Literacy in Composition Studies Nov 2018 RSS Open Access

More Than Preaching to the Choir: Religious Literate Activity and Civic Engagement in Older Adults

Annie Kelvie University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

Civic engagement has long been a topic that has drawn the attention of scholars in literacy and composition studies more broadly, and it is also a particular interest of both religious literacies and Age Studies. This article has an eye toward bringing these two conversations together—civic engagement in religious settings and civic engagement as practiced by older people—-through the lens of literate activity as practiced by progressive Christian churchgoers. Drawn from ethnographic fieldwork with a church book group, I argue that the members of the Pub Theology book group push back against the isolation and individualism of decline ideology and cookie-cutter notions of volunteerism promoted by productive aging, instead creating a robust model of civic engagement for older adults that is rooted in literate activity. Instead of being obsolete and useless, their familiar literate practices are crucial to connecting what they learned from their chosen texts, The New Jim Crow and Just Mercy, to their more expansive experiences of civic engagement as older members of their community.

Journal
Literacy in Composition Studies
Published
2018-11-20
DOI
10.21623/1.6.2.8
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
OA PDF Gold
Topics
service learning qualitative research literacy studies
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Ware (2022)
    “God’s Absence During Trauma Took Its Toll”: Dialogic Tracing of Literate Activ…
    Written Communication

References (38) · 11 in this index

  1. Adler, Richard P., and Judy Goggin. “What Do We Mean by ‘Civic Engagement’?” Journal of Transformative Educat…
     ↗
  2. Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New P, 2010…
  3. Bazerman, Charles. “Speech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems: How Texts Organize Activity and People.” What …
  4. “Book of Common Prayer.” The Encyclopedia of Christianity. Eds. Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey W. Bromile. Gran…
  5. Bowen (2011)
    Resisting Age Bias in Digital Literacy Research
    College Composition and Communication
Show all 38 →
  1. Brandt, Deborah. Literacy in American Lives. New York: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print.
     ↗
  2. Charmaz, Kathy. Constructing Grounded Theory. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2014. Print.
  3. Crowley, Sharon. Toward a Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 2006. Print.
     ↗
  4. Daniell, Beth. “More in Heaven and Earth: Complicating the Map and Constituting Identities.” Mapping Christia…
  5. DePalma et al. (2008)
    (Re)Charting the (Dis)Courses of Faith and Politics, or Rhetoric and Democracy …
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  6. DePalma (2011)
    Re-envisioning Religious Discourses as Rhetorical Resources in Composition Teac…
    College Composition and Communication
  7. DePalma (2017)
    Reimagining Rhetorical Education: Fostering Writers’ Civic Capacities through E…
    College English
  8. Downs, Douglas. “True Believers, Real Scholars, and Real True Believing Scholars: Discourses of Inquiry and A…
  9. L. Kyburz. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 2005. 39-55. Print.
  10. Dressler, Richard, and Roger Kruez. “Transcribing Oral Discourse: A Survey and a Model System.” Discourse Pro…
     ↗
  11. Filieule, Olivier. “Age and Social Movements.” Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements…
  12. Gullette, Margaret Morganroth. Aged by Culture. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004. Print.
  13. ---. Ending Ageism, Or How Not to Shoot Old People. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2017. Print.
  14. Jones, Robert P. The End of White Christian America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016. Print.
  15. Martinson, Marty, and Meredith Minkler. “Civic Engagement and Older Adults: A Critical Perspective.” The Gero…
     ↗
  16. Martinson, Marty, and Judith Halpern. “Ethical Implications of the Promotion of Elder Volunteerism: A Critica…
     ↗
  17. Moss, Beverly J. A Community Text Arises: A Literate Text and a Literacy Tradition in African- American Churc…
  18. Mutnick (2015)
    The Rhetorics of Race and Racism: Teaching Writing in an Age of Colorblindness
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  19. Odell, Lee, Goswami, Dixie, and Anne Herrington. “The Discourse-Based Interview: A Procedure for Exploring th…
  20. Tamor, and Sean A. Walmsley. New York: Longman, 1983. 221-36. Print.
  21. Prior, Paul. Writing/Disciplinarity: A Sociohistoric Account of Literate Activity in the Academy. Mahwah, NJ:…
  22. Ringer (2013)
    The Consequences of Integrating Faith into Academic Writing: Casuistic Stretchi…
    College English
  23. Ringer (2017)
    Working With(in) the Logic of the Jeremiad: Responding to the Writing of Evange…
    College Composition and Communication
  24. Rumsey (2018)
    Holding on to Literacies: Older Adult Narratives of Literacy and Agency
    Literacy in Composition Studies
  25. Solnit, Rebecca. “Preaching to the Choir.” Harper’s. Harper’s Magazine Foundation, Nov. 2017: 5-7. Print.
  26. Spindler, Mone. “Surrogate Religion, Spiritual Materialism, or Protestant Ethic? Three Accounts of the Functi…
     ↗
  27. Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2014. Print.
  28. Strauss, Anselm L. Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987. Print.
     ↗
  29. Trainor (2002)
    Critical Pedagogy’s “Other”: Constructions of Whiteness in Education for Social…
    College Composition and Communication
  30. Trainor (2005)
    My Ancestors Didn’t Own Slaves: Understanding White Talk about Race
    Research in the Teaching of English
  31. ---. Rethinking Racism: Emotion, Persuasion, and Literacy Education in an All-White High School. Carbondale, …
  32. Worth, Jan. “Student Pieties and Pedagogical Hot Spots: Mediating Faith-Based Topics in First-Year Compositio…
  33. Winans (2005)
    Local Pedagogies and Race: Interrogating White Safety in the Rural College Classroom
    College English
CrossRef global citation count: 2 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. College Composition and Communication Feb 2026
    Research Brief: Community-Engaged Writing ↗
    Jessica Pauszek; Veronica House; Paula Mathieu
    service learning teacher development collaborative writing labor and working conditions archival research qualitative research literacy studies race and writing
  2. Community Literacy Journal Oct 2014
    Community Engagement in a Graduate-Level Community Literacy Course ↗
    Betsy Bowen; Kirsti Arko; Joel Beatty; Cindy Delaney; Isidore Dorpenyo; Laura Koeller; Elsa Roberts; John Velat
    rhetorical criticism graduate education service learning technical communication qualitative research digital rhetoric literacy studies public rhetoric community literacy
  3. Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric Jul 2009
    Writing Theories / Changing Communities: Introduction ↗
    Ellen Cushman; Jeffrey T. Grabill
    rhetorical criticism cultural rhetorics service learning teacher development technical communication qualitative research literacy studies public rhetoric community literacy
  4. Journal of Business and Technical Communication Apr 2026
    From Monologue to Dialogue: Communication Strategies of Chinese Museums on Weibo and the Imperative for Participation Awareness ↗
    Xiaole Zhu; Yoonjae Nam
    service learning qualitative research social media
  5. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication Mar 2026
    Surveys as UXR: Using Design Thinking to Shape a Survey-Based UX Assessment for Rural Audiences ↗
    Kaitlin J. Coyle; Derek G. Ross
    assessment technical communication qualitative research literacy studies