Clifford and Context

The essay starts out by discussing the political responsibility of composition teachers.  It asks a series of questions.  What do composition teachers hope to accomplish in the classroom?  Should they focus on rhetoric, clarity, and communication, as is required by the university and state law?  This knowledge would be useful in the real world (particularly in government or industry.  Is it acceptable (or desirable) to bring politics into the classroom, “[encouraging] opposition thinkers, social activists, and resistant readers and writers” (Clifford 861)?  Is it necessary to choose on or the other?  Is it even possible to bring politics into the classroom of a traditional college or university?  These are the questions that Clifford attempts to answer in his essay.

Clifford goes on to state that in both expressive and traditional rhetorical theory the writer is “free...to be an authentic and unique consciousness” (Clifford 862).  Structuralists, feminists, poststructuralists, and Marxists have contradicted that freedom that the writer has.  Structuralists argue that writers do not express their own ideas when they write, but rather they communicate “universal codes” (Clifford 862).  Poststructuralists believe that the same words can mean very different things, depending on the contexts they take place in.  Foucault believed that writers do not know what the rules are for different discourses, and they do not know the reason why they write and think the way they do.

Clifford also discusses The St. Martin’s Guide and its explanation of argumentative writing.  The St. Martin’s Guide states that writers base their main point and the side of the issue they support on facts, textual evidence, and statistics (logos).  The purpose of the writer is to influence readers.  Pathos and ethos are completely ignored in this type of writing.  Social context is completely ignored by the readers as well as the writer.  Clifford states that “a critique of writing theory and practice can only be fully understood when it is situated in a sociopolitical context” (Clifford 867).

In the essay, Clifford talks about how teaching composition has become such a routine.  Students are assigned specific tasks by the instructor, and they are expected to complete them on time and according to the teacher’s instructions.  Those who do this succeed in the class, but Clifford feels that those who don’t should not be excluded.  He states that “helping students to read and write and think in ways that both resist domination and exploitation and encourage self-consciousness about who they are and can be in the social world” (Clifford 872) is what composition instructors should be doing.