Arts, Crafts, Gifts, and Knacks

Abstract

Despite sharing assumptions about the value of studying and teaching the process of composing, especially the earliest stages of discovery and invention, those teachers and scholars who have come to be known as the "new rhetoricians" are divided on assumptions about the nature of rhetorical art, some holding a vitalist theory of art and composing, other holding a technical theory. The theories influence judgments about what can be taught in the composing process and how it can be taught. The division creates a dilemma for the rhetorician since the durability of the theories and the pedagogical successes of both groups suggests that in some sense both are right.