This article is an experimental collaboration that blends qualitative data, archival research, and rhetorical theory with autoethnographic writing. Utilizing Jenny Edbauer’s (2005) conceptualization of rhetorical ecologies, we engage strategic contemplation and critical imagination (Royster and Kirsch 2012) to explore Reflections’ past, present, and future rhetorical landscapes. Link to PDF

Drawing on Donald Schön’s concept of the reflective practitioner and the classical rhetorical concept of stasis, this article observes the habits and tactics of experienced community engaged instructors of writing and rhetoric. It suggests that a complete reflective practice, combining reflection in and on action, contributes to sustaining effective programs and practices. In moments of… Continue reading Stasis and the Reflective Practitioner: How Experienced Teacher-Scholars Sustain Community Pedagogy by Amy Rupiper Taggart and H. Brooke Hessler

The writing I received in my first-semester composition class at Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana, the semester immediately following Hurricane Katrina was stunning with respect to both student commitment and narrative sophistication. In this essay, I analyze a representative example of this writing entitled “life During Katrina” by a student I have called “K.”… Continue reading Writing the Blues: Teaching in a Post-Katrina Environment by Gwen Robinson

This article adopts the perspective of rhetorical theory to examine student, teacher, and client assessments of community service writing projects created by students in a technical writing course. The study compares both students’ and clients’ assessments of the benefits of the service-learning experience and the teacher’s and clients’ evaluations of the documents. It highlights significant… Continue reading In the Eye of the Beholder: Contrasting Views of Community Service Writing by Teresa M. Redd

In a 2002 article, Patricia Roberts-Miller asked if rhetorical theory has a place for what she then called “principled dissent and sincere outrage.” This article addresses that challenge, as the author follows a year of living in and writing for a community in Atlanta that works with the homeless in that city. In it, she… Continue reading It’s Not About Me: Public Writing and the Place of Principled Dissent by Diana George