Young, Richard. “Arts, Crafts, Gifts, Knacks: Some Disharmonies in the New Rhetoric”. Visible Language (14)4 341-350.

• “new rhetoricians” divided over rhetorical art as a vitalist theory of art and composing: a technical theory (theories and pedagogical successes of both groups suggest in some sense that both are right in their approach)
• glamour and grammar were originally the same word – combining the magical and rationalistic aspects of speech (341)
• qtd. John Genung (The Practical Elements of Rhetoric, 1892) wrote that it concerns itself with the entire process of making literature, in being/embodying, but that in practical application, creatives acts must be excluded – particularly those of the composing process
• practical = can be taught
• which turns into the conventions and mechanics of discourse
• creative = cannot be taught, of a person (342)
• for Genung, “rhetoric was a body of information about the forms and norms of competent prose and their uses in the later stages of the composing process – the rhetoric of the finished word” (342)
• longstanding argument = dynamic of conceptualizing vs. creative discovery
• “traditional rhetoric” skill in expressing preconceived arguments or points of view
• “new rhetoric” exploration of ideas: the process of composition is discovery
• new rhetoric is not homogeneous however…almost as divided as new and traditional rhetoric
• “new romanticism” (Frank D’Angelo): vitalist philosophy with modern psychology blended approach that stresses the composing process should be relatively free of deliberate control (primacy of imagination) – how is mystery taught?
• art contrasts with craft: art is magic/mystery (cannot be taught) while craft is skill (can be taught)
• “the teaching of writing as writing is the teaching of writing as art” (qting. William Coles 343)
• art cannot be taught: when writing is not taught as art, it is being taught as something else — we must make possible what is impossible to do
• change the role of the teacher (344): designer of occasions that stimulate the creative process
• The “new classicists” considered the “art” of teaching writing a little differently.  Young claims that they see art as “the knowledge necessary for producing preconceived results by conscious directed action” (344).  In this sense, the new classicists see the teaching of writing as a “knack” or a habit acquired through repeated practice and experience.
• art contrasts with craft and knack
• art: knowledge to produce preconceived results by conscious action
• craft: experiential
• knack: habit through repeated experience
• but knacks can turn into arts when they are isolated and generalized as successful
• “technical theory of art” – art as grammar (R.G. Collingwood, 1958)
• new classists teach “heuristics” – strategies for effective guessing (345), not rule governed procedures
• “heuristic”: series of questions or operations whose results are provisional; not wholly conscisous or mechanical; intuition, relevant knowledge, and skill are necessary
• each situation isn’t unique, but a kind of situation encountered before
• some phases can be carried out deliberately and rationally
• nice distinction between heuristic and rule governed in application/execution (345)
• “If the creative process has generic features, if some of its phases can be consciously directed, and if heuristic procedures can be developed as aids, then it can be taught. Or to be more precise, certain aspects of the creative process can be taught…” (345-6)
• tagmemic rhetoric informs rhetoric as heuristic application of principles characteristic of tagmemic linguistics (12 principles) – recognizing, knowing features, understanding variance (346)
• “we do tricks in order to know” (William Stafford, 1962) – coaxing intuitions of reasonable solutions (347)
• “But I am concerned here not only with what we do when engaged in intellectual exploration, I am also concerned with what we can do to increase our control over the activity, to make it more effective than it might otherwise be” (347)
• danger of technical theory of art is the over-rationalization of the composing process (348); heuristics can become rule-goverened procedures by ignoring our non-rational powers
• balancing reason and imagination: “both-and” or “either-or”