Rice, Jeff. “Juxtaposition.” The Rhetoric of Cool: Composition Studies and New Media.” Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2007. 73-92. Print.
As I was reading the highlights and notes I wrote in the book for this, I kept thinking of the digital presentations my second semester fyc course does. It seemed like juxtaposition would help make those more interesting. I may write about that more later…
“Any object, feeling, odor, word, image in juxtaposition with any other object, feeling, word or image will be associated with it” (Burroughs qtd in Rice 73).
“Douglas Engelbart proposed that juxtaposition be the focal point of writing with computers” (Rice 73).
McLuhan thought composition should include juxtaposition, because it promised depth of involvement and expression (Rice 74).
“the idea that disturbances motivate new media writing” (Rice 74)
I noted Lauer’s preference for dissonance here–and many other places in the text.
kaleidoscope approach
We do not want simple. We want interesting. (Rice 76)
Juxtaposition helps create/provide/reveal that.
“Trimbur and George proceed to highlight the field’s declining interest in those elements that comprise communications studies, like media studies” (Rice 77).
We are definitely coming back to this, though.
[standard] research paper results from organization into linear argument (Rice 78)
outline organization contrasts with juxtaposition (Rice 79)
“layers of text and image, may be removed and added to at any given moment within the composing process” (Rice 79)
“The real job of the computer is not retrieval but discovery. Like the human memory, the process of recall is an act of discovery” (McLuhan, Hot and Cool, 294, qtd in Rice 81).
“notions of individual authorship belongs more to premises native to print” (Rice 82)
“New media extends writers’ sense and observations outside of self” (Rice 82)
“composition studies still legitimizes the sequentiality of thought” (Rice 82)
“[in print media] that which cannot be classified or categorized does not belong in the writing” (Rice 83)
“outline’s function is meant to situate invention” (Rice 83)
Really? Wow. Not for me.
“writing proceeds based on that initial vision or goal. Anything not initially conceived as relevant to one’s purpose should be discarded” (Rice 83).
That is not how I think of writing, but I do wonder if that is how my students think of writing. This belief/attitude may be one reason why I am willing to wait for a well-crafted thesis till towards the end of the writing process for a paper, rather than creating a “research question” thesis statement at the beginning. Or, of course, it could be that I misunderstand how crafting a thesis works for other people.
Regarding hypertext, Rice says it is a process that is “meant to forge associations” (83), as opposed to being preplanned.
“the nature of print is closed” (Rice 83)
“the link’s ability to join a variety of authorial positions” (Rice 83)
This caught my attention for T&P reasons. When you create a blog post, then linking others extends your own authority or adds to the ethos with credibility from other sources. I wonder how much of this is useful/usable in the T&P online portfolio.
When I was first reading the quote above, I thought of the students’ digital presentations. Now, I am having trouble remembering why I thought the authorial positions in particular was relevant. I will have to think about that and add it to the discussion on this chapter for digital presentations.
“print-based emphasis on theses or topic sentences” (Rice 84)
I do like/recommend these, for academic writing.
Rice says theses are “restrictive” and act almost like miniature outlines (84).
I call them maps to the paper, in case I get lost in the direction the student was intending to take.
“[t]he potential of opening up writing to discovery and invention” (Rice 84).
He is talking about Nelson on hypertext, but I think that this is what juxtapositions can offer the students and what–when they are done at the same time/together–digital composing with/for the research paper offers. It is part of why I fiddled again this semester with when the paper and digital presentations are due.
“When writers expand connections, when they begin to include a variety of material into the writing process…, writers begin as well to move beyond immediate controlling situations” (Rice 85).
He then says they often discover conflicts–what Lauer encouraged as dissonance, I think.
George Landow “The Paradigm Is More Important than the Purchase” argues that “new media shapes educational outlooks and pedagogical positions” (Rice 85).
“web of information one encounters in media where juxtapositions not only foreground conflict but make finding one conclusion to a situation conflicted as well” (Rice 86).
“[J]uxtapositions are meant to introduce conflict as a response to information and cultural overloads” (Rice 86).
This is Lauer again, but it was not comfortable for me and I am still unsure how I would go about teaching it. –I think it might be interesting, but I would work on this in an Advanced Composition course, rather than a freshman writing course, at least at first, because (one hopes) advanced comp writers already have a standard repertoire and can use a little shaking up without becoming totally lost. That way, if it didn’t work like Rice says, or I couldn’t figure out how to explain/teach/model it for students, we could throw it out without ruining the work of a semester.
“radical innovations proposed by Engelbart or by Nelson… conflicts Bourroughs suggests… are all central to new media rhetoric” (Rice 87)
Geoffrey Sic, English Composition p. 18 “pedagogy as dare” (Rice 87)
DJs and hypertext “strive to forge connections among disparate material through various types of appropriations and juxtapositions” (Rice 87).
metaphors, “importants of assemblages,” samples (Rice 88)
“tops of digital sampling” (Rice 89)
“digital sampling extends itself rhetorically so that the tops transforms into the remix” (Rice 89)
“Writing does reorganize and rework source material… yet writing also strings together found compositions based on the intricate ways each connects or doesn’t connect with the others” (Rice 89)
metaphor? “confusing whirlwind… inciting discomfort” (Rice 90)
“translate the theoretical principles of composition to a pedagogy appropriate for digital writing” (Rice 91)
“produce a writing composed of juxtapositions. It would be, therefore, performative” (Rice 91).
Brumberger, Eva. “The Rhetoric of Typography: Effects on Reading Time, Reading Comprehension, and Perceptions of Ethos.” Technical Communication 51.1 (February 2004): 13-24. Web. 12 February 2014.
