Keynote Speaker:
Professor John Duffy, University of Notre Dame
"After Arizona:
First Year Writing and a Rhetoric of Ethical Practice"
The tragic shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen other people in a Tucson shopping center has stimulated a national debate about the nature and effects of rhetoric. Was the shooting a result of the toxic political rhetoric that has become a staple of talk radio, cable television, and the Internet? What are the effects of the demonization, incendiary metaphors, factual distortions, and poisonous historical analogies that have become routine in American public discourse? Are media personalities such as Glenn Beck, who has warned his viewers of food riots, gun confiscations, and impending martial law, responsible for political violence, or should acts of what Sarah Palin, referring to the Arizona shootings, called “monstrous criminality” be seen as the responsibility of the individual who carries out the violent act and who alone should be held accountable? How responsible are the audiences for such discourse, the American consumers who have made paranoid rhetoric enormously profitable in a market-driven economy?
Such questions raise the broader issue of how people in a democratic republic can engage in vigorous political debate in a manner that, as John Nichols of The Nation has recently written, “invites rather than repels public participation.” To say it another way, what rhetorical principles and practices should guide debate when citizens and other residents of the United States contend over complex and emotional topics such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, health care reform, immigration, and taxation policies? What kinds of rhetoric are most likely to promote reason over irrationality, deliberation over distrust, and goodwill over fear? And how should these rhetorical principles and practices, assuming they can be agreed upon by competing interests, be disseminated in the public square?
In this paper, I argue that answers to these and related questions are to be found in the First Year Writing classroom. The First Year Writing class offers a public space—one visited annually by thousands of students in North American colleges—where citizens and non-citizens can learn to argue in ways that promote mutuality and identification among people of differing worldviews. Specifically, I argue that the values taught in the First Year Writing course, framing claims, providing evidence, considering alternative views, and writing in a language appropriate to the audience, are inherently ethical practices—ends as well as means—that can provide the foundations of rational civic discussion leading to the common good. In this view, the First Year Writing class has an essential role to play in redeeming the degraded state of public discourse. Finally, I argue that promoting a rhetoric of ethical practice, one observed by speakers and audience, is the proper mission of First Year Writing programs throughout the United States and should guide decisions concerning curriculum, teacher preparation, the use of digital technologies, and other features of program development.
First Year Writing and a Rhetoric of Ethical Practice"
The tragic shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen other people in a Tucson shopping center has stimulated a national debate about the nature and effects of rhetoric. Was the shooting a result of the toxic political rhetoric that has become a staple of talk radio, cable television, and the Internet? What are the effects of the demonization, incendiary metaphors, factual distortions, and poisonous historical analogies that have become routine in American public discourse? Are media personalities such as Glenn Beck, who has warned his viewers of food riots, gun confiscations, and impending martial law, responsible for political violence, or should acts of what Sarah Palin, referring to the Arizona shootings, called “monstrous criminality” be seen as the responsibility of the individual who carries out the violent act and who alone should be held accountable? How responsible are the audiences for such discourse, the American consumers who have made paranoid rhetoric enormously profitable in a market-driven economy?
Such questions raise the broader issue of how people in a democratic republic can engage in vigorous political debate in a manner that, as John Nichols of The Nation has recently written, “invites rather than repels public participation.” To say it another way, what rhetorical principles and practices should guide debate when citizens and other residents of the United States contend over complex and emotional topics such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, health care reform, immigration, and taxation policies? What kinds of rhetoric are most likely to promote reason over irrationality, deliberation over distrust, and goodwill over fear? And how should these rhetorical principles and practices, assuming they can be agreed upon by competing interests, be disseminated in the public square?
In this paper, I argue that answers to these and related questions are to be found in the First Year Writing classroom. The First Year Writing class offers a public space—one visited annually by thousands of students in North American colleges—where citizens and non-citizens can learn to argue in ways that promote mutuality and identification among people of differing worldviews. Specifically, I argue that the values taught in the First Year Writing course, framing claims, providing evidence, considering alternative views, and writing in a language appropriate to the audience, are inherently ethical practices—ends as well as means—that can provide the foundations of rational civic discussion leading to the common good. In this view, the First Year Writing class has an essential role to play in redeeming the degraded state of public discourse. Finally, I argue that promoting a rhetoric of ethical practice, one observed by speakers and audience, is the proper mission of First Year Writing programs throughout the United States and should guide decisions concerning curriculum, teacher preparation, the use of digital technologies, and other features of program development.
Keynote Speaker:
John Duffy, University of Notre Dame
John Duffy is Associate Professor of English at Notre Dame with research expertise in the historical development of literacy and rhetoric in cross-cultural contexts. His most recent book, Writing from these Roots: The Historical Development of Literacy in a Hmong-American Community(U of Hawaii Press, 2007) won the 2009 Outstanding Book Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication. With Martin Nystrand, he edited Toward a Rhetoric of Everyday Life: New Directions and Research on Writing (U of Wisconsin P, 2003). He has published articles in College Composition and Communication, Written Communication, and the International Journal of Learning and was recently awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. His work draws from individual life histories to trace the historical development of literacy and rhetoric among marginalized populations.
