Great Speeches reframing the rhetorical tradition in English

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Great Speeches (re)framing the rhetorical
tradition in English

• Mark Howie
• Penrith High School, NSW
• mark.howie_at_education.nsw.gov.au

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Workshop aims

• challenge common criticisms of English curriculum
  pedagogy
• argue that English is a subject in the process of
  becoming that change is not antithetical to
  tradition
• suggest a framework for a coherent approach to
  teaching Speeches
• make case for Speeches as an education in legacy
  of Enlightenment reclaiming the Western
  tradition.

Socrates a kind of gadfly to a big generous
horse
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English -a site of (incoherent) moral panic?

• NSW HSC teacher talking about English on the
  Sunday program (July, 2006)
• Students would have to look at a feminist
  reading of Gwen Harwood. And they would also have
  to look at a Christian reading and a romantic
  reading to give a variety. instead of teaching
  the students to be critical, they are having to
  grapple with these theories in such a short space
  of time that they have to rote learn a little bit
  in order to pass and I think what tragically gets
  lost is their own their own interpretations of
  the poem.
• Questions
• is theory a barrier to a personal response?
• can we even have an untheorised (or unmediated)
  interpretation / response?
• do we not read (in English) within a community,
  with a sense of history and tradition, in
  particular ways and for particular purposes (even
  if these have changed over time)?

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English -a site of (youthful arrogance) moral
panic?

• HSC STUDENT, featured on the Sunday program
• It is sort of like you are spewing out what the
  Board of Studies wants you to say. It is not this
  is what I thought, this is an original unique
  thought it is this is what these people have
  said through time and this is what I am going to
  say now.this is not a way to learn. We are not
  learning anything really, we are not thinking for
  ourselves which is what we are going to need to
  do when we leave school.I feel let down.
• Questions
• where and how did this student get the idea that
  understanding what others have thought and said
  is not important, not worth knowing and does not
  even amount to learning?
• is the idea that meaning and understanding are
  arrived at dialectically and dialogically such a
  radical idea?
• has there ever been a time in which senior
  English students have not engaged with the
  interpretations of others?

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Great Speeches Recent Publications
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Great speeches speechwriters memoirs
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Great speeches ABC/RN
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Speeches the NSW context

• HSC elective choice in Advanced English
• set for Module B Critical Study
• BOS collection (available on web) begins with
  Socrates and ends with Mary McAleese
• includes speeches by Cicero, Lincoln, Luther
  King, Havel, Keating, Pearson, Suu Kyi, Atwood
  (amongst others)

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The NSW Syllabus Module B

• Students explore the ideas expressed in the text
  through analysing its construction, content and
  language. They examine how particular features of
  the text contribute to textual integrity. They
  research others perspectives of the text and
  test these against their own understanding and
  interpretations of the text. Students discuss and
  evaluate the ways in which the set work has been
  read, received and valued in historical and other
  contexts. They extrapolate from this study of a
  particular text to explore questions of textual
  integrity and significance.

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The sacred the profane English change
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The sacred the profane English change
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Tensions in English rhetoric a more inclusive
subject field?

• Terry Eagleton
• Rhetoric saw speaking and writing not merely
  as textual objects, to be aesthetically
  contemplated or endlessly deconstructed, but as
  forms of activity inseperable from the wider
  social relations between writers and readers,
  orators and audiences.rhetoricans studied
  language devices in other peoples language in
  order to use them more productively in their own.
  It wasa creative as well as a critical
  activity. Literary Theory, 1983, 206-207

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Tensions in English rhetoric a more inclusive
subject field?

• Richard Andrews
• a rhetorical perspective allows us to see that
  our subject is profoundly democratic (rhetorics
  classical function) in that it foregrounds
  argument and enables language to accept and
  explore difference.placing language as the more
  central issue than literature, at the same time
  it enhances and clarifies the function of
  literature and narrative in our societies
  .against reductive back to basics discourses
  it draws on centuries of concern with language in
  society and politics.
• (The Future of English, E in A, 106, Dec. 1993)

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Programming starting points

• Focus of unitHow meaning is made through
  responding to a particular text in different
  contexts to develop understandings of textual
  integrity.
• Synthesis in approach and a balanceThe
  importance of responding to the speeches the
  interpretations of others in a critical
  evaluatory way.
• Developing a personal response centered in the
  text (but moves beyond it), developmental,
  multi-layered tested against that of others
  (ie dialectical dialogic in nature).

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Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Phase 4
A Transformative Model of Programming (Howie,
2003)
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Sequencing learning

• A possible way of sequencing teaching and
  learning
• Phase 1 engaging students with the text and its
  ideas
• Phase 2 exploring how these ideas are expressed
  in the text through analysis of its construction,
  content and language, and examining how
  particular features of the text contribute to
  textual integrity
• Phase 3 researching others perspectives of the
  text and testing these against their own
  understanding and interpretations, in the process
  considering and evaluating the ways in which the
  set work has been read, received and valued in
  historical and other contexts
• Phase 4 affirming a deep personal critical
  understanding of the text through exploring
  questions of textual integrity and significance.

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Framing Module B

• Following MacLachlan and Reid (Framing and
  Interpretation,1994), the term frame is used in
  the model outlined here as emphasis on framing
  draws attention to agency and acknowledges the
  complex nature of the interpretive process
  (p.9). (cf Module emphasis on personal)
• The term draws attention to the ways in which
  participants in any act of interpretation
  interact with each other to produce meaning.
• It suggests a reciprocal activity something
  readers do to texts and something texts do to
  readers - raising issues of interpretative
  freedom and control.
• It is an alternative to deterministic idea of
  CONTEXT as given existing independently of an
  act of interpretation

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Framing Module B

• Circumtextual framing the mediating context of
  production. Raises questions such as who has
  produced this text? why have they produced it?
  who have they produced it for? what meaning(s) do
  they expect or want to be made from the text? The
  placement of a text in a particular communicative
  space, in this case Module B (Advanced) English
  in NSW as prescribed by the requirements of the
  BOS, will shape the meaning we will, and indeed
  are able to make.
• Intratextual framing the structural,
  subdivisional and other internal framing devices
  (eg chronological or non-chronological
  arrangement of speeches in BOS collection)

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Framing Module B

• Extratextual framing the influence of outside
  information, unspecified by the text but felt to
  be presupposed by it the drawing on our
  accumulated knowledge of the world (experiential
  and textually mediated).
• Intertextual framing the relating of one text or
  text-type to another. (Obviously, how a
  particular speech might refer directly to
  another- Lincoln / Martin Luther King) or echo
  another (McAleese / Socrates). In the framework I
  am also proposing this will include students
  relating different stages of their own response
  to each other.)

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Framing Module B phased textual orientation
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Framing Module B phased textual orientation
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Speeches framing a program
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Speeches framing a program
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Speeches framing a program
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Speeches framing a program
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Speeches the legacy of the Enlightenment the
values traditions of western liberal democracy

• EXTRACT FROM ESSAY INTRO establishing notion of
  reception valuation in different contexts
• These speeches are representative of the
  universal ideals of the Enlightenment, promoting
  freedom, reason and truth through the employment
  of rhetoric. The tradition of rhetoric remains an
  essential feature of the critical analysis of
  texts in contemporary society, further signifying
  the relevance and worth of the speeches to an
  audience being educated in the art of effective
  communication and critical thinking. Furthermore,
  the texts raise several fundamental themes,
  uniting common goals including the search for
  reason and meaning in life, humanitys
  responsibility to create a virtuous society, and
  the need for unprejudiced co-existence and
  understanding.

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Speeches the legacy of the Enlightenment the
values traditions of western liberal democracy

• EXTRACT FROM ARGUMENT synthesising perspectives
  in a personal response
• .Reading Socrates speech through Aristotelian
  standards of rhetoric, it is evident no attempt
  is made to establish a good character for, nor
  does he endeavour to favour the emotional state
  of, his immediate audience, the jury. The
  frequent use of high modality reinforces this
  argument, apparent in the line, you may acquit
  or not, but I shall not alter my conduct, no, not
  if I have to die a score of deaths, and
  similarly in the use of the active voice against
  the jury, thou doest wrong. Lacking remorse and
  reticence, which one would expect from a man on
  trial for his life, such statements insinuate
  Socrates intended audience was history, rather
  than his contemporary addressees.

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Speeches the legacy of the Enlightenment the
values traditions of western liberal democracy

• EXTRACT FROM ARGUMENT synthesising perspectives
  in a personal response
• .McAleese adds further weight to the
  universality of her position, and engages an
  audience beyond the immediate audience to which
  she was speaking, by making use of history and
  international law to gain credence and present
  her views as learned and reasoned. This
  rhetorical technique of an appeal to external
  authority is demonstrated in her references to
  Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights,
  the Magna Carta and historical events such as
  the immigrant issueaffecting so many countries,
  including my own. Thus McAleese submits an
  articulate, rational case which consequently
  becomes worthy of study as an example of rhetoric
  and for its promotion of virtuous values and
  societal mores such as freedom of speech and
  empathy across cultures.

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Speeches the legacy of the Enlightenment the
values traditions of western liberal democracy

• EXTRACT FROM CONCLUSIONIn evaluating the
  speeches of Socrates, McAleese and Cicero, it
  becomes apparent all, despite their differing
  historical and social contexts, transcend time
  and remain of great value to contemporary
  audiences. The effective use of rhetorical
  devices furthers their enduring relevance and
  significance to humanity, enhancing the
  authoritative and virtuous nature of each
  orator.all are undeniably worthy of recognition
  in the 21st century as furthering the ideals,
  aspirations and enduring ideologies of Western
  European culture.