Coogan, David. "Service Learning and Social Change: The Case for Materialist Rhetoric." College Composition and Communication 57 (2006): 667-693.
"The promise is not just to make good citizens but to enable student-citizens to write for social change" (667). Actual production of rhetoric is too often neglected in favor of analysis/consumption of rhetoric by ASL programs. Coogan argues in favor of a material rhetoric model where students produce actual texts: "not just a case for rhetorical activism in service learning but a case for rhetorical scholarship in the public sphere" (670).
His material model is one of ADVOCACY: discovery, analysis, production, assessment. This process starts with getting out into the local context, inquiring into context, analyzing material conditions, producting rhetoric and evaluating efficacy. Coogan describes project in Chicago Public Schools to illustrate this model.
Showing posts with label Coogan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coogan. Show all posts
Monday, August 6, 2007
Coogan
Coogan, David. "Counterpublics in Public Housing: Reframing the Politics of Service Learning." College English 67 (2005): 461-482.
ASL, Coogan says, provides an opportunity to at once challenge perceptions of 'city' and 'other' when we frame ASL as "a jumping-off point for addressing community issues" (462). Reflection, yes, but action too--an examination of how the "private" (personal selves/individuals expressing themselves discursively) and "public" (civic spaces with all their material realities) ... "inform each other in the communities we wish to serve" (462). The discursive and material intersect in the realm of the "counterpublic"--where various agents construct oppositional posititons to convince "outsiders to think or behave differently about issues" (465).
Reframe politics of ASL such that we avoid 'personal growth' mode, which neglects materiality and social analysis and fosters "naive identification with the other" (476). Give students a space to engage in counter-public discourse, which is both rhetorical (tell stories, use language) and material (via argumentation about real issues and lived experiences). Use a "Christian love ethic that takes the invidiual (and individual development) as the primary unit of analysis" (480).
ASL, Coogan says, provides an opportunity to at once challenge perceptions of 'city' and 'other' when we frame ASL as "a jumping-off point for addressing community issues" (462). Reflection, yes, but action too--an examination of how the "private" (personal selves/individuals expressing themselves discursively) and "public" (civic spaces with all their material realities) ... "inform each other in the communities we wish to serve" (462). The discursive and material intersect in the realm of the "counterpublic"--where various agents construct oppositional posititons to convince "outsiders to think or behave differently about issues" (465).
Reframe politics of ASL such that we avoid 'personal growth' mode, which neglects materiality and social analysis and fosters "naive identification with the other" (476). Give students a space to engage in counter-public discourse, which is both rhetorical (tell stories, use language) and material (via argumentation about real issues and lived experiences). Use a "Christian love ethic that takes the invidiual (and individual development) as the primary unit of analysis" (480).
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