Political Literacy in Composition and Rhetoric

Political Literacy in Composition and Rhetoric PDF

Author: Donald Lazere

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2015-07-20

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0809334291

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In Political Literacy in Composition and Rhetoric, Donald Lazere calls for revival of NCTE resolutions in the 1970s for teaching the “critical reading, listening, viewing, and thinking skills necessary to enable students to cope with the persuasive techniques in political statements, advertising, entertainment, and news,” and explores the reasons these goals have been eclipsed in composition studies over recent decades. Obstacles to those goals have included the emphasis in the profession on basic and first year writing at the expense of more advanced study in argumentative rhetoric, and on the privileging of students’ personal writing over critical study of both academic and political discourse. Lazere further argues that theorists who legitimately champion students’ pluralistic local communities sometimes fail to recognize that liberal education can enable students to grow beyond their home cultures to critical awareness of national and international politics. Finally, he argues that the fixation in recent composition studies on liberally-inclined students and communities “on the margins” has eclipsed attention to the conservative conformity long prevalent in mainstream American society and education. His proposals for curriculum and pedagogy seek to introduce students to a more highly-informed, cogent, and open-ended level of debate between the political left and right.

Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy

Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy PDF

Author: Donald Lazere

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-10-07

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1351689029

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This rhetoric-and-reader textbook teaches college students to develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills for self-defense in the contentious arena of American civic rhetoric. This edition is substantially updated for an era of renewed tensions over race, gender, and economic inequality—all compounded by the escalating decibel level and polarization of public rhetoric. Readings include civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander on "the new Jim Crow," recent reconsiderations of socialism versus capitalism, Naomi Wolf’s and Christine Hoff Sommers’ opposing views on "the beauty myth," a section on the rhetoric of war, and debates on identity politics, abortion, and student debt. Designed for first-year or more advanced composition and critical thinking courses, the book trains students in a wealth of techniques to locate fallacies and other weaknesses in argumentation in their prose and the writings of others. Exercises also help students understand the ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that underlie opposing views, from Ann Coulter to Bernie Sanders. Widely debated issues of whether objectivity is possible and whether there is a liberal or conservative bias in news and entertainment media, as well as in education itself, are foregrounded as topics for rhetorical analysis.

Political Literacy

Political Literacy PDF

Author: Fredric G. Gale

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1994-02-03

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1438403623

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Political Literacy confronts and responds to the question: What is required of the citizens of a democracy to ensure their individual and social rights? Exploring the rhetoric of legal interpretation, this book answers that citizens must be so educated as to have an intellectual awareness of the inherently rhetorical nature of language. Political Literacy explodes the myth that justice is delivered in the measured, seemingly disinterested, written decisions of America's highest courts. Instead, it reveals the political nature of legal opinions and their necessarily ideological perspectives. Using arguments and examples from a variety of ancient and modern writers and thinkers, the book defines political literacy for the first time. Fredric Gale passionately calls for changes in the way the public is educated about the justice system and about the risk of complacency in this crucial area of public life.

Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy

Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy PDF

Author: Donald Lazere

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 1351552287

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'Lazere's [book] is heaven-sent and will provide a crucial link in the chain of understanding how conflicts are structured and, most importantly, how they can be rationally addressed - a healthy antidote to the scepticism that has become so pervasive in academic life.' Alan Hausman, Hunter College This innovative book addresses the need for college students to develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills for self-defence in the contentious arena of American civic rhetoric. In a groundbreaking reconception of composition theory, it presents a comprehensive critical perspective on American public discourse and practical methods for its analysis. Exercises following the text sections and readings help students understand the ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that underlie opposing viewpoints in current controversies - such as the growing inequality of wealth in America and its impact on the finances of college students - as expressed in paired sets of readings from the political left and right. Widely debated issues of whether objectivity is possible and whether there is a liberal or conservative bias in news and entertainment media, as well as in education itself, are foregrounded as topics for rhetorical analysis.

Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy

Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy PDF

Author: Donald Lazere

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-03

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 1317264592

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This brief edition of a groundbreaking textbook addresses the need for college students to develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills for self-defense in the contentious arena of American civic rhetoric. Designed for first-year or more advanced composition and critical thinking courses, it is one-third shorter than the original edition, more affordable for students, and easier for teachers to cover in a semester or quarter. It incorporates up-to-date new readings and analysis of controversies like the growing inequality of wealth in America and the debates in the 2008 presidential campaign, expressed in opposing viewpoints from the political left and right. Exercises help students understand the ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that underlie such opposing views. Widely debated issues of whether objectivity is possible and whether there is a liberal or conservative bias in news and entertainment media, as well as in education itself, are foregrounded as topics for rhetorical analysis.

Shaping Language Policy in the U.S.

Shaping Language Policy in the U.S. PDF

Author: Scott Wible

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2013-02-08

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0809331357

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In Shaping Language Policy in the U.S.: The Role of Composition Studies, author Scott Wible explores the significance and application of two of the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s key language policy statements: the 1974 Students’ Right to Their Own Language resolution and the 1988 National Language Policy. Wible draws from a wealth of previously unavailable archived material and professional literature to offer for the first time a comprehensive examination of these policies and their legacies that continue to shape the worlds of rhetoric, politics, and composition. Wible demonstrates the continued relevance of the CCCC’s policies, particularly their role in influencing the recent, post-9/11 emergence of a national security language policy. He discusses in depth the role the CCCC’s language policy statements can play in shaping the U.S. government’s growing awareness of the importance of foreign language education, and he offers practical discussions of the policies’ pedagogical, professional, and political implications for rhetoric and composition scholars who engage contemporary debates about the politics of linguistic diversity and language arts education in the United States. Shaping Language Policy in the U.S. reveals the numerous ways in which the CCCC language policies have usefully informed educators’ professional practices and public service and investigates how these policies can continue to guide scholars and teachers in the future.

RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION AS A PERSONALIZED LITERACY :

RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION AS A PERSONALIZED LITERACY : PDF

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Abstract : Research on Ghanaian (and most African) women's movements in the last decade suggests that the barriers to female political participation and representation no longer consist in basic or higher education enrollment. Within this context, persisting paternalistic ties and recent genderization of political assignments such as "Women's Wings" of political parties, as well as the creation, in Ghana, of a Women and Gender Ministry limit the general participation of women in politics. A direct link to this phenomenon, is the similarly low participation of women in Ghana's vibrant student political setting. Such a situation calls for alternate practical initiatives to forward the political goals of women. This project proposes a workshop based on theories from the field of rhetoric and composition to equip first-year female college students in Ghana with the requisite analytical skills to participate meaningfully first, in active student politics, and later in mainstream politics. The workshop focuses on getting women participants to take agency in their communities, while provoking them to think about their lives and society. Thus, the eight-week workshop is informed by community literacy practices and a feminist rhetorical resilience approach that calls for ongoing relational, communal and contextual considerations to feminist rhetorical action, and an emphasis on the usage of writing as a social act. With a key focus on multimodal presentations, Sonja Foss' Rhetorical Criticism as The Asking of Questions method informs the design of assignments to enable participants explore the nature and function of symbols toward active political engagement.

Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition

Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition PDF

Author: Bruce Mccomiskey

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2017-11-01

Total Pages: 56

ISBN-13: 1607327457

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Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition is a timely exploration of the increasingly widespread and disturbing effect of “post-truth” on public discourse in the United States. Bruce McComiskey analyzes the instances of bullshit, fake news, feigned ethos, hyperbole, and other forms of post-truth rhetoric employed in recent political discourse. The book frames “post-truth” within rhetorical theory, referring to the classic triad of logos, ethos, and pathos. McComiskey shows that it is the loss of grounding in logos that exposes us to the dangers of post-truth. As logos is the realm of fact, logic, truth, and valid reasoning, Western society faces increased risks—including violence, unchecked libel, and tainted elections—when the value of reason is diminished and audiences allow themselves to be swayed by pathos and ethos. Evaluations of truth are deferred or avoided, and mendacity convincingly masquerades as a valid form of argument. In a post-truth world, where neither truth nor falsehood has reliable meaning, language becomes purely strategic, without reference to anything other than itself. This scenario has serious consequences not only for our public discourse but also for the study of composition.

Economies of Writing

Economies of Writing PDF

Author: Bruce Horner

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2017-03-01

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1607325233

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Economies of Writing advances scholarship on political economies of writing and writing instruction, considering them in terms of course subject, pedagogy, technology, and social practice. Taking the "economic" as a necessary point of departure and contention for the field, the collection insists that writing concerns are inevitably participants in political markets in their consideration of forms of valuation, production, and circulation of knowledge with labor and with capital. Approaching the economic as plural, contingent, and political, chapters explore complex forces shaping the production and valuation of literacies, languages, identities, and institutions and consider their implications for composition scholarship, teaching, administration, and public rhetorics. Chapters engage a range of issues, including knowledge transfer, cyberpublics, graduate writing courses, and internationalized web domains. Economies of Writing challenges dominant ideologies of writing, writing skills, writing assessment, language, writing technology, and public rhetoric by revealing the complex and shifting valuations of writing practices as they circulate within and across different economies. The volume is a significant contribution to rhetoric and composition’s understanding of and ways to address its seemingly perennial unease about its own work. Contributors: Anis Bawarshi, Deborah Brandt, Jenn Fishman, T. R. Johnson, Jay Jordan, Kacie Kiser, Steve Lamos, Donna LeCourt, Rebecca Lorimer Leonard, Samantha Looker, Katie Malcolm, Paul Kei Matsuda, Joan Mullin, Jason Peters, Christian J. Pulver, Kelly Ritter, Phyllis Mentzell Ryder, Tony Scott, Scott Wible, Yuching Jill Yang, James T. Zebroski

Basic Writing as a Political Act

Basic Writing as a Political Act PDF

Author: Linda Adler-Kassner

Publisher: Hampton Press (NJ)

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13:

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An empirical study of basic writing in the contemporary academy. It examines perceptions of in-school writing and how basic writing programmes have been created and maintained by drawing on basic writing syllabi and programmes in different American colleges and universities.