To continue with PWR Seniors Week, here are statements from the remaining six PWR seniors about what they’ve gotten out of the PWR program.

Maggie Achey

I loved my time as a PWR major because it afforded me the opportunity to work with a variety of client partners within the Burlington community on hands-on deliverables. The translation of theory into practice came alive with my work with Family Abuse Services of Alamance County and Friendship Adult Day Services. I feel that I grew as a professional communicator and collaborator through writing for real audiences. 

Hillary Dooley

PWR has given me the skills and practice to be successful as I enter the workforce. I am thankful for everything I have learned and for the dedication of all my wonderful professors.

Kim Lilienthal

PWR has helped me strengthen my oral and written communication skills and adapt and apply them in different situations. I’ve grown as a collaborator, a leader, and a writer and I’m confident that I can take these skills with me when I leave Elon.

Emily Bishop

Professional Writing and Rhetoric has taught me how to be adaptable. Whether it is with my writing, my communications with friends and family, or working with a group on a project, I have developed skills that allow me to be versatile in almost any situation.

Dannie Cooper

PWR has taught me so many things, but mostly it has taught me how to be a confident writer in any situation. In my time studying rhetoric, I have had many opportunities to grow and develop my writing skills. I look forward to taking the lessons I’ve learned from rhetoric and applying them in my career and in my life!

Paige Ransbury

The PWR program has given me many opportunities to develop my writing and editing skills, learn successful strategies for collaboration, and navigate diverse writing technologies and multimedia platforms. Most meaningfully for me, though, is how it compels me to act consciously and ethically in the world. 

This week is PWR Seniors Week in CUPID Studio. Last Thursday, these seniors presented their capstone projects as a part of CELEBRATE! week. To commemorate their hard work and success in the PWR program, I’ll be sharing statements from each senior about what they are taking away from their time studying PWR.

Immanuel Bryant

PWR has served as a means of disciplining my written, verbal and nonverbal skills. By improving this skills I feel confident performing within any mental, physical or social space I am within.

Taylor Hill

Being a student of rhetoric has taught me the impact of language and how it is used to effectively express and transmit ideas through various mediums. Without rhetoric, there would be no such thing as “getting your point across.”

Ellen Fraser

My experience in the PWR concentration has taught me analyze a situation rhetorically by recognizing who the audience is, who I am in relationship to this audience, and how I might effectively communicate a message to it based upon context. Learning these skills has lead me to pursue a career where I can use my writing to inform, persuade, and engage others with the message of organizations about which I feel passionate.

Rachel Lewis

As a result of my time in the PWR program, I have gained both hard and soft skills. I am more comfortable with written and oral communication as a result of client projects and daily pod work, and as a result of this work I am a strong collaborator. The skills that I have gained as a PWR student have made me much more marketable and have helped me become someone who is able to benefit a group or an organization in many different ways, as I can be a writer, a speaker, an editor, or a designer.

Kelsey O’Connell

PWR taught me about analyzing any situation I’m confronted with. I also learned to utilize both the rhetoric of persuasion and the rhetoric of collaboration.

Christine Meyer

Professional Writing and Rhetoric has given me growth and confidence in my analyzing and writing skills. The concentration has helped me have the ability to view contexts from a rhetorical perspective while providing exposure to multiple areas of study. Thank you, PWR!

Check back Wednesday to see the statements from the remaining PWR seniors!

As I stated on Monday, this week I will be focusing on the research of Sarah Paterson, a junior PWR major with minors in communication and political science and an Elon University Honor’s Fellow.

Sarah Paterson photographed by Rachel Lewis

In Monday’s post, we learned about Sarah’s thesis and how the idea came about. In this post, we will learn about how Sarah’s thesis has shifted as time has passed and how her research connects with the field of PWR.

Changes in research plans
Anyone who has done research can tell you that it is very rare that the first research plan is the one that reaches finality. Paterson attested to this when asked how her idea for her thesis has changed and developed over time.

“When I was coming up with my research my freshman year, my original thesis idea was going to be for a business plan for a self-publishing website for young adults who write. The website made it so they could accept donations and basically be paid to write. Young people’s voices get devalued all the time. Why don’t we let them write and put a monetary value on it? It was a grand idea but not really feasible.”

Goals of her current research
Like many students in the department, Paterson studies various subjects in addition to PWR. With minors in communications and political science, Paterson had a lot of areas to work within when it came to her research.

“I intentionally wanted to make my project bridge my major and my minors – English, communications, political science. I wrote them down and stared at them and tried to choose, but I wanted a project that included elements of all of those things.”

Paterson found this in spoken word and performance poetry.

“Talking about your identity and what it means to be young in America or what it means to be black in America or what it means to be gay in America is all very political. Even if my project is not picking out politics from poems, I am still discussing political issues.”

Poetry and rhetoric
When we think rhetoric, we don’t always think of poetry, and Paterson is trying to change that with her research. She argues that the ties between rhetoric and poetry are deeper than we often imagine, and she says that spoken word and performance poetry are a means of making the study of rhetoric accessible to a wider audience.

“A lot of what I have to do as a part of this project is argue that poetry is an important part of our future understanding of rhetoric.”

She recalled a specific example of this connection that left her stunned and convinced that poetry keeps rhetoric relevant.

“The organizer of this [spoken word] event talked about the history of spoken word. Not only did they talk about the history of ancient Greek but the history of Africa – and most people don’t do that! They don’t talk about Africa when they talk about oral history. [The organizer] talked about history and the history of rhetoric in a room full of strangers from ages 10 to 70 and made it so accessible. I’m huge on accessibility – you have to hit people where they are – and for rhetoric and language to be made that accessible to a community, to get a mini history lesson in what it means to participate in oral culture, I was like ‘This is so cool!’”

Sarah doesn’t believe that poetry is ever not rhetorical.

“Obviously you’re making rhetorical decisions [as a spoken word poet]. What do you wear? What do you say? Where is the light? Do you have a spotlight? Do you talk to the audience before you start? Are you stomping your foot to get the audience to respond to you? Are you being judged? What are you doing to get a higher score? That’s rhetorical!”

This week is the first of several that will focus on highlighting research done by Professional Writing and Rhetoric students at Elon. For this week, I interviewed Sarah Paterson, a junior PWR major with minors in communication and political science and an Elon University Honor’s Fellow.

Sarah Paterson photographed by Rachel Lewis

Being introduced to multicultural rhetoric
Upon being asked for an overview of her research, Paterson said that she is looking at spoken word and performance poetry of teenagers to look at how they use multicultural rhetoric. She credits the article “Multiculturalism, Rhetoric, and the 21st Century” by Steven Goldzwig with her understanding of multicultural rhetoric.

“In this article, [Goldzwig] argues that the future of rhetoric is in multiculturalism and that it is, and will be, inherently political by nature.  He gives these three of what he calls ‘dialectical tensions of rhetoric’ that characterize multicultural rhetoric – difference in identity, voice and silence, and power and authority. Basically I’m looking at kids’ performances and if they talk about these things and if these three tensions are present in their performances; if not, what are they talking about?”

On the subject of how successful this theory seems to play out in practice, Paterson stated, “Is he right? I think he is, so far.”

Not only is Paterson interested in the topic of multicultural rhetoric, she relates on a deeper level to the students employing it.

“I’m just excited for a room full of kids who are not afraid to say what’s going on in their head. I’m really impressed by people that age who are willing to say what they think without reservation.”

Drawn to spoken word & performance poetry
When asked about what drew her to her research, Paterson recalled her experiences with the Duke Young Writers Program and how it shaped her view of writing and writing communities.

“Since I was 13 years old, I’ve been going to this summer camp at Duke, the Duke Young Writers Program, and I was there as a camper for 4 years, and I now work there [and have for 3 years]. When I was there as a kid, it was just like this magical kind of fantasy place, it wasn’t real life, it was a place where people liked and supported each other and did creative things in their spare time and also played guitar and, you know, like were not afraid to be themselves. It seemed like a place outside of middle or high school.

That was a thing that I really, really loved as a kid and didn’t find at all in the community where I grew up. When we moved to Chapel Hill, a friend of mine who had been in camp with me was like ‘Hey, there’s this slam poetry contest, do you want to come with me?’ I was taking a gap year so I was like, why not. And I got there, and it felt kind of like camp.

I started going to all of their events. Every once in a while someone would do a really good poem and I would be such a fangirl, I would go up to them and be like ‘I loved that poem, it was really really good.’”

The moment of clarity
Deciding what to research is a daunting task, and after a lot of thought on the subject, Paterson found her answer in a parking lot.

“I took some friends of mine to go see the Grand Slam Final 2012 at Carborro High School, and in the parking lot one of my friends turns to me and is like, ‘You could do your thesis about this.’

I was like, ‘Oh my god, I could do my thesis about this.'”

The Goldzwig piece was what really held weight in how she went about her research.

“My research was originally more political in nature, and while going through and reviewing my literature I got really stuck on the Goldzwig piece. I really thought his ideas were interesting and he said cool things in a cool way and I had all these like, neon index cards and every time [Goldzwig] said something cool about rhetoric or politics or multiculturalism I would write it down and I realized I wanted to be where he was.

When it came to refining my project and finding something feasible for a 2-year thesis, I decided that this was the thing – lets talk about multiculturalism and what it means.”

The final product
As a part of her thesis, Paterson seeks to create a deliverable that can help encourage discussions of multiculturalism as well as assist those looking to get involved with spoken word and performance poetry.

“Another part of my project is that I’m going to write a 30-page research paper or article, and I’m going to create a website that is a resource for teachers who want to include conversations about multiculturalism in a high school or middle school classroom. The website will include videos, audio, and photography from the poetry slams I attend – kids performing poetry, interviews, photos at events, photos at the spaces they perform in  – and make it available in a multimedia resource. If not for teachers, this website will be for kids who are interested in being a part of this organization.”

Sarah Paterson explores her research goals and the relation of her studies to PWR in more depth in Wednesday’s CUPID post.