Unleashing Critical and Expressive Voices Through a Rhetoric of "This/And" in First-Year Composition
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2017 As if by Magic: Unleashing Critical and Expressive Voices Through a Rhetoric of "This/And" in First-Year Composition Nolan Chessman The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1726 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] As if by Magic: Unleashing Critical and Expressive Voices through a Rhetoric of This/And in First-Year Composition by NOLAN CHESSMAN A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2017 i © 2016 NOLAN CHESSMAN All Rights Reserved ii As if by Magic: Unleashing Critical and Expressive Voices through a Rhetoric of This/And in First-Year Composition by Nolan Chessman This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________ _______________________________________________ Date Mark McBeth Chair of Examining Committee ________________ _______________________________________________ Date Mario DiGangi Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Sondra Perl Wayne Koestenbaum THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT As if by Magic: Unleashing Critical and Expressive Voices through a Rhetoric of This/And in First-Year Composition by Nolan Chessman Advisor: Mark McBeth This dissertation engages academic, creative, and student genres in conversation in order to challenge the strict discursive and stylistic boundaries placed around college writing, particularly in first-year composition. Because this project aims to thrust first-year writing pedagogy beyond the confines of fixed genre forms, its inquiry is multimodal, intermingling writing styles and research modes so that, in scholar-teacher Wendy Bishop’s words, “I can think in and through them all” (“Places to Stand” 17). The particulars—or “data”—informing this study are primarily archival, textual (often a combination of the two), experimental, and experiential. Broadly speaking, this inquiry consists of seven chapters, which collectively serve to historicize the development of standardized student genres, analyze the emergence of experimental academic forms, and theorize a multimodal/multi-genre writing pedagogy that recognizes the reflexive relationship between uniqueness of form and expression. iv Acknowledgments I owe sincere gratitude to my wife Quinne for her support, encouragement (and especially her patience); to my inspiring professors and dissertation supervisors Sondra Perl and Wayne Koestenbaum; and to my academic mentor and dissertation guru Mark McBeth for his wise and generous counsel. v Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures.............................................................................................................. ix Chapter One: The Paradox of “Creative” Composition ...................................................................1 I. A Dog-Walking Poet Enters the Academy .......................................................................1 II. Ways of Knowing in the University: a Brief History ......................................................6 III. A Route to More Imaginative Ways of Writing, Teaching, and Knowing ..................22 Chapter Two: The Silences We Embrace and Those We Break: Adrienne Rich and a Pedagogy for Open Admissions .....................................................................................................................29 I. An Activist-Poet Enters the Academy ............................................................................29 II. Tracing the Path of the Writer-Teacher-Writer in the Papers of Adrienne Rich ..........31 III. Silence on the Hill: Adrienne Rich Comes to CUNY..................................................33 IV. Forging Live Silence, Breaking Dead Silence: Adrienne Rich in the Basic Writing Classroom ..........................................................................................................................35 V. Standardizing Dullness: The Academy’s Quest for “Excellence” ................................42 VI. A Poet’s Departure and the End of an Era ...................................................................50 Chapter Three: The Evolution of a College Publication: a Review of John Jay’s Finest after 25 Years ..............................................................................................................................................52 Chapter Four: Blurring Pragmatic and Aesthetic Discourses in College Writing: A Case Study of vi New York University’s Expository Writing Program and Publication of Student Writing ..........71 I. Reconciling Expressivism and Constructivism through Images ....................................71 II. Now You See Them: Actualizing Audience in the Genres and Discourses of the Academy ............................................................................................................................73 III. The Poetics of Play in First-Year College Writing ......................................................77 IV. The Other 99%: Reclaiming Student Publications in First-Year Composition ...........89 Chapter Five: Border-Crossings: Pragmatic and Aesthetic Discourses in Experimental Academic Writing .........................................................................................................................................105 First Interlude ...................................................................................................................108 Second Interlude ..............................................................................................................113 Third Interlude .................................................................................................................122 Chapter Six: Hiding Our I’s: Reconciling Constructivist and Expressivist Views through the Lyric Essay...................................................................................................................................129 I. The Identity Paradox ....................................................................................................129 II. On Concealing and Revealing Our I’s ........................................................................133 III. The Lyrical I/Not I .....................................................................................................136 IV. Opening the Doors of Identity Construction to Our Students ...................................156 Chapter Seven: New Media and a Rhetoric of This/And in College Composition ......................159 I. The Search for Balance Between Mind, Body, and Screen ..........................................159 II. Postmodernism, Multimodality, and English Composition ........................................163 vii III. Silence in Cyberspace? ..............................................................................................171 IV. Toward a Theory of This/And Composition ..............................................................180 V. Hopeful Reflections for an Ever-Evolving Student Genre .........................................190 Appendix A: “Envisioning Vision” by Stephanie Chen ..............................................................192 Appendix B: “Mapping” by Emma Wisniewski ..........................................................................201 Appendix C: “Repairer” by Jennifer Parkhill ..............................................................................212 Appendix D: “Lusting for Literacy by Sadia Kalam” .................................................................223 Appendix E: “Reconciling Voices” by Jennifer Leidner .............................................................231 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................236 viii List of Tables and Figures Table 1: Genre Types in John Jay’s Finest, 1985 – 2010 .............................................................58 Table 2: Focus of Selected Essays .................................................................................................61 Table 3: Analysis of Sentence Length ...........................................................................................62 Table 4: Analysis of Sentence Types .............................................................................................62 Figure 1: Le Philosophe Lisant by Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin ...............................................84 Figure 2: Seven in Bed by Louise Bourgeois .................................................................................87 Figure 4: Homepage for The Jay Street Review, Fall 2012 edition ...............................................99 Figure 5: “Afghanistan, Kabul” by James Nachtwey, 2011 ........................................................175 Figure 6: Comic Life Narrative....................................................................................................185 ix Chapter One: The Paradox of “Creative” Composition I. A Dog-Walking Poet Enters the Academy