Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric Sep 2009 Open Access

Engaging Community Literacy through the Rhetorical Work of a Social Movement

Christopher Wilkey

Abstract

This essay establishes a context for discussing how community literacy pedagogy can benefit from critical engagement with the rhetorical actions of a grassroots social movement. Drawing from ongoing community literacy work in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, I detail the prospects of speaking truth to power in relation to composition studies’ ongoing skepticism of rhetorics of social protest. I end by arguing that there are central aspects associated with oppositional rhetorics that can be encountered in community literacy initiatives and used to support forms of social change often excluded from conciliatory rhetorics.

Journal
Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
Published
2009-09-01
DOI
10.59236/rjv9i1pp26-60
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Topics
rhetorical criticism writing pedagogy literacy studies community literacy
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