Aurality (orality) in the rhetoric/composition classroom

After reading Cynthia Self's piece, The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning" Aurality and Multimodal Composing, and Doug Hesse's response to Self's piece, I found myself seemingly in the same position I was in before I read either or the pieces. I have always thought that as a student, and now an Instructor of college level English 101, that aurality/orality has always played an integral part in the composition classroom.

As an English 101 instructor I feel that I have consistently given credit to aurality/orality in the classroom, and as a student I have witnessed the same. In the class that I instructed today I orally discussed the lecture to the class, they got together with their classmates and discussed and wrote down their assignment, and then proceeded to write in on the board and orally communicate their response to the task to the class for them to hear and see simultaneously. And, as a student, I can remember when last semester we had a most enjoyable time discussing/hearing/writing about the type of "vernacular expressive arts" education that Self introduces in her piece which she feels we may be deviating from (624).

In My Contact Zone Rhetoric(s) course, we had a section where we studied story telling and vernacular expressive arts. During this time we read some, discussed a few, and then were able to also hear actual expressive arts/storytelling experiences that we were then able to use along with the written material as we were becoming more familiar with the entirety of it all. I definitely understand the value that Self and her colleagues are placing on aurality/orality, and specifically the vernacular expressive arts, but to say oratorical performances, debates, orations, and declamations are used to "build students' general skill in public speaking" and not to "encourage specialized inquiry" is a little bit unfair. I feel that, although those are some results of those exercises, it is not all that they are limited too - if that was the case, then why wouldn't we simply send the students to the comm departments to learn and engage in those specific activities?

I really do appreciate the effort that Self is exhibiting with her piece, but because I am a student of rhetoric, and an Instructor who teaches his 101 course with the focus question "what is rhetoric", I find it a little insulting that she would say "as teachers of rhetoric and composition, our responsibility is to teach students effective, rhetorically based strategies for taking advantage of all available means of communicating effectively and productively as literate citizens" (644). I feel confident in stating that the vast majority of rhetoric and composition instructor understand that part of their obligations to their students is to teach them all available means of communication because that is a piece to the actual definition of rhetoric. I even have had a colleague of mine already assign the Public Service Announcement (PSA) assignment that she offers up as an effective way to incorporate aurality/orality into the classroom (643). A lot of the information that I reading seemed like it has already been a part of the English field...which could also be a result of her articles and others in the field.

I did really appreciate the response from Doug Hesse, because we seem to share similar thoughts as it pertains to this discussion of aurality/orality. I, too, feel as if "I'm inclined to make a place for the aurality in my own teaching even as I ponder whether I'm overstepping or sidestepping professional roles that best serve student and social interests" (605).