The New York Sophist

Invention, out of the five canons of rhetoric, is to me the most difficult to teach. All of our materials are designed to, in Paul Elbow’s brilliant phrasing, help students play the “doubting game” – finding what’s wrong with the source, the source’s source, the strength of the argument, or the internal connection between the support and the claim. There is seldom any discussion about how to build an argument because school – no matter what level it is – has at its dark center the conviction that all graduates will be consumers, first and foremost.

Chat GPT is making the media rounds and scaring teachers and professors. Good. They are right to be afraid, as the market has created a tool that will render their terrible, consumption-based assignments useless. Good riddance to the essay that is assigned just to see if a student can remember to mention class discussion, lecture, Canvas discussion board notes, and readings in an interesting re-telling of the importance of a concept (concept’s importance pre-determined, by the way). This kind of education is exactly what Chat GPT interrupts, offering a more pleasant, more student-controlled interaction with the content of a subject.

This is just an example of the types of videos that are springing up explaining to people what Chat GPT can do in terms of teaching you things. From the point of view of teaching that we get in a film, or a TV show, this video is right. You get the information in how to do something on the spot, and it seems rather passable.

The fear is so real among all the mid professors and mid teachers out there that they are scrambling to find electronic tools to scope out if students have used Chat GPT on one of their terrible assignments. Please note that these are the same people who can barely use computers, have trouble with the internet regularly, and can never get their PowerPoint to work. This is all laughable to them: “Oh, technology!” they say to peals of laughter from colleagues. This is all funny to them, but they are all to eager to use laughably bad and cringe technology like Respondus Lockdown Browser (super-popular among my colleagues) to really catch students in the act of cheating/being evil/exposing their horribleness, etc.

These same people now feel they are qualified to understand a technology in its infancy, something that detects AI generated text (whatever that means) and then fail the student for “cheating.” But students are already getting ahead of this horrible game, spending even more precious study time preparing to protect themselves against their technically illiterate professors.

The reason student writing looks artificial and triggers the app is because you are asking students to produce flat texts. You want a report on what you think is important, professor. This processed meat assignment is exactly what Chat GPT has come for with a faster, cheaper, and better processed meat. Why are we making this again?

What Chat GPT does that is more profound is raise the question of what “education” is. What does it mean to learn? What does it mean to be educated? Perhaps instead of measuring “doing something” perhaps we should switch to this concept of “process” – something we hear administrators and professors talking about all the time without really doing the work to figure out how to measure it.

We have to realize that the people who might ask Chat GPT to write a bland and uninteresting paper in response to a bland and uninteresting “prompt” are not saying they are bad people, they are criticizing the professor’s bad assignment design. There’s nothing worth their time here, why not mail it in and spend their precious time working on something else that matters more?

Many times where I work, I’ve had students come to me confused and frustrated by the (too many) philosophy courses they are required to take in the core curriculum. I always suggest going to YouTube to find supporting lectures and material on the difficult texts they are asked to read and write about. Some of the best lecturers in the world are on YouTube, from the finest universities in the world – no artificial here in the intelligence – as students learn from the top teachers at Yale, Stanford, Oxford, and the like. Is this not a threat to the traditional university structure? Or is this not cheating?

Invention – creating something meaningful from the interaction of a mind, a perspective, a collection of texts, and an audience to reach – is the solution here. Rhetoric is the solution to this problem. Asking students to create something where they use the material of the course to make a claim or series of claims about something they care about renders Chat GPT to the level of the philosophy YouTube videos: Engagement with a source that can help spark composition.

Chat GPT is like ancient modes of teaching rhetoric. Have a look at examples, then more examples, and try to figure out why and how they work. Then you can see why something is appealing. Chat GPT is appealing because it is often pitch-perfect on certain asks. The question is why and how is that appealing to us, the human audience? If we can investigate that, Chat GPT becomes a wonderful tool to help spark more engaging, human composition.

Imagining students writing or speaking in a way that is pleasing to the professor is gross if unexamined. That’s not education. Having students think about an audience and trying to connect with them through composition is tough. That requires more than the night before, cut and paste, fourth result from Google search. Is that really worse than Chat GPT? Is it really different?

Thinking about teaching a process of creation and making something that would be pleasing to an audience, move them, and make them interested in your thoughts and ideas is what students want. It also happens to be what teaching is. It’s too bad so many colleagues spend so many hours worried about rule-breaking, unfair grades, and other such nonsense. That’s not what teaching is about. It’s about process, and figuring out how to use any arriving system or tool as such. Chat GPT – and whatever is coming after it next year – must be incorporated into our teaching, and our teaching must be oriented toward invention.

Attention and the Visual in the Classroom

My Current Listening Habits

I offer this series of posts as a way of thinking through what I’m doing in class this semester after what I painfully learned last semester. I’m not trying to box in these students, but unbox them in a way. The pandemic, and its educational requirements boxed them in pretty well and not just figuratively. Zoom classroom is very boxy and has given rise to some assumptions and practices that have to be recognized. I have a very short list here of some things I’ve identified but it is not meant to be exhaustive or universally descriptive of all students.

This is just one post of about 4 or 5 I’m thinking about. Here’s the full list of what’s coming:

1. Visual Stimulation is Required

2. Students expect completion equals quality

1. Interaction in class is unnecessary

1. Class is a solo experience

This post is on the first one, about the role of visual stimulation.

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Argument 1: Students need a lot of visual stimulation

One of the mistakes we make as professors is thinking that our title, status, and deep understanding of a field is enough to garner and capture attention from our students. We don’t feel that it is necessary or even appropriate to try to make the subject matter more accessible and interesting for students, particularly in the required classes that are often called the “general ed” or “core” courses that, theoretically, are meant to help all students get on the same page or starting point for the rest of their university work.

Rhetoric holds as a central and primary principle that the speaker needs to work to both prepare the audience for what they are about to speak about and also show them the value of it to get and keep their interest. One of the ways of doing this is to figure out what the audience already finds valuable and important. Once you understand these assumptions, you can work to link what you want them to believe – the changes in feeling and thought that you want to have happen – to things they already hold as good and valuable.

One of the things the lockdown provided students was the ability to look at multiple visual stimulus at the same time they were in class. On Zoom you can easily open other windows and be engaged in other things while listening in class. This creates an ecology – or a system – of attention and engagement that students came to rely on during the pandemic that is obviously not going to appear appropriate or work well in the traditional classroom.

Perhaps the classroom projector, smartboard, or other video source could be used in this way, to show background video without sound to keep attention while listening? Tik Tok offers these videos now as a form of attention keeping where the split screen shows something unrelated happening that is somewhat interesting while listening to someone speak on the other half.

Mirroring the digital environment they are used to – the old rhetorical strategy of mimesis, is thought of by those invested in “Truth” and “Fact” and “really real” things as an unethical and inappropriate discount. From the sophistic perspective, it’s the only way to get buy-in on the issues that matter – comfort and familiarity are as important, if not more so, than information and research. Perhaps we could go as far to say they make those latter two categories identifiable.

Fidelity to the students before you rather than fidelity to some standard of purity of the field, or purity of information – or even the idea that I’ve heard professors say that students should adapt to what professors do because they are so lucky to be in college – are all failing propositions if you really do want to educate people.

When I was a graduate student in speech communication rhetoric, we never read any composition rhetoric scholars. I would find people like Steven Mailloux and Jan Swearingen and others back in those days, and I was told that the trouble with such work is that compositionists focus too much on teaching, not the larger picture. I was very confused by this because teaching is nothing but the larger picture. I wonder what the value of rhetorical criticism is, outside of a class environment, considering nobody but a very highly limited, paywalled, difficult to access journal in the deep corner of some database is the only place where you will ever find such work.

I believe this year I’m going to transform into a compositionist both theoretically and practically. The biggest advantage I have here is that I work in the oral tradition – speech and debate. Of course there are forms like speechwriting, and of course we can have debates that simmer on for centuries across thousands of pages of books. But what I know best, what I’m focused on and really feel like I have something good to share and help others with is with ideas shared via speech.

Speech gets a bad wrap, primarily from its own field, where it’s tossed aside as a collection of modalities one teaches like a ritual to young people. Again if rhetorical criticism was so important, why is that not the public speaking course? Anyway I can ask that question after everything I say here so I’ll just stop. The point is an easy one: The distance between our public speaking courses and what most speech communication rhetors do is so vast that most of our students wouldn’t be able to connect the introductory public speaking course to any other course in the major at the university.

Composition though is a direct line. All people teaching in writing programs, or teaching WAC, or composition, are also writing themselves, often a variety of different kinds of texts for different audiences, and are grappling with writing because they are engaged in the conversation with themselves in a way we aren’t. We are not interested in quality presentations, oral presentation, persuading and engaging audiences (just attend any NCA panel and you’ll see this first hand). Compositionists are very interested in reaching audiences through practice because they are doing it and they are deeply engaged in teaching themselves through a regular practice of writing.

Teaching public speaking this way would require a regular practice of speaking. Few rhetoricians do that in speech communication; they are too busy writing for an audience of 5 to 10 in paywalled journals. I wonder if podcasting/vlogging could ever gain legitimacy as a publication in the way that people are forced to treat written production in the academy?

Teaching this way also requires immersion in some other substance than modality. Modality is not about anything; it’s transparent. So teaching a “how to” speech isn’t teaching anything other than a mode of address. Wouldn’t it be better to engage some texts and then determine a mode of reaction/engagement/concurrence?

What I’ve done is assign a few books along the lines of Aristotle’s idea of three kinds of rhetorical approach: Forensic (speech about the past; what happened?) Epidictic (Speech about the present; what matters?) and Deliberative (Speech about the future; what should we do/be done?)

For Forensic rhetoric American Dialogue by Joseph Ellis; for Epidictic On Dialogue by David Bohm; and for Deliberative, On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason. Each one tries to engage in this kind of rhetoric that it is associated with: Ellis on arguing what happened with the constitution and rights and what that means today; Bohm setting up dialogue for high praise over other forms of discourse in society, and Magnason using family stories, nostalgia, illustration, and reflection to argue for immediate and swift response to the global climate crisis.

The other big change is that I’ve moved the speeches out of the classroom and onto the internet. I think web video – the technology of laptop and phone cameras and computers – is to be taken advantage of for the practice of speech. Where is the public now if not on the other side of some laptop screen somewhere? How are you my audience without ink and paper? It’s the same move and it should be investigated if not fully practiced. More on that later.

At the end of this semester (sometime around June I imagine) I’ll report back and follow up on this post to see how it went.

Thoughts on Dank Brandon’s talk last night

Today’s Playlist

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Last night was the State of the Union, which over the decades has become a real political bellwether, a political ritual, a symbolic health-check of the administration politically, and a listing of accomplishments and future plans. It’s not an informative speech anymore, if it ever was.

It is Constitutionally required!

Article 2, Section 3

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

This says nothing about doing it after the new year, or at the start of each Congress, or even about it being one event that is a speech. It’s wild to think that what we have now is based on this requirement and really doesn’t understand the assignment. Annoyingly, it sort of goes beyond the requirements and shows off a bit too much.

In the video you can see my live reaction to the various things Joe Biden says and Sarah Huckabee Sanders as well. I thought I would write something up summarizing my views and maybe offering some more framing for how I feel, and I figure I should post this today right after the speech instead of on my normal Thursday posting time.

• The State of the Union is a much more powerful phrase than we think. When the President speaks, he or she is stating the union, i.e. the Union is only a creation of discourse. We can read this not as a description of an extant reality of the “United States,” but a necessary utterance that continues the existence of the state, by being “stated.” Kenneth Burke: “Any selection of reality is a deflection of reality.” It is also a constitution of reality, pun intended.

• That being said, the appeal of Biden and contemporary Democrats to the importance of “facts” really harmed the power of the speech last night. Instead of cadences that return to values or principles that can empower individuals go to speak to others in their daily lives about why they support or like President Biden, they just have fragments of weird policies that have been repeated by administration foot soldiers in the media today (“35 dollar insulin for seniors,” “quadruple tax buy backs,” etc). This doesn’t help get people to alter their attitudes; this raw material can be used to make any argument because they lack any “inertia” or emotional valence.

• Biden could have constructed the entire speech around the importance of dignity, and the particular American tradition of upholding all types of dignity. This would have been a powerful value term that he could have returned to in every part of the speech. Cadence outweighs data.

• Finally, Biden is a great speaker when he’s on script. Sadly he gets super into it and super confident and departs, and his well runs dry on tropes. He’s repetitive and old sounding when he’s off script (“Folks,” “Guess what,” etc). Sadly I learned finish the job is official messaging; whoever came up with that should be fired.

Here’s how Biden should have arranged it:

Exordium

New Congress, but same story – we always work together here to do what America does best – create and protect dignity.

I’ve been here more than anyone just about but tonight I am more optimistic than ever about what’s to come. (this was near the end but is definitely exordia stuff).

Through bipartisanship we can work to ensure American dignity economically, personally, and for the people of the world who want to live free.

Narratio

Each accomplishment should be phrased in terms of dignity.

infrastructure – the union steelworkers found jobs with dignity, and the infrastructure allows us to be proud of our country and have a strong economy that returns dignity to each family with money in the bank and food on the table.

instead, Biden did this:

1. There was a massive problem that was horrible

2. We (who is this we? Administration? Federal government? who?) passsed a law with a complicated long name

3. This law was revolutionary in size/scope/historical importance, etc. It’s one of a kind and never been done before

4. Simultaneously, this law is most loved because it contains common sense provisions that even those opposed to it love.

5. Here are three things it did

6. Now we need to finish the job

This is terrible compared to talking about what dignity means, giving some anecdotes, then talking about how a bill or policy serves dignity. Then we can return to that value and show how the policy delivered on american dignity. Then we can suggest where to go forward from there.

I saw it as three types: Economic, Individual, and International dignity

Economic: Infrastructure and jobs

Individual: Dobbs response, LBGTQ, COVID 19, Cancer research, and police brutality. The Tyree Nichols segment was very powerful and a great coda for this section. His stoic parents were a powerful symbolic proof.

International: Working with China, Helping Ukraine, and promoting democracy (shout out to Thomas Caruthers).

Partitio

“My administration has had remarkable success through unprecedented legistation that could have only been accomplished through bipartisan negotiation and differences. Coming to the table and working together to make sure all Americans are served properly, fairly, and with dignity is what my administration is about.”

Confirmatio

The evidence is for dignity – not billions of dollars where our eyes glaze over and we get data fatigue. Make cadence-driven arguments about the status of dignity, the vision for dignity, and what was done to help American dignity in that particular flavor. Then discuss ideas for what is coming next. Get the audience excited. Facts are not exciting. They are like cans of paint compared to a hung canvas. That’s the difference. Use the paint; make something!

Refutatio

Here’s where Dank Brandon came out – happy to make the speech an exchange with the hecklers. Did he mean to bait them? Was this part of the strategy? It sure looks like it. Marjorie Taylor Green and others will take the bait because they understand that supporters like what they do and detractors never will. So her shouting back at the President looks bad to those who are Democrats, and good to most Republicans.

There were some moments where he appealed to the elusive “They,” “They said it could never be done,” “it’s bad to bet against America,” and such. Overall probably the strongest section of the speech.

Peroration

Full of exordium material, this is where the people who had a cancer surviving kid and the others who lost someone to opioid addiction could have been used. “This is what we work to prevent; this little girl is America’s future. The solutions and policies here tonight are only a plan, and won’t be real unless we all work together toward making a better America, one where everyone can enjoy what this great country provides.”

These are just a few thoughts, let me know in the comments what you thought and please watch the video above!

What I listened to in January.

Last Weeks Tunes

I thought I’d start adding my music listening data to the posts to give a bit of context to what’s surrounding me when I’m working. And I have been writing a ton, reading a ton, and making curriculum a ton. It might have been a good and terrible idea to reboot all my courses this term with fresh readings and new assignments not to mention new technology.

I was super stressed about all this at first, but now that I’m in the thick of it I just realize that I have to read and write constantly – new teaching notes and old pieces I haven’t thought about directly in a while. While doing this and preparing my notes for class, I vividly remember some night after a seminar at the Holiday Inn bar directly across the street from the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning. There in the dead of night, one of my professors, Henry was talking to us about what’s on everyone’s mind – dissertation work.

“The worst thing isn’t the dissertation at all,” Henry said, “It’s coming back to a piece that was central to your work to teach it a few years later, having a read of a bit of it, pausing, looking up, and saying to yourself, ‘I got this so wrong.’”

I think this is a sign of health. People who continuously assign, defend, and talk about their dissertation work haven’t moved on. People who realize the dissertation is just another school project take it in stride. It worked for the situation it was meant to serve, and now we’ve moved on to other things.

Of course this still stings when I read favorite bits of essays and chapters from well-loved books and then say “Wow this is so much deeper/better/critical than I first gave it credit for.” This is truly one of the joys of teaching; returning to the same text for another long drink and realizing you can never read the same text twice.