College Composition and Communication Feb 2019

Writing to Assemble Publics: Making Writing Activate, Making Writing Matter

Laurie E. Gries

Abstract

In this article, I weave new materialist theories about assemblage, community, agency, and rhetorical responsibility to argue for pedagogies that foreground writing to assemble publics and offer direct rhetorical training in campaign organizing. In describing three student activist campaigns, I demonstrate how this pedagogy challenges students to create socio-material assemblages that entice bodies into collective action—a challenge that demands tactile agility, creative activism, and often metanoic revision.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2019-02-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc201929986
Open Access
Closed
Topics
revision

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (12)

  1. Fleming (2026)
    “In a Matter of Hours We Could Corral the Whole City”: How a Women’s Group Used…
    Written Communication
  2. Wang et al. (2025)
    A posthumanist approach to AI literacy
    Computers and Composition
  3. Littlefield (2025)
    Stochastic Publics: The Emergence and Ethics of AI-Generated Publics in Technic…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  4. Tham et al. (2024)
    Understanding Writing Instructors’ Feelings toward the Affordances of Multimoda…
    College Composition and Communication
  5. Jiang (2024)
    Composing to Enact Affective Agency: Engaging Multimodal Antiracist Pedagogy in…
    College Composition and Communication
Show all 12 →
  1. Lunsford et al. (2024)
    Activist Orientations: Wayfinding, Writing, and How Alumni Effect Change in the World
    Rhetoric Review
  2. Tham et al. (2023)
    Examining Multimodal Community-Engaged Projects for Technical and Professional …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Chamberlain (2022)
    “Our world is worth fighting for”: Gas mask agency, copypasta sit-ins, and the …
    Computers and Composition
  4. Jiang et al. (2022)
    The thing-power of Ring Fit Adventure as embodied play: Tracing new materialist…
    Computers and Composition
  5. Vossoughi et al. (2021)
    Writing as a Social Act: The Feedback Relation as a Context for Political and E…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  6. Goodwin (2020)
    Embodied Subjectivities and the City: Intervening in Local Public Debates throu…
    College Composition and Communication
  7. Alexander (2020)
    Materiality, Queerness, and a Theory of Desire for Writing Studies
    College English

Cites in this index (4)

  1. Myers (2016)
    Metanoic Movement: The Transformative Power of Regret
    College Composition and Communication
  2. Preston (2015)
    Project(ing) Literacy: Writing to Assemble in a Postcomposition FYW Classroom
    College Composition and Communication
  3. Micciche (2014)
    Writing Material
    College English
  4. Cooper (2011)
    Rhetorical Agency as Emergent and Enacted
    College Composition and Communication
Also cites 5 works outside this index ↓
  1. Barad (2007)
    10.2307/j.ctv12101zq
    Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning  ↗
  2. Delicath (2003)
    “Image Events, the Public Sphere, and Argumentative Practice: The Case of Radical Environ…
    Argumentation  ↗
  3. House (2016)
    “Keep Writing Weird: A Call for Eco-Administration and Engaged Writing Programs.”
    Community Literacy Journal  ↗
  4. Scollon (2003)
    10.4324/9780203422724
    Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World  ↗
  5. Wells (2015)
    10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190203610.001.0001
    The Civic Organization and the Digital Citizen  ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 13 View in citation network →

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