of style / edited by Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri pages cm. -- (Per- spectives on writing) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-60235-422-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-423-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-64215-047-6 (pdf) -- ISBN 978-1-64215-048-3 (epub) 1. English language--Style. I. Duncan, Mike, 1975- editor of compilation. II. Vanguri, Star Medzerian, 1980- editor of compilation. PE1421.C46 2013 808’.042’0711--dc23 2013011457 Copyeditor: Don Donahue Designers: Mike Palmquist Series Editor: Susan H. McLeod The WAC Clearinghouse supports teachers of writing across the disciplines. Hosted by Colo- rado State University, it brings together scholarly journals and book series as well as resources for teachers who use writing in their courses. This book is available in digital format for free download at wac.colostate.edu. Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and mul- timedia formats. This book is available in paperback, cloth, and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press at www.parlorpress.com. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina 29621, or e-mail [email protected]. CONTENTS Foreword ��vii Paul Butler Introduction to the Centrality of Style ��xi Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri Part One: Conceptualizing Style ��1 Introduction to Part One: Conceptualizing Style . .5 Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri An Ethics of Attentions: Three Continuums of Classical and Contemporary Stylistic Manipulation for the 21st Century Composition Classroom . .9 William C. Kurlinkus Stylistic Sandcastles: Rhetorical Figures as Composition’s Bucket and Spade . .37 William FitzGerald Using Stylistic Imitation in Freshman Writing Classes: The Rhetorical and Meta-Rhetorical Potential of Transitions in Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Medieval Treatises . .57 Denise Stodola Architectonics and Style ��71 Russell Greer Making Style Practically Cool and Theoretically Hip . .81 Keith Rhodes Jim Corder’s Generative Ethos as Alternative to Traditional Argument, or Style’s Revivification of the Writer-Reader Relationship ��97 Rosanne Carlo Teaching Style as Cultural Performance . .119 Chris Holcomb and M. Jimmie Killingsworth v Contents Inventio and Elocutio: Language Instruction at St. Paul’s Grammar School and Today’s Stylistic Classroom . 135 Tom Pace The Research Paper As Stylistic Exercise ��153 Mike Duncan Part Two: Applying Style . 167 Introduction to Part Two: Applying Style ��169 Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri Style in Academic Writing . 173 Nora Bacon Tracking Interpersonal Style: The Use of Functional Language Analysis in College Writing Instruction . 191 Zak Lancaster Multimodal Style and the Evolution of Digital Writing Pedagogy . 213 Moe Folk Voice, Transformed: The Potentialities of Style Pedagogy in the Teaching of Creative Nonfiction . 239 Crystal Fodrey Fighting Styles: The Pedagogical Implications of Applying Contemporary Rhetorical Theory to the Persuasive Prose of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Hays ��259 Luke Redington Style and the Professional Writing Curriculum: Teaching Stylistic Fluency through Science Writing . 279 Jonathan Buehl Toward a Pedagogy of Psychic Distance . 309 Erik Ellis What Scoring Rubrics Teach Students (and Teachers) about Style . 341 Star Medzerian Vanguri vi FOREWORD Paul Butler University of Houston The Centrality of Style presents readers with a paradox. The editors begin with the convincing argument that style must be regarded as central to the discipline of composition studies. Indeed, the collection’s rich diversity of chapters reasserts the prominent place of style in the field from different perspectives, historical moments, and theoretical and pedagogical approaches. Yet despite the book’s claim of style’s centrality, it makes an equally forceful case—which may appear contradictory at first—that some of the most exciting new ideas in stylistic study have emerged not from the center but the margins of the field—and the margins’ intersections with other disciplines, ideas, cultures, and sites of inquiry. The paradox inherent in the tension of seeing style as both central and marginal is not new to those in rhetoric and composition. Mikhail Bakhtin (1981) has described a similar phenomenon in discussing the clash of language’s unifying, or centripetal forces, and their counterpart—the dispersing, or centrifugal forces that often disrupt prevailing norms. In public sphere theory, critical theorist Michael Warner (2005), borrowing from Jurgen Habermas (1989) and others, depicts an identical discordance in the tension between publics that dominate social discourse and their counterpart, a culturally less powerful, oppositional group, called a counterpublic, which constantly works against that dominance even as it maintains, says Warner, “at some level, conscious or not, an awareness of its subordinate status” (p. 119). With respect to counterpublics, Warner says it is the oppositional aspect of their style that “performs membership” (p. 142). There is no question that The Centrality of Style navigates the push and pull of these kinds of oppositions in compelling new ways. The real question is, How does the volume manage to position style in the field as what Frank Farmer (2008), borrowing from anthropologist Victor Turner, calls a liminal counterpublic, emanating from the break or rupture of the public-counterpublic relationship that somehow exists “betwixt and between” the two? How, in other words, does style’s very centrality depend on its marginalization, lack of power, and sometimes “renegade” status (Johnson, 2003) both inside, and outside, the field? Some answers to that question, and paradox, can be found in this volume. While there are many examples throughout the collection, here are some of the representative concepts that suggest even larger ideas in The Centrality of Style and show the current push and pull of style’s liminal status in the field. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2013.0476.1.2 vii Butler STYLE AS LINGUA FRANCA In his article in this volume, William FitzGerald argues that “[s]tyle has

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