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.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Himley
Himley, Margaret. "Facing (up to) 'The Stranger' in Community Service Learning." College Composition and Communication 55 (2004): 416-438.
In feminst and po-co studies, 'the stranger' is one who is fetishized and/or feared, and "haunts the project of community service learning" (417). Even ASL projects rooted in reciprocity (a la Cushman) contend with power assymetries--the need to exploit, even if just to get a story (ethnography, for example)--but we nonetheless need to keep envisioning projects that foster social justice. The dilemmas have no answers, but we need to keep encountering the stranger nonetheless. The stranger "reveals the power assymetries, social antagonisms, and historical detriments that are all too often concealed by discourses of volunteerism or civic literacy" (417).
In feminst and po-co studies, 'the stranger' is one who is fetishized and/or feared, and "haunts the project of community service learning" (417). Even ASL projects rooted in reciprocity (a la Cushman) contend with power assymetries--the need to exploit, even if just to get a story (ethnography, for example)--but we nonetheless need to keep envisioning projects that foster social justice. The dilemmas have no answers, but we need to keep encountering the stranger nonetheless. The stranger "reveals the power assymetries, social antagonisms, and historical detriments that are all too often concealed by discourses of volunteerism or civic literacy" (417).
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).
Welch
Welch, Nancy. "'And Now that I Know Them': Composing Mutuality in a Service Learning Course." College Composition and Communication 54 (2002): 243-263.
Welch says that writing/composing is crucial for any ASL course because the process of discovery encompasses not only intellectual discovery but also ethical-civic discovery. But further theoretical frames are necessary to push ASL students beyond default subject-object relationships ('I'm the agent helping a helpless object'). Goal: composing a subject-subject relationship. She turns to feminist object-relations theory, which "pinpoints a crucial ingredient in that relationship: the ability to recognize others as subjects whose lives both overlap and exceed one's own" (248).
Welch says that writing/composing is crucial for any ASL course because the process of discovery encompasses not only intellectual discovery but also ethical-civic discovery. But further theoretical frames are necessary to push ASL students beyond default subject-object relationships ('I'm the agent helping a helpless object'). Goal: composing a subject-subject relationship. She turns to feminist object-relations theory, which "pinpoints a crucial ingredient in that relationship: the ability to recognize others as subjects whose lives both overlap and exceed one's own" (248).
Green
Green, Ann. "Difficult Stories: Service-Learning, Race, Class, and Whiteness." College Composition and Communication 55 (2003): 276-301.
Green argues for the inclusion of more stories about race and class in our ASL stories (in both scholarship and in the classroom). Foreground identity markers in order to work toward social change. Dealing with race and class is a way to tell "difficult stories" and avoid side-stepping issues of power, which inevitably arise when doing ASL. Race and class help to fill in context in which service happens.
She also suggests that field notes are a better genre than a reflection journal, as notes emphasize analysis and observation, not just feelings.
Green argues for the inclusion of more stories about race and class in our ASL stories (in both scholarship and in the classroom). Foreground identity markers in order to work toward social change. Dealing with race and class is a way to tell "difficult stories" and avoid side-stepping issues of power, which inevitably arise when doing ASL. Race and class help to fill in context in which service happens.
She also suggests that field notes are a better genre than a reflection journal, as notes emphasize analysis and observation, not just feelings.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Robbins
Robbins, Sarah. "'Writing Suburbia' in Pictures and Print." Writing Our Communities: Local Learning and Public Culture. Ed. Dave Winter and Sarah Robbins. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2005. 88-92.
Robbins presents a lesson plan for teaching her first-year writing students to create photo-essays using PowerPoint. Her approach is documentary, an attempt to engage "material and visual culture" (89) in a writing-about-place pedagogy. The project is interpretive and analytical but also key for Robbins is that students engage in the production of texts, as opposed to staying in the consumption range. That is, they're reading their cities but also writing them. Her assumption is that "proactive citizens recover, critique, and create community texts that reflect the dynamic values of local and larger communities" (89).
Robbins presents a lesson plan for teaching her first-year writing students to create photo-essays using PowerPoint. Her approach is documentary, an attempt to engage "material and visual culture" (89) in a writing-about-place pedagogy. The project is interpretive and analytical but also key for Robbins is that students engage in the production of texts, as opposed to staying in the consumption range. That is, they're reading their cities but also writing them. Her assumption is that "proactive citizens recover, critique, and create community texts that reflect the dynamic values of local and larger communities" (89).
Ervin
Ervin, Elizabeth. Public Literacy. Boston: Longman, 2003.
In her 'civic literacy' textbook, Ervin offers a useful, accessible distinction among modes of civic engagement. Volunteering/service="unpaid labor willingly given" (122). Activism transcends service in a number of ways..."concerns itself with injustices rather than problems--that is, things that are unfair as oposed to simply unfortunate" and also..."activism goes to the root of those injustices...while service seeks to help victims of those injustices without necessarily addressing the larger social forces that create their problems" (125). Service often involves meeting basic needs while activism focuses on systemic change: lobbying and such. "Finally, activism needs to be accountable to a constituency, move beyond rants and accusations into the realm of purposeful action, and work with a certain level of efficiency and impact. Otherwise, you are doomed to be a lone crusader toiling away at 'random acts of protest'" (126).
I wonder if Ervin's definitions assume a progressive politics? Many people who "do" service fault individuals, not society, for social problems (some feel the homeless person "fell through the cracks" and missed abundant support systems due to personal deficiency), and for those individuals service is not helping the victim of an injustice but rather helping a deficient person. This is a larger trend in the literature of service learning and critical pedagogy, too, where the scholarship assumes that those with the aforementioned ideology haven't yet achieved critical consciousness. Such individuals are framed as 'not yet converted' and also 'simplistic' and in need of a deeper understanding. The scholarship uses "deeper understanding" euphemistically for "different ideology."
In her 'civic literacy' textbook, Ervin offers a useful, accessible distinction among modes of civic engagement. Volunteering/service="unpaid labor willingly given" (122). Activism transcends service in a number of ways..."concerns itself with injustices rather than problems--that is, things that are unfair as oposed to simply unfortunate" and also..."activism goes to the root of those injustices...while service seeks to help victims of those injustices without necessarily addressing the larger social forces that create their problems" (125). Service often involves meeting basic needs while activism focuses on systemic change: lobbying and such. "Finally, activism needs to be accountable to a constituency, move beyond rants and accusations into the realm of purposeful action, and work with a certain level of efficiency and impact. Otherwise, you are doomed to be a lone crusader toiling away at 'random acts of protest'" (126).
I wonder if Ervin's definitions assume a progressive politics? Many people who "do" service fault individuals, not society, for social problems (some feel the homeless person "fell through the cracks" and missed abundant support systems due to personal deficiency), and for those individuals service is not helping the victim of an injustice but rather helping a deficient person. This is a larger trend in the literature of service learning and critical pedagogy, too, where the scholarship assumes that those with the aforementioned ideology haven't yet achieved critical consciousness. Such individuals are framed as 'not yet converted' and also 'simplistic' and in need of a deeper understanding. The scholarship uses "deeper understanding" euphemistically for "different ideology."
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