An Idea for a Rhetoric Course that I’ve just never done

For several years I have imagined teaching a course where New York City would be the text that would serve as the readings, course content, the source of student projects, and the object of critical analysis/interpretation. This course I imagined initially many years ago under the title “Arguing New York” – which I still think could be a good way to model the course. Recently though I have become concerned about how writing is thought about among undergraduates. I’m now wondering if I can perhaps modify the course in ways that would serve as something that would de-escalate the intensity and difficulty perceived in writing and most importantly, the idea that writing has to be some final expression, something that will forever be “right” or “true” in terms of argument, perception, or idea.

Of course none of this has anything to do with writing programs or writing centers who do a phenomenal job for those who pass through those courses. The issue is in all other encounters with composition or putting together a text. These encounters in society, media, and the typical way professors talk about final papers in grim terms tend to overwhelm the healthy alternative narratives provided by writing programs. There’s not much more they can do to fight against the tidal forces out there.

Perhaps all faculty could de-escalate the importance of final papers and such, which would be great. But most faculty out there are interested in control, domination, and power, and conflate the idea of a good class with struggle, difficulty, and stress.

The idea of the class is to examine how people compose texts for others about their experiences and feelings in and around New York, as well as how the city is composed in similar ways to elicit certain responses. This hopefully will reduce the act of composition down to all the stress of sharing an experience.

I think the distribution of something like arguments, or even the idea of constructing a meaningful description of a time, place, or event can be a pleasurable experience for people if they start to think of it as the production and creation of meaningful relationships rather than the transmission of accurate historical moments. Too often I think that final papers or “the final paper” as a symbol or an utterance in college classes is described in a way that sucks all the joy and fun out of creating meaning from all these discussions and readings that have happened over the term. Lowering the stakes and inviting a creative evaluation of what that time was like will not only make the assignment less stressful but also probably produce papers that are more interesting to read since they will (hopefully) contain less regurgitated content from the course.

Thinking about what this would look like: Initially I thought that studying the public policy and public social debates of New York City’s history would be fantastic. But this roots students in that too comfortable and fairly useless role of making reports on the ideas of others. Then I thought that perhaps having them reiterate those debates would be good. But that brings with it the problems of role play in the classroom, and how role play often allows the replication of essentialism.

What I’ve finally decided to do is cast the students in the role of poet, or creator (poesis is “make” in ancient Greek) and give them places, scenes, and other such texts in order for them to tease out an attitude about it and offer that to audiences.

This picture that I shared at the top of the post is one I took and perfect for this class. What can be said about it? Someone might want to talk about the space design, or the urban “forest” of steel pillars. It’s also quite obvious that ideas about mass transit, the MTA, the subway experience will come to mind.

The topos of contrast: Maybe a feeling of loneliness in one of the largest cities on earth might be the idea. An empty transit hub – contradiction. Or perhaps the idea that we need to go anywhere. Or what we miss as we focus on our destinations and origins.

There’s history here – what is this station, when was it built? When did it open? What happened here? Perhaps a story of someone who has a significant moment in their life could be constituted from this photo. Fiction.

This creation not only lowers the stakes of writing but makes it a rhetorical challenge – how can I reach my audience; how can I get them to share this attitude – but also is the life of the city itself. A city is not the structures; it’s response and reiteration – when the everyday commute is interrupted by a glance or a stumble, a spill or a shock – and how we come to terms literally with that addition to our hermetic narrative of our lives.

I hope to teach this course at some point. I think it would be best for one particular venue – when students come together from another place to live and work in NYC – but more specifics on that opportunity later when – or if – it’s offered to me.