Ode to Williams

I just finished reading Williams’ chapter on the foundations of rhetoric. All of I have to say about it, is this: I miss Peter Elbow already. Now, I am sure there are many of you out there who found Elbow to be boring, or full of hot air, or whatever. And that’s fine. Obviously, I don’t expect that everyone is going to be bowled over by what they read in any class, no matter the subject. But I felt a lot of stuff he had to say was interesting, and, if nothing else, I liked his writing style.

But I digress. Getting back to Williams…like I said, I just finished with it, and, at least initially, I feel like I just sat through a high school history class again. The chapter dealt with a ton of historical background, which is great if that’s your thing, but, to be honest, I really struggled to get through the piece. I understand that Williams feels that he must lay down some type of foundation for his readers before he actually gets into the business end of teaching writing (at least I think that’s his approach?), but does it have to be so dry and boring? Although, I really can’t think of another way to introduce all that stuff that he included in the chapter.

Other than talking about how boring the stuff was, I how I disliked it, I really don’t know what else to talk about. I guess I could say that I’ll need to come up with some creative ways to teach these topics to my students once I begin my teacher career – assuming that I can dupe some school out there into hiring me. If I can’t find any valuable lessons in whatever it is that I am teaching, and then surely my students will notice that I am dispassionate, and eventually they will lose interest in the lesson as well.

Now, I am not suggesting that Williams’ chapter has no value. That would be foolish for of me to say. But, I am suggesting that, in my opinion, it reads like a history book. Usually, I like history. I watch the History channel on TV a lot. There’s some interesting stuff on there – shows on Abe Lincoln, or ancient Rome, or whatever. That’s entertaining. Conversely, Williams is not. But that’s okay. I’ve got to read it anyway. If I try to fake it my blogs won’t make any sense. And, knowing my luck, some principal out there will ask me a question about rhetoric during a job interview, and then I’ll flub up the interview and never get a job – ever. I’ll have to join the circus and train monkeys (although that might be fun). Clearly, I am embellishing here, but I am running out of things to say, and since this is my blog I figure I can talk about anything that I want (within reason), as long as it pertains to this class.

I wonder what Socrates would have to say about blogs? I wonder what the ancient Greeks and Romans would think about the vast proliferation of communication that we have in modern society. Now, everyone has a chance to voice his or her opinion in some form...but is this positive? I don’t know. I will have to think about that.

Sorry if this blog is a bit disoriented.