Sunday, February 21, 2010

Reading Response# 5

 

February 21, 2010
A Successful Method of Teaching Rhetoric

           In the first chapter of Rhetoric at the Margins, the author exquisitely portraits the pedagogical technique of a famous professor at Wiley collage—Melvin B. Tolson, who taught at Wiley from 1923 to 1947. Despite his rigorousness as a professor, Tolson was a spiritual model for his students. He did not want his students to understand that learning is only confided to the classroom; however, he sat with them during late-night sessions and took them on long trips, he even used to stop his students on campus to ask them very specific and detailed questions about grammar, novels, history and philosophy. Again, despite his weird treatment of his students, he praised them when they worked hard. It seems that Tolson wanted his students to excel in different fields, not in only one which we call “major.” In other words, he wanted his students to become encyclopedic in all majors. Therefore, he wanted them to live the knowledge instead of knowing it or tasting it which will enable them in the end to mingle with the outside dominant discourse while keeping and appreciating their own identity.
          To be more specific, Tolson taught traditional rhetoric, and enforced his students to fully digest it. At the same time, he invoked in them the necessity of being knowledgeable in order to challenge and confront the classical rhetoric ideas. Therefore, his students should not only learn the classical and the dominant rhetoric, but, by using their knowledge, they had to add to it and shape it. In the end, whatever his or her identity, sex, background, the student would become a part of the worldwide rhetorical discourse. They became a part of it because they had Socrates’s style, asking questions; Marx‘s goal, changing the history instead of knowing it; Nietzsche’s method, questioning everything, Derrida’s approach, looking always for the hidden meaning, etc.  Beyond the Archives suggested that researchers sometimes lack archival information; however, there are always things that serve to substitute the archives. Tolson’s biography helped David Gold to examine the African American rhetorical tradition (p. 18).

- Photos of Tolson and Wiley College are taken from: www.marshallnewsmessenger.com, and www.answers.com 

5 comments:

  1. Wonderful response, Hmoud. I agree in the point of Tolson's teaching his student on the dignity, dicipline, and classical rhetoric. This prepares them into the dialectic conversation. Rhetoric was considered the persuasive oratory to win the audience attention. It was necessary to pave their ways into democratic society.

    Sunchai

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hamoud I think I love your response especially the last part of it where you talked about the different views and ideas of the theorists and their "school of thought". Personally, I learnt a lot from Gold's Beyond the Archives in the sense that one might not find every information in the archive but making connections with individuals and groups either through emails or phone calls could be of immense help too just as he rightly pointed out. He said read everything that comes your way because you can never tell which information could be useful and valuable. Curiosity kills the cat they say but in research, curiosity exhume ideas from obscurity to lime light. Good job!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hmoud, I forgot to mention that Socrates and Derrida are philosophers in my response. Sorry about that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "They became a part of it because they had Socrates’s style, asking questions; Marx‘s goal, changing the history instead of knowing it; Nietzsche’s method, questioning everything, Derrida’s approach, looking always for the hidden meaning, etc." I love the way you broke this down in terms of Tolson's pedagogical grab bag. Good insight, I liked this chapter as well. I commented on him in my blog...let me know what you think. I was interested in the institutional features described on page 61 of Gold's book.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes! I, too, was excited to read about this incredibly progressive though demanding (grammarian) influence right here in NE Texas. His student James Farmer, Jr. was one of the key influences on the Civil Rights legislation as we know it today, working closely with Martin Luther King and LBJ and dozens of others. A revolution brewing right here in our side of the state.

    Another fun fact: Bill Moyers is from Marshall, Texas. He's one of the most respected journalists around and has been for decades. He hosts Bill Moyers Journal, which you've seen (at least in part). I shared his interview with Bill T. Jones on the first day of our class.

    ReplyDelete