Janet Atwell and Rhetoric Reclaimed

Three days a week I tutor literacy to kindergarten through third graders. Most of the students that are taken into the SPARK program are grade levels behind their classmates in reading and writing. At the school I’ve been placed it is even more difficult because English is a second language. There are a handful of students, however, who have no issues with the reading, yet, when they are done and you start to discuss what they just read they give you this blank stare, because they haven’t the slightest clue. Comprehension is just as important, if not arguably more so, than being able to spit out all the words on the page. As I read through the first two chapters of Rhetoric Reclaimed, looked over the focus points for the required notes, I had that same blank stare. Comprehend I did not.

In chapter three there are two sections of the text that did stand out and make sense. One discussed a “liberal education” and the other “geometry.” What made these two sections stick was that the terminology used I was already familiar with. They either reflected my own thoughts and understanding (liberal education) or had been used repeatedly before, throughout several years of classes, so that it had become common knowledge (geometry). The rest of the text was new. Even with definitions often within the chapter, and a dictionary or computer to help clarify, the constant use, manipulations, and slight variances made the experience a bit overwhelming.

No matter how often I reread a paragraph or section, or how slowly, or even aloud the information hasn’t quite decoded itself yet. It will take time, just as understanding geometry had.

What I did take away for the text, very simply, is that techne is art, or craft. Its origins is much broader of a definition then we currently associate it with, but that is to be expected when you are analyzing it through the eyes of philosophers and not the laymen. Like Hauser’s rhetoric, being speech of emotion, something that is used to manipulate others, techne is a skill that can be taught, then manipulated (invent new paths) for” particular situations and purposes” (48) The text goes on to explain the various ways that techne is utilized within more specific fields such as medicine. This helps assert that art (techne) knows no bounds in which it can be used and is especially more open to interpretation than current day connotations.

Stepping away from the text and looking into the author, Janet teaches English at the University of Tennessee, and is “obnoxiously” proud of her son who is an opera singer. The text reflects her life’s work of study and teaching in English.

There isn’t one thing in particular I would like to look at, the text will start to settle and make sense as it is reread and discussed in class, however, in chapter two Atwill references Ong, I didn’t see a clarification in the foot notes, but I was just curious if it was Walter J. Ong, S.J.?