The New Work of Composing

Edited by Debra Journet, Cheryl E. Ball, & Ryan Trauman

Book overview. This edited collection explores theoretical and practical questions about multimodal, digital production through lenses of rhetoric/composition, digital writing studies, English studies, and the humanities.
- Computers and Composition Digital Press
- Utah State University Press
Not Your Mother's Argument

Morgan Gresham and Roxanne Kirkwood Aftanas

Abstract. This chapter explores how identity and expectations change audience responses to our work as scholars. Using our own compositions as a point of departure, we argue that authors cannot use the master's tools of traditional argument to look at the new work of composition scholarship. As our discipline transitions to new compositions, we see the increasing expectation of a "second shift" of work that requires remediation into traditional argument if our work is to be viable. We push against this expectation, using our digital compositions to create feminist identities and scholarship.

APA Citation: Gresham, Morgan, & Aftanas, Roxanne Kirkwood. (2012). Not your mother's argument. In Debra Journet, Cheryl E. Ball, & Ryan Trauman (Eds.), The new work of composing. Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State University Press. http://ccdigitalpress.org/nwc/chapters/gresham-aftanas/
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What can we get from invitation that we lose in argument?

Scholarly argument and invitational rhetoric position conversants differently and attribute power differently. If we use Burke’s Parlor as our metaphor for argument, we see that argument takes time, occasionally significant time, as we observe and gauge the moment at which we are sanctioned to enter the conversation. We have to earn the power to speak.

Conversely, invitational rhetoric meets us where we are because the goal is engagement. We are each attributed power because we are human. The image below shows our understanding of how invitational rhetoric invites students into conversation regardless of their prior experience with the subject matter. There are multiple points of entry based on how the student, in this case, identifies with the conversation. (Image from Downer, Gresham, Kirkwood, & Reynolds, 2009)

not your mother’s argument: standing on shoulders

The New Work of Composing

Edited by Debra Journet, Cheryl E. Ball, & Ryan Trauman

Not Your Mother's Argument

Morgan Gresham and Roxanne Kirkwood Aftanas

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