Meet Gabby Bunko the author of “Reframing Writing, Rhetoric, and Literary Studies: A Mixed Method Approach to Interrogating Intersections"
Gabby Bunko graduated from Montana State University with a double major in Writing and Literature, specializing in rhetoric. She is the author of “Reframing Writing, Rhetoric, and Literary Studies: A Mixed Method Approach to Interrogating Intersections”.
The origin of Gabby’s fascination with this topic derives from a Public Rhetoric course that she took. While taking the course, she determined that there was a relationship between the rhetorical performance and literary elements of one of Frederick Douglass’ speeches. She wondered if Douglass’ speech was simultaneously a form of rhetorical writing and perceived as a work of literature. In her article, she argues that both rhetorical and literary analyses are associated with one another when reviewing assorted texts.
Gabby had taken various writing and literature classes and found a lot of intersectionality between them. She states that she “had noticed that we were using a lot of the same scholars, the same text, but in a very different way.” During her research, Gabby discovered a relationship between rhetorical and literary analysis and applied the same critical thinking skills to find their similarities. She expressed interest in how rhetoric shapes the narrative of a given text and how that can be helpful when approaching complicated texts. She acknowledged the history that writing and literature had with one another and sought to divulge some of the commonalities across both fields. Gabby believes that writing and rhetorical analysis are symbiotic with literature and literary analysis, where the styles and rhetoric embedded in writing are translated into many different works of literature.
Gabby approached her research with broad and generalized questions, which took some time to narrow. While attending the Naylor Workshop for Undergraduate Researchers, Gabby was able to revise her survey questions. “I originally had these very complicated technical survey questions that weren’t getting very many answers...They helped me narrow that down and ask pointed questions that were simple to answer.”
While compiling data and writing her analysis, Gabby struggled with a few different aspects. Though her methods were straightforward and meaningful, there were other possible directions she could have taken the research, so she had to keep reminding herself of the main focus. “The most difficult part was kind of narrowing down what findings do I want to talk about in this article...especially given that it’s Young Scholars in Writing and wanting to make sure that it felt relevant to Rhet Com people,” she explained. She also struggled with the literature review and finding “a way to create a through line to the actual findings” and ensuring it remained relevant to her research.
Gabby explained that she was surprised to find how much overlap there was between the conceptual metaphors found in both writing and literary studies: “I had assumed there would be more divergence, but it turns out we actually have quite a lot in common.” She also found the difference between “having the power to do something with reading or writing” versus “the power over” in literature very interesting.
Throughout the research and writing process, Gabby worked closely with a faculty member of Michigan State University, Dr. Doug Downs. Working with a mentor was irreplaceable to her as Dr. Downs aided in her “understanding of how you narrow down, or research... in the humanities, especially when we have more abstract stuff to work with.” Having that guiding figure to help point her in the right direction and being available to answer questions was an integral part of writing her article. Gabby suggested that finding the right mentor was a huge aspect and how “open communication is the best” alongside how important it is in “making sure that you guys actually click.”
When asked if she had any advice for others interested in submitting to Young Scholars in Writing, Gabby explained that she wishes she would have started writing and had “pull[ed] the trigger on this sooner” as that would have granted her more time to meet with different professors and have a larger pool of research. Because of her experience, she advised undergraduate researchers to begin their writing process as soon as they had the topic chosen. Gabby plans on continuing to pursue her passion for rhetorical writing and literary studies and is currently “working on doing another study that’s based on this one.”
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This post was initially developed through a partnership between Dr. Cope’s Fall 2023 WRT280: Research Methods students, who interviewed the author, and Dr. Cutrufello’s Fall 2023 WRT320: Digital Writing students, who drafted the post and was edited and updated by Lee Krauss.
