Closing Time: Inventing a Future for Invention

Nicely done!

Inventing Invention: The Penultimate Class

Questions.

Did the terms function as a heuristic?

Were the terms hermeneutical in the sense that you were drawing on your reading? (Which raises an interesting question about how close to the text one has to be in order for a invention process to be hermeneutical.)

Berthoff talks about killer dichotomies: at what point, if ever, does the heuristic/hermeneutical divide become such a dichotomy? And if so, how do we address that? By seeing connections between the two? By adding new terms?

We did talk about technology and its relationship to invention, but of course technology has always been a factor. Was it simply an unacknowledged factor that should have been included, or is there something particularly pressing about technology now that makes it a visible part of invention?

Collective Invention

For our last class, you'll be in groups focusing on one aspect of invention. The aspects include

visuality

transfer

media

repurposing/remixing

struggling students

re-invention

theory and the student

new media

location

history

You'll create a blog post on that topic, keyed to the following questions:

1. What's the question?

2. What's the context?

3. What's at stake?

4. What's the way forward?

5. What else?

Looking forward!

Remix Culture

Speaking of materiality, here is a review of

Robert Rauschenberg's art:

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus

/features/saltz/saltz1-11-06.asp

In terms of its inventness, the art is interesting.

Does it have implications for composition?

Digital Invention

What difference if any does medium make in invention? We have three media we might consider--print, screen, and network--although we could consider image and words as well.

Again, please connect your thinking with the responses of colleagues who got here first ;)

Looking forward.

PS I'm not ignoring Becca's previous question, but we'll want to attend to the digital before taking it up.

Define 5 canons; List invention strategies

I am putting my comment as a new post: I want to continue from yesterday but not sure if folks will go back to our answer page or not--

Kara and Natalie approach the question I am asking- Matt kind of makes this point too--- and I'm sure all of us want to get a grip on how much theory to give, say freshman, but anyone really who is not in our graduate-level rhet/comp track.
I think it would be helpful (to me at least!) if we went over the FIVE canons and defined them succinctly, ranking them hierarchically if necessary-- or nesting them? HELP!
Also-- if we made a list of 10 (do we use that many distinct ones? Or is it more like six?) invention strategies as a seminar group- that we all use in our teaching. Sort of like an annotated bib, and following up/streamlining our discussion yesterday.

Whither Invention in the Classroom

So one take-away from this reading is that there are many theories of invention, another

that there are several theories of pedagogical uses of invention.

So several questions: please

1. Choose one (!)

2. Respond to it

3. In the process of responding, connect to other posts responding to the same question.

First Question: Some say that it's better (i.e., more helpful) inside a course to focus on a *single* invention technique so that students "master" it completely. Others say that it's more helpful to design several intention strategies into the course, the idea being that different assignments call for different techniques and that not all students will thrive with a single model. What do you say, and why?

Second Question: How much should fyc students know about invention as a topic/content area? In most fyc classes, invention is taught as a part of process. It's not taught, in other words, as a content area, although, clearly, it could be. Should it? Yes, no, maybe, and why?

Third Question: You could make the argument that you all should know something about invention because each of you is claiming some expertise in rhetoric, and the rhetorical canons, are, well, canonical ;) How much about invention should TAs teaching fyc know, and why?

Fourth Question: So what's the relationship, if any, between/among invention, curriculum, and pedagogy? Does a given fyc curriculum lend itself to one or more specific invention techniques? If yes, can you give us an example and and rationale?

Looking forward. . .

ky

Invention/Thumb

The five canons: I always pictured them as fingers on a hand. But the five are not really equal- are they? It is the opposable thumb which gives agency, leverage, power to the other four...Is invention active in each finger's grasping of the subject at hand? Without invention is a hand a paw?

Originality Map Two and Comment on Invention

By Marian, Caleb, Tony, and Jennifer

“The ‘originality group #2’ believes this exercise was an act of invention. We didn’t create new knowledge, but that’s not necessarily the goal of invention. We responded to an exigence by creating new knowledge for ourselves. This method, for us, was hermeneutical. We created an understanding of Lauer’s text.”

Knowledge Map and Comment on Invention

By Leigh, Kara, Liane, Lathan, and Michael

“Yes our exercise is an act of invention. While we started with pre-existing knowledge, as a group we collaborated to generate an arrangement of ideas that represents our interpretation of the pre-existing knowledge. Our interpretation is that there are two opposing perspectives about knowledge’s role within invention.”

Comment on Invention (Waiting for Agency Map)

Leah, Kendra, Stacy, and Michael (Neal).“Yes: In placing this information from our chapters into a visual form, and in using interpretation to glean agency where the term may not have been used, we used invention to make meaning. This activity was not merely a recounting but a collaborative reshaping targeting our key concept of agency.”

Intertextuality Map and Comment on Invention

By Natalie and Logan

“Yes, Lauer used other people to create her text; we used Lauer to create our (thus, intertextuality) while the text we created may not contain ‘brand new knowledge’ it reconceptualized invention in the metaphor of a cave giving us easier access to knowledge about the nature of intertextuality + invention.”

Recursive Map and Comment on Invention

By Rory, Deborah, Kristie

“Is it invention: yes, because we see invention as heuristic, hermeneutic, epistemic, and a means of persuasion, and our map could be evidence of all of those.”

Originality Map One and Comment on Invention

By Elizabeth, Matt, Ruth, and Katie

“Yes. This was an inventional activity. However, the act of invention did not necessarily create new knowledge in the same way for each knowledge in the same way for each member of the group. This exercise was hermeneutical as we drew from Lauer’s text and heuristic as our collaboration texturalized our understanding of originality.”

Discovery Map and Comment on Invention

By Scott, Emami, Stephen, and Josh

“Yes - as a individual group, our work was invention since it involved hermeneutics (discussion of our interpretation of the text) and heuristics (generation of new Knowledge) via the map. As a class, we saw the presentation as an exercise in invention, particularly in our performances.”

Nature, Purpose, and Epistemology of 20th Century Rhetorical Invention

In the fourth chapter, Janice Lauer provides the continuing chronicle of invention as she divides it into three dimensions: the nature of invention; its purpose; and its epistemological power.

For this week, you may choose from two options.

The first is to take one of the dimensions above and provide a gloss on it for an audience of first-year students in two sentences max.

The second is to resist Lauer's framework and provide another term that also seems to focus the continuing interest in invention. For example, I might propose the word agency since a good deal of the debate she describes seems to center on how much agency, if any, a writer can exercise.

If you choose this option, please again use two sentences max to identify the term and outline its role in the 20th century interest in rhetorical invention.

Looking forward ;)

ky

Invention Notes 9-13

Invention Key Terms

· Agency (4)

· Recursive (4)

· Discovery (4)

· Originality (4)

· Exigence (3)

· Intertextuality (2)

· Knowledge (2)

· Process

· Collaboration

· (Re) generation

· Genre

· Goal

· Revision

· Genius

· Kairos

· Relocation

· Displacement

· Context

Tensions in notion of Invention

(Perhaps venn diagrams are more helpful for avoiding dichotomies?)

· Kairos

· Agency of Rhetor

· Discovery/Creation/Invention/Creativity/Originality/(Re)envision

o Discovery and Creation as mutually exclusive? or overlapping?

o “New” vs. already known (constructing vs. finding)

o “New” to all or “new” to individual rhetor

o Form vs. Content (scientific knowledge vs rhetorical style) (syllogistic vs empirical knowledge)

o Hermenutics vs. Heuristic (involvement of texts)

o Authorization/Who makes these distinctions? (gatekeepers/watch dogs)

§ Scholars (Academy) vs. Masses (Urban Dictionary/Wikipedia)

· Contexts involved:

o Individual

o Historical

Why do we need to know this?

Invention manifests itself in:

· Our scholarship

· Our classrooms pedagogies and students

· Our worldviews

A History of Invention

Wow! That was a lot of reading and a lot to absorb, wasn't it?

Given that you agree with the presumed answer to this question, two *quick* questions:

1. In a single sentence, what's the key point here, and how is it key (e.g, key for understanding invention as a rhetorical canon; as a point of tension in intellectual history; as connected to teaching)?

2. What one question does this chapter raise for you?

Looking forward to your summaries and your questions!

Key Terms

Thanks for the good conversation today: clearly, we're going to find the hermeneutics/heuristics binary a productive site of discussion.

Since we didn't complete our tasks--the last one was to identify the key terms that will frame our inquiry into invention--let's complete that here. Toward that end, please nominate two terms that you think should be in this set of terms. The object, you'll remember, is for us to have a set of five or so terms. And for the time being, let's disregard h & h.

Please complete your posting by a week from today. And your posts, btw, are doing exactly as I'd hoped in that you're making great connections with each other's points.

Thanks!

Welcome! and Let's Begin

The framework that Janice Lauer provides in Invention’s first two chapters (and a spoiler alert: throughout the entire book) is summarized here: "Theorists also disagree over whether invention is hermeneutic or heuristic or both (i.e., whether invention’s purpose is to interpret and critique existing texts, produce new texts, or both)."

In our discussions of invention, as indicated in our definitions and especially in our questions, we linked invention to originality. What do you make of this difference in focus between Lauer's and ours, or do you even see it as a difference?