College Composition and Communication Jul 2023

Evangelical Rhetoric in College Students’ Writing Practice

Bethany Mannon ; Georgia Privott

Abstract

This essay investigates the relationship between academic writing and the rhetorical awareness that college students gain from evangelical backgrounds. We interviewed thirty-seven students about their experiences with reading, writing, and debate in religious contexts and how those practices informed their work in first-year writing. Interviews revealed that students observed or practiced rhetorical skills that found parallels in writing courses. Some critiqued evangelical rhetoric, at times because of skills they learned in first-year writing. These findings call for pedagogical practices attuned to the knowledge writers bring from evangelical backgrounds.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2023-07-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc202332520
Open Access
Closed
Topics
first-year composition

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Williams et al. (2026)
    Rhetoric and Affect: The Role of Faith in Student Writers’ Wayfinding
    Written Communication

Cites in this index (7)

  1. Cope (2020)
    Compartmentalizing Faith: How Three First-Semester Undergraduates Manage Evange…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  2. Lindquist et al. (2019)
    Documenting and Discovering Learning: Reimagining the Work of the Literacy Narrative
    College Composition and Communication
  3. Stinnett (2019)
    Using Objective-Motivated Knowledge Activation to Support Writing Transfer in FYC
    College Composition and Communication
  4. Thomson-Bunn (2017)
    Student Perspectives on Faith in the Classroom
    Pedagogy
  5. Thomson-Bunn (2017)
    Mediating Discursive Worlds: When Academic Norms and Religious Belief Conflict
    College English
Show all 7 →
  1. Anson (2016)
    The Pop Warner Chronicles: A Case Study in Contextual Adaptation and the Transf…
    College Composition and Communication
  2. Rand (2001)
    Enacting Faith: Evangelical Discourse and the Discipline of Composition Studies
    College Composition and Communication
Also cites 5 works outside this index ↓
  1. Brewer (2020)
    Conceptions of Literacy: Graduate Instructors and the Teaching of First-Year Composition
     ↗
  2. Crowley (2006)
    Toward a Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism
     ↗
  3. Dewart (2020)
    Lugones’s Metaphor of ‘World Travelling’ in Narrative Inquiry
    Qualitative Inquiry  ↗
  4. Ringer (2016)
    Vernacular Christian Rhetoric and Civil Discourse
     ↗
  5. Smith (2009)
    Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 1 View in citation network →

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