College English Jul 2014

Rhetorical Education and Student Activism

Jonathan Alexander ; Susan C. Jarratt

Abstract

On February 8, 2010, eleven student activists at the University of California–Irvine protested a speech by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. The disruptive nature of the protest by these students—advocates of Palestinian de-occupation and members of the Muslim Student Union—led to disciplinary action against their student organization and criminal prosecution in the local county court for disturbing the peace. This essay offers the results of an interview-based study exploring the rhetorical education of five of these college activists. The interviews reveal the powerful influence of family histories of activism and thoughtful reflections on the rhetorical dynamics of the Middle East conflict within local, national, and international publics. They also show student awareness of the limitations of the liberal-deliberative rhetorics that underpin most college writing courses. That students reported only a tenuous sense of connection between college courses and self-sponsored activist education suggests that teachers and scholars of rhetoric and composition may need to give cocurricular activism more consideration in the next phase of the “social turn.”

Journal
College English
Published
2014-07-01
DOI
10.58680/ce201425461
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
classical rhetoric rhetorical criticism first-year composition writing pedagogy qualitative research
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. Lunsford et al. (2024)
    Activist Orientations: Wayfinding, Writing, and How Alumni Effect Change in the World
    Rhetoric Review
  2. Goodwin (2017)
    Review Essay: Around the Bend
    Literacy in Composition Studies

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