This dissertation outlines a new method for teaching students about invention through the genre of the essay; I focus on helping students reflect upon their own composing and inventing processes in order to better understand how rhetorical invention strategies function for different writers across rhetorical situations and genres. I posit that the essay has become a misunderstood and misused genre in the composition classroom; composition and rhetoric has traditionally ignored the history of the essay as it developed from Montaigne’s meditations in favor of re-defining the essay as a school theme or composition only. Traditionally, the unfolding action of essays often mirrors the idea of witnessing thought in action—the emphasis is put on journeying through the problem or situation as it happens, which means essays do not always appear as explicitly thesis-driven texts. Instead, essayists frequently emphasize the process of coming to an idea before stating what that idea is. Essays often rely on the topoi of multiplicity (considering multiple viewpoints of an issue) and metaplicity (showing the writer’s invention and composing processes in the text), two strategies that may help students better understand how they use invention strategies to aid their composing processes.
The dissertation is divided into four chapters: Chapter One, “Essaying Invention Studies: An Introduction,” reviews the history of invention studies with special attention paid to the process and post-process movements in composition and rhetoric. Chapter Two, “Modes, Themes, Essays, Oh My: Essaying Definitions, Essaying Characteristics,” focuses on the genre of the essay as a specific invention place in the composition classroom. Chapter Three, “Essaying Topoi: Multiplicity, Metaplicity, and Invention,” investigates two popular topoi regularly used by essayists: the use of multiple viewpoints in considering an issue (what I call multiplicity) and the inclusion of a writer’s composing and invention processes in-text (what I call “metaplicity”). Chapter Four, “Essay, Essayer, Essaying: A Teaching Reflection,” describes a pilot study I conducted in 2008 in which I taught an advanced composition course with an emphasis on invention, process, and re-thinking the genre of the essay. I also include inter-chapters to represent my own processes throughout the dissertation.