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James Kinneavy Annotated Bibliography Articles and Anthologized First Page

Articles and Anthologized

“Training Pupils to Logical Thought.” Catholic School Journal, XLIII: (Nov. 1948), 253.

“[Review]: Fifty Years of the American Novel.” Catholic Educational Review, L (Sept 1952), 500.

“Objective Tests and the English Teacher.” Texas Journal of Secondary Education, L (Spring 1966), 3–9.

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“The Basic Aims of Discourse.” College Composition and Communication, XX (Dec. 1969), 297–304.

Before delving into Kinneavy’s major work, A Theory of Discourse: The Aims of Discourse, this article acts as a great introduction to the theory’s major concepts, particularly the aims. Kinneavy applies the aims to all discourses including oral and written as they pertain to the specific time and place in which the discourse is delivered. Aim as defined by Kinneavy is the effect which the discourse should produce in the listener or reader for whom it was intended. Despite the clearly defined aims, the categories are fluid in application and they can and will overlap. Using the communication triangle, Kinneavy shows what the four basic aims, expressive, referential, literary and persuasive, emphasize on the triangle. Expressive emphasizes the encoder, persuasive, the decoder, referential, reality, and literary, the signal. All of these relationships can and do have some elements of the others; however, the main emphasis of the aims and their relationship to the triangle remains. In the conclusion, Kinneavy discusses why education fails to include the expressive and persuasive aims and the importance of each, and, finally, he pleads for the return to the liberal arts tradition building on composition as the foundation.

“Theories of Composition and Actual Writing.” Kansas English, LXIX (Dec. 1973), 3–17.

This essay comprises a list of articles, books, and journals the authors believe have shaped composition theory and practice. They also suggest further resources in other fields like philosophy, education, and speech, that are at the perimeter of the discipline. In the philosophy section, the suggested reading covers language and its semiotic framework, the relation between philosophy and composition, the historical framework, “ordinary language” and the Oxford philosophers, model theory, Kenneth Burke, existential and phenomenologists and the act of self-expression. In the second section, “Speech and Propaganda Analyses,” the coverage ranges from a list of speech journals and their importance, political myths, studies on the credibility and effectiveness of speeches, criticism of Aristotle, and rhetoric as treated by modern scholars. The educational section begins with a list of educational journals and continues with sources relating to teaching reading, behaviorally stated objectives, curriculum design, and evaluation of student work.

“Freshman English: An American Rite of Passage.” Freshman English News, VII (1977), 1–3.

In this article Kinneavy addresses teaching composition skills in isolation versus a holistic approach. He suggests that problems exist with both approaches. Neither approach considers the hermeneutic circle nor that understanding is a circular process. As he describes, we understand an individual word in relation to its context in the sentence, and we understand a sentence’s meaning through the individual words which make the sentence. Detailing the historical development of kairos and “situational context,” Kinneavy suggests that only through providing students with real communication situations can there be a high chance for the transfer of skills both on the sentence level and text level. Using this essay as an example, Kinneavy shows how the essay changed with the various audiences to whom he was presenting it.

Focusing on the four different competing theories by James Moffett, James Britton, Frank D’Angelo, and James Kinneavy’s own, Kinneavy demonstrates the compatibility of each, showing how each theory reinforces and supports the weaknesses of the other theories. In particular, three, Moffett, Britton, and Kinneavy, share many similarities since they all base their approaches on a semiotic structure of writer, reader, and subject. D’Angelo’s approach is included because of his emphasis on modes and aims in the areas of self-expression, literature, and persuasion. Taken together, these approaches can form a metasystem interested in function or the aims of language, modes, and kinds of audiences. Furthermore, they favor a holistic approach and teaching composition writing which is relevant to students’ situational and cultural contexts.

In a reaction to the 1980 publication of The Humanities in American Life by the Commission on the Humanities which reported a decline in humanities in colleges and universities, Kinneavy argues that the decline exists because of the exile of rhetoric from the humanities. He suggests that with the return of rhetoric (including the study of political speeches, religious sermons, legal persuasion in court, etc), the humanities can be restored. Detailing the rich history of rhetoric in Greek and Roman antiquities, Kinneavy shows how a traditional liberal arts education would develop students into participating members of society similar to the original intent of the Greco-Roman education. By allowing contemporary students to study the discourse of law, politics, and religion, rhetoric provides students a practical link between real life and the humanities. Furthermore, the traditional liberal arts education Kinneavy envisions would also emphasize the importance of persuasion. He suggests that this approach works well with minority students in particular because they grasp the effects of commercial, racial, and political rhetoric better as it applies to their real life situations.

Examining theory, history, and practice, Kinneavy discusses the “Writing Across the Curriculum” approach and how he envisions the implementation in the university setting. A university can implement the WAC approach in two different manners, the single subject approach or the centralized writing department approach. In the single subject approach, each discipline develops its own composition course wherein students learns to write in their field of study, possibly causing their writing to be too esoteric. The second alternative, the centralized writing department approach, keeps composition courses limited to the English department, causing the students’ writing to be too generalized for their particular field of study. Kinneavy argues for the implementation of both options where students will learn the discourse in their fields of study while still retaining the ability to write for a general audience. Furthermore, persuasive writing would be reincorporated into the basic course. This system would require more training on the part of faculty and the ability of different departments to communicate with each other.

Kinneavy examines a “rhetoric debate” in ancient Greece which developed from the competing theories of the Sophists, Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle. Historically, Isocrates won the “rhetorical debate’ since his philosophy endured the longest of all the others. The debate centers around the emphasis on theory or practice in which Isocrates emphasized practice and Plato, theory. The tension between practice and theory still exists today, and Kinneavy questions how much of old theory should be injected into classroom practice today. Essentially, the Sophists did not accept theory or certainty in knowledge while Plato reacts against the Sophist’s relativism seeking the ultimate truth. However, Plato does accept the concept of kairos, most notably linked to the Sophists, Gorgia, and Isocrates. Later, Aristotle incorporates kairos into his own philosophy which synthesizes both practice and theory, the Platonic certainty and the Sophists’ probability. In the end, Kinneavy observes that the current debate between theory and practice reflects that of old.

By examining the use of kairos, as conceived in Sophist, Platonic, and Cicero’s rhetorical theories, Kinneavy argues for its importance in contemporary composition theory. Though kairos can trace its origins back to Pythagoras, the Stoics, the Sophists, and Plato, its emphasis in rhetorical theory and practice diminished throughout history with the rise of Aristotle. Kairos essentially means adapting the appropriate discourse to the particular circumstance, place, speaker, and audience. Kinneavy pushes this concept into the contemporary composition classroom suggesting that these courses need to become more relevant to students’ lives, involving them in ethical, epistemological, rhetorical, and aesthetic and political dimensions. Using a WAC approach, Kinneavy envisions a writing program that spans four years and additionally requires students to address personal and social ethics in their discipline. Through the implementation of this program, including publishing student work in local, state, or national forums, Kinneavy hopes to make rhetoric more relevant to students’ lives and link humanities to the average person.

“New Rules for Readywriting Contests.” The Leaguer (Nov 1986).

This essay lists useful resources in the understanding of the WAC movement. In the first section, “Terminology and Definitions,” Kinneavy names several of the major proponents involved in WAC and briefly sketches the varying definitions as the movement took shape. In “Bibliographies and Collections,” the essay notes that no real comprehensive bibliography for the movement has been completed, but it does point to individuals who have generated varying bibliographies, including more specific bibliographies in technical writing. Finally, the section includes anthologies which provide a general view of WAC. Though short, the “Textbook” section includes textbooks specifically designed for the movement, including textbooks which address case report method of writing. Examining the movement as it has been implemented in France, Italy, the United States, and Great Britain, the section “Spread of the Movement and Typical Programs” provides different resources tracing WAC’s evolving nature in other countries and more explicitly how it has been applied in the United States, in particular to four different college and university programs. In “Theoretical Foundations,” the section addresses two major concerns, the question of audience and the different functions of language. Finally, the last section “Effects of Writing Across the Curriculum” lists a few studies which have collected empirical data on the success and/or failure of the programs.

“William Grimaldi: Reinterpreting Aristotle.” Philosophy and Rhetoric. XX, 3 (1987), 183–200.

While noting the revolutionary impact of process writing and its emphasis on student centered learning, Kinneavy argues that one problematical side of it consists in the lack of concern by some on product at all. Furthermore, often process only concerns itself with the moment a writer puts pen to paper. Kinneavy finds this definition too narrow and cites methods, such as research, writers use before writing anything down. Outlining Heidegger’s theory of “forestructure,” Kinneavy believes that process writing’s definition needs to be more comprehensive in nature. He argues that writing is not a linear process, but a process with incursions, recursions, and transformations which continue throughout the whole performance of writing. By applying this kind of approach, writing will resist formulaic styles and become more flexible and pluralistic.

This essay, designed for high school and elementary teachers, begins with different definitions of the term rhetoric. Kinneavy, for the purpose of this essay, refers to rhetoric as the study of discourse in teaching language arts. This study includes the aims and modes and also reading, writing, speaking and listening. In the beginning, rhetoric, meaning persuasion, generally referred to legal and political convictions and found its historical roots in Greek antiquity; however, today persuasion covers any subject matter or topic. Providing a good explanation of the communication triangle, the essay covers the four appeals, the ethical, emotional, logical, and stylistic. In “Rhetoric and the Other Aims of Language,” the other three aims, expository, creative, and expressive, are identified and defined. The modes in discourse have a subordinate role to the aims though sometimes historically the modes dominated the theory of composition. Currently, composition writing in language arts has moved to a more “content area” subject matter approach (also synonymous with the WAC approach). Furthermore, studies on reading, listening, writing, and speaking ultimately show that the emphasis may be placed too much on reading and not enough on listening. Consequently, educational programs are trying to shift their writing programs to take these studies into account. The essay finally concludes with a definition of grammar as it applies to rhetoric. Over time, this definition has developed into one that considers only the structure of language; however, Kinneavy citing different studies notes that the formalized teaching of grammar does little to improve writing.

The obvious admiration Kinneavy has for Corbett expresses itself in this review of Corbett’s work. Kinneavy divides the selected essays into three different groups: historical, theoretical, and analytical. He notes the skill in which Corbett adapts historical texts, making them relevant in current times. Among some of the historical figures Corbett contemporizes are Newman, Swift, Locke, Isocrates, and Blair. Though Kinneavy does not criticize the book, he credits Corbett’s larger corpus, and in particular Kinneavy mentions articles Corbett has written for the NCTE, several textbooks addressed to students, and his addresses to the populace in popular weekly or monthly publications.

“Theory, Theories, or Lack of Theory.” Composition Chronicle. V, 4 (May 1992), 5–6.

This essay discusses the importance of kairos in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, a neglected concept. In part the reason for this neglect results from two different deficiencies, lack of concern with the term kairos and its near absence in indexes and concordances. However, recent technological advances, particularly the computer program PERSEUS, make it possible to study the usage of this term and its variations in Aristotle’s work, revealing how the term is related to the main themes in Rhetoric. Kinneavy defines kairos in contemporary terms and observes how Aristotle and the Greeks applied it. Examining 16 different passages in Rhetoric, the article connects kairos with legal, political, and ceremonial rhetoric, particularly as it applies to equity and honor. Next, in the pathetic argument, emotions such as love, benevolence, pity and fear are all subject to situational context or kairos. Kinneavy also demonstrates that while kairos can apply to Aristotle’s ethical argument, it does not necessarily apply to his logical argument. Finally, Aristotle’s application of kairos to style and organization is abundantly clear. This article challenges the notion that Aristotle did not always adhere to the Platonic ideal.

After including a component of ethical writing in his composition courses at the University of Texas, Kinneavy has discovered that students lack the conceptual skills and the language necessary for writing about moral issues. He suggests that students have no access into ethical discourse because so many do not have any formal training in ethics. Instead, because of the influence of Nietzsche and some postmoderns, contemporary ethics promotes a completely individualistic approach to morality. Citing several groups and thinkers, Kinneavy notes the importance of developing a social ethic which centers around respect for life and shock at murder, sympathy for families, concern for the destruction of property, and solicitude for truth. By examining this social ethic from an anthropological view, Kinneavy observes that these same concerns are apparent in nearly every society across the globe. When implementing this social ethic in the classroom, Kinneavy remarks that there are some obstacles in motivating students to involve themselves in this ethical discourse. However, he suggests some different approaches which help students engage in the conversation in composition and literature.