Rhetorical Traditions and the Teaching of Writing

By C.H. Knoblauch

The authors of this book argue that the earliest traditions of Western rhetoric - the classical perspective of Aristotle and Cicero - continue to have the greatest impact on writing instruction.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0867091053
• ISBN13: 9780867091052
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
• Length: 171 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Groundbreaking work

Dr's Knoblauch and Brannon surprised the functionalist and expressivist writing/teaching establishment in 1984 with this work. Older and less effective paradigms would have it that being able to write is something the teacher can give you, or is a matter of getting the form correct. Real writers don't write like teachers teach students to write, and this seems to be why my own adult students say they left school hating writing. Writing is a reflective practice whereby the writer brings self, world, and text together in an organic process to create a new image on the page. Although it can be encouraged and fostered through practice and guidance, it cannot be dictated. Since much traditionalist teaching is didactic, students most often sit passively and are not engaged in their own learning processes. This is why this book is so valuable. It is more reflective of real world writing practice and sets forth a new way to teach writing in a positive direction: through writing workshops. 20 years later we still see students leaving high school with little or no ability to express themselves in writing, and thus display what they know in life, business or in college courses. Neither learning nor writing should be a passive exercise, yet year after year we still see that our students fail to reach the literacy levels needed for creative expressions of self or to engage in more than superficial educational discourse. If you want the curative combination to students thinking education is a no-brainer and you want the inside track on how to really teach writing to engage students, get the book.