I can't help but wonder if it could be possible that Bain and Hill are merely turning the rich classical tradition into a formulaic way of teaching and conceptualizing rhetoric as sort of a way of having "Writing Made Easy." Almost similar to a "Hooked on Phonics" mechanism. With this function students are taught to master reading, spelling, etc. Why should it matter that they are taught through the most basic and elemental steps of reading; all that matters is that they are learning the necessary steps to be able to do so.

I lead with that particular example to simply say that it shouldn't matter if these authors are prescriptive. And by way of learning to construct "good" rhetoric, I don't believe that it can be stultified, especially not when teaching. I think the main focus is that the master conveys the information to the pupil, not how he does it. I think that it should be "dumb down" to the lowest level, if necessary, so that the concepts are grasped and understood and then advanced to higher levels or comprehension. I think direct guidance to be indispensable and I don't believe it would "so terribly violate a rhetorical pedagogy." If anything it would help in gaining a better understanding of it. I definitely agree that there is a way to accomplish what ancients recommend by still offering students guidelines or templates. Students can't expect to reach these prominent and seemingly unattainable levels with little to no direction. I believe the more direction given, the better steered pupils will be.

I didn’t think Bain and Hill offered anything new. They are prescriptive, but I would characterize my response to them as “f you” rather than “stultified.” I suppose for very basic levels of writing their guidance might be useful, but you are going to have to move on to a more rounded rhetorical education like Quintillian described at some point. I also don’t see what’s so wrong with what the ancients recommended. Why is what they offered so unattainable? In striving for perfection, we become much more than we would have, could have, or perhaps should have been.

I share the opinions with the rest of the class about writing. These guidelines are useful tools for a student. The problems with formulaic writing in our current educational system lies with big classrooms and teachers as chris and jeremy pointed out. Unfortunately, for those students who are very rule-oriented, guidelines can often seem like a mandatory rule rather than a suggestion. I think these guidelines become stifling because they are constantly reinforced and having a standardized formula makes it easier for a teacher to grade so they are unwilling to propose new writing styles.

I just wrote a long response to this prompt but somehow my computer didn't let me post it and now I have to write it all over so I'm going to try my hardest to remember all of the things I said. I think that there has to be some sort of balance between incorporating the theories of ancient rhetoricians and the more mechanical approach as Bain and Hill take in teaching students rhetoric and writing. Students usually start learning the fundamentals of writing such as parts of speech and formation of an essay around the middle school age. By high school, students should be challenged to take those fundamentals a step further and apply them to critical thinking and being able to write on broad subject matters. It can be argued that by following these rules, it inhibits the students creativity and ability to critically think but for the most part I think that following a structured set of rules can be helpful for these aged students. Students are able to go by an agenda of right and wrong in terms of writing which goes hand and hand with their mentality anyways at this age. It is at the collegiate level that these rules should be elevated and applied even further. I think that it is appropriate for the theories of ancient rhetoricians to be introduced at this time to not only writing courses but all writing across genres. I don't think that Quintilian would think that Bain and Hill's approach to teaching rhetoric is " a terrible violation of his rhetorical pedagogy." The best attempt to create a "perfect" pedagogy for rhetoric would be a blending of both the formulaic method and the classical method of teaching. The rules that a student learns at the beginning should allow for a template for them to go by. After some practice and experience, the classical theories should then be applied still maintaining some sort of nostalgia for the rules learned at the beginning.

While I agree the standard essay format of today's schools do not allow for much creativity or tailoring, you would be hard pressed to find a middle or high school student that feels inhibited by sticking to a five-paragraph structure. The methods touted by the authors aren't meant to "dumb down" the importance of writing. The shift to a prescriptive method of teaching writing isn't a regression of the art, but more-so a necessary evil considering the changing times.

In Classical times, students of rhetoric were often taught by masters of rhetoric. They had the individualized attention and discipline enforced by their tutors to immediately create works which appealed to the beliefs of a given audience. In the age of public schools and 30:1 student to teacher ratios, a prescriptive guide to writing is the most effective way to teach basic rules to students. Once a student reaches their third or fourth year of high school( at the very latest) then instruction should begin on more advanced writing techniques.

In the absence of a skilled master such as Isocrates directly teaching his craft to students, direct guidance and formulaic principles are the next best methods for instruction.

I find that the rhetorical pedagogy advocated by Bain and Hill shares many elements of that advocated by the ancients, and thus many of the same merits and limitations. Bain, in the manner of Quintilian and Cicero, suggests that to become a good student of rhetoric, one must become acquainted with a wide variety of knowledge. "The command of language," he says, "is a grand total, resulting from the practice of life." This implies two things: that one's writing will improve with greater exposure to others' works, but also that an increase in knowledge generally is necessary to become an effective communicator.

Furthermore, Bain's discussion of the three ends of rhetoric--to inform, to persuade, and to please--is reminiscent of Aristotle's three types of speeches. To inform, to persuade, and to please correspond to understanding, will, and feeling, respectively, and I believe this categorization is an impediment to a proper understanding of good rhetoric because in reality, the categories are much less distinct. A persuasive speech must inform an audience of certain facts otherwise it will be without substance, likewise it must engender feeling in its audience in order to incite them to action. Categorizing rhetoric in the above manner is likely to result in the writer focusing too much on one mode of communication to the exclusion of the other to, when it is clear that most good speeches need to address all three faculties of the human mind in order to communicate effectively.

Finally, Bain,Hill, Aristotle, and Quintilian all discuss elements of style, grammar, and arrangement. Why, then, are the modern thinkers accused of contributing to the "formulizing" of writing, when the ancients were also concerned with correct word choice and organization? It seems that the difference is to be found in their degree of attention to good writing. Bain and Hill offer a "zoomed in" picture of one aspect of the writing process, and Bain admits that there is another side to becoming a good writer that he does not address: the aforementioned belief that to become a good writer one must accumulate a large body of knowledge. Aristotle and Quintilian were believed that becoming a good orator was a holistic process, probably a product of a civilization in which education itself was a holistic process, rather than a several units of discrete knowledge. Today, teachers are not expected to make their students good people; they are simply expected to teach them subject matter. But in reality, academic subject matter (just like the subject matter of speeches) cannot be divided cleanly into distinct categories without the loss of many common elements, for example, virtue. When we divide up subjects, we gain in that we can examine each exhaustively--but we lose the education that comes from understanding their shared roots.

I would lastly like to defend the utility of analyzing sentences and paragraphs and debunk its connection to the horrid five-paragraph essay. The knowledge of how to effectively use literary devices and put "proper words in proper places" does not at all imply conformity. The standard of good writing, in my opinion, is how effectively it communicates the writer's thoughts and intentions . Writing that is logical, direct, beautiful, and employs apt forms and tropes, will achieve this better than writing that lacks these qualities; this is true of writing from all ages. The five paragraph-essay teaches students the opposite: that if one meets certain qualifications, their writing will be good, which in effect makes students focus on the "outside" rather than the "inside" of their writing, which is the arrangement of words, sentences, and paragraphs. So a student who analyzes great works in order to identify an author's figures and tropes, and why they contribute to the effectiveness of a piece, are not learning 'rules': they are learning what about moves the hearts and minds of people.

In the reading, I did not find that either one of these authors was overly prescriptive, and I would not blame them for any "decline" from the classical to the modern tradition. It appears to me that neither Bain nor Hill can be considered truly "responsible" for the (horrible) five-paragraph essays that so many middle and high school students are expected to produce. None of the ideas that they advocate suggested to me a stifling study.

Rather, I believe that Bain and Hill are promoting a very useful rhetorical pedagogy. I agree that a writer should first "constantly aim to make himself intelligible, sure that if he does not succeed in doing this, other merits will be of little avail, and that if he does succeed, other merits will be likely to come unsought. To this end, he should obtain as extensive a command of the language as possible" (p. 1149). A rhetorician can have a command of all the tropes and figures in the world, and still not produce a cogent piece of writing. I think that Bain and Hill, by advocating the teaching of a strong command of the language, have a good starting place for the student of rhetoric.

I do not think that these authors are so prescriptive that they are stultifying. Personally, I feel that the five paragraph essay has helped me through many writing assignments as I was learning how to write. Although it is limiting, I feel that the spider web and the introduction, body, conclusion style helps organize muddled ideas and articulate them onto paper. Some direct guidance does not terribly violate a rhetorical pedagogy such as Quintillian or Isocrates because within the structure you still have the opportunity to tailor your work to the audience. The structure does not determine the content. I find it necessary for students to have guidelines, and even templates to steer them in the right direction in elementary school to express themselves in an eloquent as well as coherent fashion. As the student becomes a more advanced writer, he/she can create their own template and style of writing.

"To each his own method, style, wit, eloquence" (1151)