John Duffy is considered the prominent theorist on ethics in composition classrooms. Through Duffy's work, we can clearly see how ethics are tied to the teaching styles of those whose goals are improvement of students and citizens (Frisicaro-Pawlowski 111). His primary argument is that writing requires that we make ethical choices. Writing must involve these choices, Duffy argues, because when we write for a particular audience, we are creating a relationship with that reader. Creating this relationship will necessarily involve “human values and virtues” (“Writing Involves Making Ethical Choices” 31). By fostering certain relationships with our readers, we writers must therefore decide our positions on certain ethical concerns.
Ethical concerns is not always simple. Duffy makes it clear that we should not being making judgments about whether a writer is ethical or not. We cannot even assume that another writer is consciously making ethical decisions, or thinking about ethics while they are writing (“Writing Involves Making Ethical Choices” 31). Rather, ethics subconsciously influence us as we write, and as we write we unconsciously refine our own ethics.
There are two major theories about ethics in Western philosophy. One is about the ethics of obligations, and the other is about the ethics of outcomes (Duffy, “The Good Writer” 230; Frisicaro-Pawlowski 127). The first often seems strict to us in our classrooms (Duffy, “The Good Writer” 240). Demanding perfect grammar and adherence to often arcane rules certainly creates an obligation for students, but it may be less important in your writing classroom than other concepts. The second often seems unavoidable in a classroom. After all, Duffy argues, a certain performance in a composition has a certain outcome – the paper's grade (241). But Duffy does not focus on these two major theories; rather, his argument is based in Aristotle's virtue ethics (230). There are various ethical virtues that can be utilized in compositions.
The connections between rhetoric and ethics is not a new one. Discussions of including ethics in the classroom have been “common and crucial” since the development of the field known as rhetoric and composition (Frisicaro-Pawlowski 110). Rhetoric used to be seen as good citizenship, and this view continues with the emphasis on writing in general education.
It is not Duffy's position that we should be teaching ethics in composition classes, but that we are already involved in rhetorical ethics in such classes. Deciding how to address particular audiences often involves ethics-related decisions – what information do we include, and what presentation? When teachers guide students with these questions, when teachers help students make certain choices, Duffy argues, teachers and students are exploring together “what it means to be, in an ethical sense, a 'good writer'” (“The Good Writer” 230).
Much of Duffy's argument involves the writer's understanding of their audience. Sometimes, a writer knows their work will not be read, because they have no audience, or because they never intend to circulate the work, or because their work is one in a massive pile that will only be ignored. In such cases, their work cannot be judged by the results of that work, because there is no result. Instead, the virtues expressed in the work itself will provide a way to judge the composition. However, the writing a student produces or creates in a composition class will have an audience that they must consider, that they might cater to. A good writer, in this way, is a writer who can write compositions that manage friendships between writer and reader, even if writers and readers are at odds in cultural competitions or conflicts (“The Good Writer” 242).
There are many ways to involve rhetorical virtues such as honesty, integrity, and open-mindedness. Duffy offers examples for these virtues. When a student learns how to make a claim and offer evidence to support that claim, the student is also learning about honesty, rationality, and mutual respect. When a student learns how to conduct research and evaluate evidence, the student is also learning about personal integrity and accountability. When a student learns about counterarguments and why we often include them in our argumentative writing, the student is also learning about the importance of being open-minded (“The Good Writer” 238). These virtues are essential in rhetorical arguments, even if they are not classified as such.
Students can participate outside of specific compositions as well. Students can consider how they demonstrate their own responsibility or flexibility in their compositions, and students can consider how their understanding of such concepts are shaped by the ethics of obligations or consequences, or the ethics of rhetorical virtues (Frisicaro-Pawlowski 128).
Teaching writing also involves making ethical choices. There is a need for materials for these instructors (Wysocki 3). One example of making a clear, ethical choice is in the acceptance or rejection of informal dialects. Some teachers expect their students to switch to a new, “possibly strange or hostile,” dialect with the accompanying values for the culture presented in that dialect (“Students' Right” 8). Some students choose to make the switch, but others resist. Some students will choose different roles for different dialects, and this is a very social decision (11). A social decision is a decision about relationships, and as Duffy argues, decisions about our relationships are ethical ones (“Writing Involves Making Ethical Choices” 31). Some teachers who are “moved by the image of the 'melting pot',” try to convince their students that they must follow exacting rules put forth in grammar books, and these teachers dismiss students as failures for not conforming to this formality (“Students' Right” 13).
It is important to remember that certain practices cannot be generally applied. Teachers and students in the writing classroom must take into account the needs of the community and the goals of the program; discussions of rhetorical virtues might be beneficial in one classroom and frustrating in another (Duffy, “The Good Writer” 244). Often, students can help guide instructors on how to improve the atmosphere of the classroom (Wysocki 45). Our focus on particular traditions can impair students' abilities and their sense of agency (Frisicaro-Pawlowski 127; Wysocki 7). It also affects instructors' assessments. When we define good writing, we are also defining good writers (Frisicaro-Pawlowski 127). How do we as instructors create an approach to teaching that is ethical and effective (117)?
Frisicaro-Pawlowski argues that Duffy's virtue-based model is incomplete, since it does not resolve the moral and professional conflict between respecting students' desire to write their own stories and respecting instructors' desire to show the links between teaching and ethics (118). It is of course important that instructor has goals for their classroom, but Selfe suggests that teachers must be “willing to expand their own understanding” (Wysocki 54). Frisicaro-Pawlowski points out that all ethics – even the rhetorical virtues listed by Duffy – are systemic. They are not only enacted by individual instructors, but also the institutions that employ those instructors (127). These systems can perpetuate “inequitable patterns” in classrooms across the country (Wysocki 49). This recognition allows us to begin to interrogate the traditions in classrooms and the ways that ethics have already been included in those traditions. It also allows students to understand and engage with “traditional assumptions about the good student, the good writer, or the good person” by bringing to light the ethics that shape our roles in the classroom (Frisicaro-Pawlowski 127).
As instructors, we do not have to force students to mimic us or to flatter our ability to arbitrate ethical concerns in rhetoric (Frisicaro-Pawlowski 131). But discussing ethics with our students will imbue them with the responsibility for managing their own ethical concerns in their compositions (131). The Conference on College Composition and Communication suggests that teachers of writing should focus on increasing complex reading comprehension and cultivating sophisticated composition skills in our students, no matter their chosen dialects or styles (“Students' Right” 10).
Duffy, John. “The Good Writer: Virtue Ethics and the Teaching of Writing.” College English, vol. 79, no. 3, 2017, pp. 229-250. ProQuest, search.proquest.com/docview/1856869301?accountid=8361.
—–. “Writing Involves Making Ethical Choices.” Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies, edited by Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle, Utah State UP, 2015, pp. 31–32.
Frisicaro-Pawlowski, Erica. “Rhetorical Ethics and the Language of Virtue: Problems of Agency and Action.” College English, vol. 82, no. 2, 2018, pp. 110-132. National Council of Teachers of English, library.ncte.org/journals/ce/issues/v81-2/29859.
“Students' Right to Their Own Language.” College Composition and Communication, vol. XXV, 1974. National Council of Teachers of English, ncte.org/blog/2015/03/students-right-to-their-own-language.
Wysocki, Anne Frances, et al. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. University Press of Colorado, 2004. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46nzc9.