What is in a Degree?

What can you do with a Rhetoric and Composition degree? Well, you can hang the diploma on your wall to enhance your décor. You can use your specialized degree as a conversation piece. When people ask, “What is rhetoric?” reply with an existential, sophomoric response that challenges the existence of truth… Say it promulgates many truths… or be esoteric and provide a simple, deconstructive response, “I am an expert writer. How may I help you imperfect your writing?” Even better, make something up! People with degrees in Rhetoric and Composition work in classified fields examining and deciphering meaning from texts transmitted from intelligent life beyond our galaxy. Maybe such a job exists? I mean, isn’t this what we, as teachers, are attempting when we are trying to figure out what another being [student] with a unique set of cognitive plans and rules is “trying to say” in a piece of composition? Although getting inside the head of a writer may sound like a task performed on a CSI or X-Files episode, it is certainly not the only cool thing one can do with a degree in Rhetoric and Composition.

I have been rereading a book titled Rewriting Success in Rhetoric and Composition Careers. The authors challenge the traditional route: go to grad school, jump on the tenure track, research, publish or perish, teach others to do the same. As a card-carrying member, I am certainly no enemy to academia. However, it is interesting to see scholars pulling back the curtain to introduce nontraditional pathways. Have you ever thought of using your Rhetoric and Composition degree for a technical writing firm, legal writing, corporations, or advocacy? Whether writing instructors teach middle school students or lawyers how to write, it is worth redefining and valuing the knowledge we are making.

At a job fair recently, a recruiter from a state agency remarked, “Man, I could really use you. Our officers don’t know how to write their reports. We need someone to teach them writing.” Then there was silence. No such job exists at his agency and there is no funding for a writing specialist. So, it is our responsibility, the Rhetoric and Composition community, to educate the universe about our field and go beyond writing across the curriculum, the campus, and the community. We should boldly go where no man has gone before. Maybe one day we will write across the galaxy.

Creating a Space

By being a little flippant and presumptuous, this illustration forces teachers to think about how we might perceive our students within a classroom space. Within your classroom you are creating a learning space, a discourse, an identity made up of you and your students. How is this space created? Does it connect to your teaching philosophy? How much control do your students have in constructing knowledge in this space? Do you see yourself as the authority or as a facilitator? You are constructing a unique, tiny universe where you and your students will learn from each other. What is this planet like? What materials are on this planet? How do you use computers, electronic devices, laptops, whiteboards, spiral notebooks, tables, chairs? How are these materials arranged in relationship to each other? Are your students standing and writing at the whiteboards? Sitting? Where are you? Behind a table? Hiding underneath it after returning their papers? Standing on top of it championing your students to think outside the box? Seriously though, consider your space. Are you moving around your students? Are you lecturing or posing questions to your students? Do you or your students guide the direction of the class period in this space?