College Composition and Communication Feb 2005

Living Room: Teaching Public Writing in a Post-Publicity Era

Nancy Welch

Abstract

At the same time that compositionists have shown a renewed interest in public writing, neoliberal social and economic policies have dramatically shrunk the spaces in which most students’ voices can be heard. In this essay I argue that from twentiethcentury working-class struggles in the U.S. we and our students can acquire the tools necessary to work against this latest wave of economic privatization and concomitant suppression of public voice and rights. If we can resist the common academic assertion that we live today in a radically distinct postmodern, postindustrial society, we can return to capitalism’s long history for examples of the creative and persistent ways in which ordinary people have organized to claim living room.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2005-02-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc20054003
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
teacher development
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (16)

  1. Wang (2025)
    Public Writing in a Second Language
    Writing and Pedagogy
  2. Payne (2025)
    Mapping the Landscape of Community-Engaged English Courses: A Content Analysis …
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  3. Anderson (2022)
    Rhetorical Stillness: How Byzantine Iconography Offers an Alternative to Rhetor…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  4. Lesh et al. (2022)
    Rerouting Place in Community-Engaged Teaching: Lessons from the Spatial Disrupt…
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  5. Gentry (2021)
    From Thought to Action: Developing a Social Justice Orientation
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
Show all 16 →
  1. Goodwin (2020)
    Embodied Subjectivities and the City: Intervening in Local Public Debates throu…
    College Composition and Communication
  2. Silvestro (2018)
    Reaching Backyards and Board Rooms: Strategies for Circulation that ‘Change the…
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  3. Craig (2017)
    Navigating a Varied Landscape: Literacy and the Credibility of Networked Information
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  4. Hayes (2017)
    #MyNYPD: Transforming Twitter into a Public Place for Protest
    Computers and Composition
  5. Keohane (2016)
    “Honest Toil”: Labor, the Body, and Citizenship in the Knights of Labor, 1880–1890
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  6. Ridolfo (2012)
    Rhetorical Delivery as Strategy: Rebuilding the Fifth Canon from Practitioner Stories
    Rhetoric Review
  7. Feigenbaum (2012)
    Traps, Tricksters, and the Long Haul: Negotiating the Progressive Teacher’s Cha…
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  8. Chaney (2011)
    Rankings and Ravings in the Academic Public
    Rhetoric Review
  9. Anderson (2010)
    Global Street Papers and Homeless [Counter] publics: Rethinking the Technologie…
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
  10. Enoch (2010)
    Composing a Rhetorical Education for the Twenty-First Century: TakingITGlobal a…
    Rhetoric Review
  11. Long (2008)
    Educating Future Public Workers: Can We Make Inquiry Professional?
    Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric

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