Rhetoric and Composition PhD papers

The Rhetorical Context of a GED Preparatory Program

Kay A. Mooy — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 10:37:54 PST

Since rhetoricians believe that everything is rhetorical and I am a rhetorician, I wanted to look at the rhetoric involved in a program of GED training. The professional context or culture that I examined in this research project is a GED Preparatory Program at a large school district Community Learning Center in a Mexican-U.S. border town. What I found was that four categories or themes emerged from the interviews, observations, and documents that I examined. Three of the four themes are directly from classical and modern rhetoric, and the fourth, I contend is a result of the other three operating together. Motivation, the fourth interpreted theme is a result of the first three acting in concerted effort to create motivation. I would contend that this motivation is a by-product of the first three interpreted themes: ethos, pathos, and logos.

Confronting Race in the Composition Classroom

Kay A. Mooy — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 09:53:16 PST

My premise is that the resources and opportunities in a society are unequally distributed among individuals according to group membership (race, gender, class, sexual orientation, etc.). Social institutions systematically reproduce inequalities that favor the dominant group and oppress others. I discuss using feminist pedagogy and contact/conflict zones be used in different ways to free classrooms from the invisible hegemonic theory of whiteness, which underpins all we do in our classrooms. bell hooks says we need to have "transformative" pedagogy. This paper will include methods to transform that pedagogy. No education is politically neutral. I propose decentering Western civilization to recognize Others

Seeking a Rhetoric of the Rhetoric of Dis/abilities

Scott Lunsford — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 14:37:28 PDT