At some point it is good to shun the first person and embrace the clear mechanical voice of reason - the world less entangled with "me, myself and I" rhetoric I was able to break free from as an undergraduate. After reading this chapter, I am more convinced that the English teacher has the responsibility of going to neither extreme with the structured mechanisms of traditional rhetoric or the self-inflated, emotional stuff of romantic/renegade/ radical rhetoric to cultivate confident voices on paper. Johnson and Yancey reasonably make this point that bringing both to the table is a step toward solving the postmodern dillemmas that Williams gives an overview of. Of the different teaching models, the social theoretic model was intriguing to me. I cannot see how this would work with high school students. It brought Area A of the CSU GE Breadth requiremets sheet to mind. At El Camino College students can a take philosophy, pyschology and commuication studies course instead of English 1C - the critical thinking course for English. It demonstrates how the social theoretic model is part of our state University transfer system already, where students are jumpstarting their way into academic discourse community unprepared. At work I advise students to take english 1C first.
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