You must be thinking that there is no way an interactive
site such as Dickens Web is in any
way comparable to say Aristotle’s Art of
Rhetoric. How can a website most
likely used as a supplemental teaching resource measure up to Aristotle’s foundational
and historical text? I think the comparison
comes not in the information being presented but the manner in which each text facilitates critical thinking among
readers. If we can examine the
historical development of rhetoric and writing we see that writing was met with
adversity when introduced to a world in which oration was the primary method of
presenting information, and today the advent use of technology as a medium of
expression is met with the same caution.
These changes are demonstrative of the changes that occur in society’s
systems of (academic) power and the ease with which these systems are
established and accepted. In her
discussion of secondary orality Welch (1995) cited Ong who contended that
developments in media require a restructuring of “the human psyche and
civilization itself”. I took this to
mean that changes in writing and rhetoric also inspire changes in the system which
governs what is deemed reputable work by society as well as our respective academic
and professional communities. Welch goes
on to say that “concepts of critical writing and critical thinking appear to be
related to the concept of active, new encoding on the part of the decoder. When students are made aware of varying
constraints imposed by each symbol system (for example, the grammar of film as
opposed to the grammar of dominant-culture written English), they are able to
engage the symbol system in active ways.” (p. 769). As she continued her piece Welch suggested
that this type of knowledge and awareness empowers students to change the
conventions of the systems of media and writing of which they are apart. In terms of the big picture, our example of Art of Rhetoric represents the original system
of academic power in writing and Dickens
Web represents changes in writing and rhetoric that disrupt the maintenance
of that power. Analyzing these types of
developments in our respective fields is a reflection on society and the manner
in which it has been academically and socially conditioned. We see how easily and readily society
subscribes to systems of power already in place. The importance placed on perceived traditional
methods of expression suggests permanence in the rules of the academic game
designated by historical and foundational texts whether it is Art of Rhetoric or Experience and Education (Dewey, 1938).
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