RHETORIC ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES: DEFINITIONS, PERCEPTIONS, AND EXPECTATIONS OF FACULTY WITHIN AND BEYOND RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION A Project Presented to the faculty of the Department of English California State University, Sacramento Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in English (Composition) by Dakota Joseph Lenz SPRING 2018 © 2018 Dakota Joseph Lenz ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii RHETORIC ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES: DEFINITIONS, PERCEPTIONS, AND EXPECTATIONS OF FACULTY WITHIN AND BEYOND RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION A Project by Dakota Joseph Lenz Approved by: __________________________________, Committee Chair Hogan Hayes, Ph.D. __________________________________, Second Reader Tialitha Macklin, Ph.D. ____________________________ Date iii Student: Dakota Joseph Lenz I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and that this project is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for the project. __________________________, Graduate Coordinator ___________________ Doug Rice, Ph.D. Date Department of English iv Abstract of RHETORIC ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES: DEFINITIONS, PERCEPTIONS, AND EXPECTATIONS OF FACULTY WITHIN AND BEYOND RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION by Dakota Joseph Lenz In the spring of the 2018 academic year, I examined what connections existed between composition instructors and disciplinary instructors at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS) regarding definitions, perceptions, and expectations of rhetoric, as well as willingness to engage in interdisciplinary efforts to teach rhetoric. I collected data via anonymous survey from faculty teaching composition courses and through semi-structured interviews with three disciplinary faculty, one each from the departments of communication studies, sociology, and civil engineering. I discovered that both composition and disciplinary faculty perceive audience awareness and genre awareness, which this study summarizes as rhetorical adaptability, to be the most important aspects of rhetoric for students to understand; however, disciplinary faculty have little confidence students will demonstrate rhetorical adaptability when entering their classrooms. In addition, the use of the term rhetoric and related terminology varied greatly, even among composition faculty. Almost all faculty were willing to engage in interdisciplinary efforts to improve the overall instruction of rhetoric. _______________________, Committee Chair Hogan Hayes, Ph.D. _______________________ Date v DEDICATION To Joseph and Michele, for building the ship. To Carol, for providing safe harbor. To Tialitha, Angela, and Hogan, for keeping the course. To Orion and Behemoth, for filling the sails with wind. And most of all, to Jocelynn, who, through storm and sun, keeps the whole voyage afloat. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Dedication ................................................................................................................................ vi List of Tables ........................................................................................................................ viii Chapter 1. COVER ESSAY .................................................................................................................. 1 2. STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY ................................................................ 5 3. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................... 10 4. PUBLISHABLE DOCUMENT ........................................................................................ 31 Appendix A. Semi-Structured Interview Questions ............................................................ 76 Appendix B. Composition Faculty Survey Questions ......................................................... 77 Appendix C. Table 6 – Composition Courses Taught/Teaching .......................................... 79 Appendix D. Tables 7 & 8 – Definitions ............................................................................. 80 Appendix E. Table 9 – Comments on the Importance of Rhetoric ....................................... 86 Appendix F. Table 10 – Composition Faculty Expectations ............................................... 90 References ............................................................................................................................... 94 vii LIST OF TABLES Tables Page 1. A Cross Comparison for Defining Rhetoric ................................................................ 35 2. Likert Scale of Perceived Importance of Rhetoric ....................................................... 51 3. Frequency of Most Common Aspects of Rhetoric....................................................... 54 4. Faculty Perspectives on Rhetorical Instruction Beyond the Discipline ....................... 57 5. Likelihood of Composition Faculty Working with Disciplinary Faculty .................... 59 6. Composition Courses Taught/Teaching ....................................................................... 79 7. Faculty Definitions of Rhetoric ................................................................................... 80 8. Breakdown of Faculty Definitions of Rhetoric ............................................................ 82 9. Optional Comments for Importance of Rhetoric ......................................................... 86 10. Composition Faculty Expectations for Rhetorical Knowledge Transfer ..................... 90 viii 1 Chapter 1 COVER ESSAY This portfolio contains the product of countless hours of study, reflection, library trips, late nights, cups of coffee, discussions (see also: arguments), but most of all, collaboration. Yes, I put the proverbial pen to paper and generated the contents therein, but the ideas, concepts, reflections and new understandings these writings represent come from working with brilliant minds and ambitions. Most of the scholarship to which I reference was unfamiliar to me when entering the graduate program; I knew that I wanted to teach people how to express their ideas through writing, and I had some experience doing so, but to articulate and rationalize the instructional choices I was making, and to find paths for improving this instruction, required several steady hands and a willingness on my part to accept and adapt. Collaboration and adaptability are reflected immediately in Chapter 2, my teaching portfolio. I begin by describing an alteration to a previous draft. I believed (and still do) strongly in the community classroom. I wanted all students engaging with one another, exploring ideas, challenging positions, and creating knowledge together. But the more classes I had the privilege of teaching, the more I realized that I cannot expect this level of engagement from every class, for whatever reason. So, I learned to adapt. I found new ways of allowing students to engage in written expression and interact with one another. I observed and learned from all students, especially the ones faced with additional challenges, such as being tasked to write complex arguments in a language other than their first, or working with cognitive delays that required varying levels of 2 accommodation. I continue to work with writing centers, both at the four-year university and two-year college level, because that is where I believe I encounter as diverse a student population with as diverse a set of needs as possible. It is a test of my own agility as an instructor, and I want to keep my senses sharp. My teaching philosophy reflects this personal development, leading the reader to my current approaches to teaching, and the way in which I continue to practice my instructional adaptability. Chapter 3, the annotated bibliography, represents the areas of scholarship within rhetoric and composition that I have been drawn towards over the course of the graduate program and I use to inform my own praxis. Areas of interest include writing-across-the- curriculum/writing-in-the-disciplines (WAC/WID) programming and pedagogy, theories of transfer, and interdisciplinary writing collaboration. My own studies began outside of the rhetoric and composition and the English department. As an undergraduate, I was an oceanography major, specializing in ocean currents and sea cliff erosion - my backpack was as likely to be filled with sand than essays. This foundation is reflected in the focuses to which I was drawn – scholarship that considers writing beyond the writing classroom. My belief in classroom community extends to the idea of campus community. I believe that my own writing instruction needs to be informed by knowledge of other disciplinary writing expectations to better serve the large majority students who will leave our discipline and encounter writing contexts more applicable to their majors and careers. I am with these students in the concept of forward thinking: my own teaching methods and assignments are designed to continue to serve the students in their academic and 3 professional careers – in sum, the scholarship contained in the annotated bibliography looks at who the students can and will become as writers. The research project that comprises Chapter 4 takes the beliefs of the teaching philosophy, combines the scholarship that has influenced who I am as an educator, and introduces the aspect of writing that I believe is of most benefit for our students within and beyond academia: rhetoric. Rhetoric is everywhere and in everything. Language makes meaning,