All the speakers in this sequence, identified by pseudonyms, are high school stu-
dents, except for Trista, a University of Massachusetts student, and myself.
dents, except for Trista, a University of Massachusetts student, and myself.
The Public Work of Rhetoric_nodrm
and I had a test and I hadn't finished it and
the teacher was gonna collect it.
? She asked if I was having trouble with it
? and I was like yeah.
? I said it says on my IEP that I have more
time on my work
? and he said I could take it home to finish it.
Brandon:
? If they don't recognize it, I don't put it out
there.
? Until I really need help.
? And if I don't really need help, I don't
enforce it.
Tell [Decision ] Conditionalize Conditionalize Conditionalize
In table 1, "Expressive Moves," the discussion has turned to interactions with teachers. As the schematic representation suggests, Don responds to a "do you agree? " prompt with a counterclaim (disagreeing with both examples
Going Public--in a Disabling Discourse 149
in the briefing book). At another point he responds to a narrative prompt with a supporting story. As Belenky, Bond, and Weinstock have shown with other marginalized, typically silent speakers, this first, expressive level of par- ticipation can in fact be a significant act of asserting one's identity and a sense of one's self as a knower, a speaker, and an authority on one's own experi- ence. 42 In fact, the evidence of this normally silent student actively speaking out in this public space with strangers was received by Don's teachers with surprise. In example 2, we see Brandon also responding with an expressive move, though notice how in this case it is the story of a decision, embedded in a highly conditionalized account of what he sees as appropriate action.
Our images of marginalized, socially disabled speakers (like those of inex- perienced writers) often lead us to expect expressive discourse, but little more. However, the rhetorical performance of these teenagers asserts another level of rhetorical agency in which one responds as the interpreter of a problem or a conflict or a question. In table 2, "Interpretive Moves," we see Brandon being asked to respond with a truth claim (Do teachers really care? ). He replies not just by offering a yes/no expressive opinion, but by interpreting the situation: they care, but it demands time and effort as well as strategies and knowledge they do not have. His interpretation is laced with the condi- tions, qualifications, and justifications that mark a reasoned argument. More important, as a contribution to this public discussion of the teacher's role in learning difficulties, Brandon's contribution to the inquiry is a balanced, qualified, conditionalized, and insightful interpretation of the problem itself. Going well beyond a personal experience narrative, he addresses the complex issue of "whose problem is this? " exploring how and why teachers of good- will participate in turning differences among all into a disability for some.
[ table 2 ] Interpretive Moves
3 Prompt [True? ] Interpret
Claim Qualify
Claim
Claim
Claim Conditionalize Conditionalize
Parent: Do you think teachers care? Brandon:
? I think they do care,
? but the LD it will take them more time and
effort for a strategy and a work plan
? Most LD students they have mainstream
classes
? and mainstream teachers don't know how to
handle and LD student.
? Most of the time there's only one or two and
she don't know how to deal with them.
? If she slows down the process for the whole
class people are gonna get bored.
? And if she speeds it up the LDs are gonna get
lost.
150 Linda Flower
Claim Qualify Justify Claim
Claim
? In a way the teachers care,
? but in certain situations they don't enforce it. ? [Because] There's more students that need
her help that she knows how to help in
other ways
? than [there are] LD students who she doesn't
know how to help them as well as she would like.
However, not all interpretive moves are equally sophisticated. Should we really expect to see the more fully dialogic, self-conscious, reflective, and strate- gic moves that we associate with higher levels of literacy and rhetorical agency? Is that not a lot to ask of young students from urban schools who may even be struggling to succeed at what Freire calls knowledge "banking"? What form would such agency take in this public deliberation with unknown adults? 43
In table 3, "Dialogic, Re-interpretive Moves," example 4, one of the adults tells the story of his own child who flunked his first year of college and then went for help, offering this as a prompt (and implicit advice? ) to Brandon. Brandon, however, responds by reinterpreting the other speaker's story (that is, it is just that your son's strategy failed). Brandon then justifies his alterna- tive scenario, and at the same time rivals himself. That is, the Achilles' heel of Brandon's own solution (that is, don't ask for help; don't tell) is that his strategy has not failed--yet. By the end, his analysis has connected a condi- tionalized analysis of when to get help with a reflection on the motivation to remain silent--pride. Once again, this student's situated understanding of a problem has yielded bona fide insight--evidence of expertise. But even more significant is that as a member of a deliberative public, he has contributed a reflective reinterpretation of someone else's image of the problem. He has engaged in that essential dialogic move of listening then building on, chal- lenging, qualifying, or expanding our understanding, creating a more com- plex and negotiated meaning.
[ table 3 ] Dialogic, Reinterpretive Moves (Reinterpret the other's image)
4 Prompt [Opinion-story? ]
Tell [Opinion] Dialog [Reinterpret]
[Parent: Tells of own child who flunked 1st semester in college; then went back asking for help. ]
What would stop you from doing that? Brandon: Pride mostly.
? From your son, he actually went through
everything
? and the strategy that he tried to do it, it
failed.
Justify Rival
Prompt [Recap ]
? So, in other words he had to come straight up front about it.
? From my point, my strategy hasn't failed yet. Counselor: He tried a way and that didn't
work out so he doubled back and tried
Rival self /
Conditionalize work
Claim Reflect
? So when I get to that and my strategy don't ? then I'll just have to confront my own self.
? My own pride.
Going Public--in a Disabling Discourse 151
another way. But you haven't failed yet. Interpret Brandon:
My final example, table 4, "Dialogic, Adaptive Moves," takes this dialogic process one step further, demonstrating a dialogic rhetorical agency that not only interprets but also adapts to other speakers. Asked how he might speak to his friend Travis, who is afraid to admit that he has a learning disability, Brandon begins by imaginatively projecting what Travis would be thinking. Then he begins to lay out a rhetorical plan for drawing his friend into this local public, into an inquiry about learning disabilities as both a reflective and physical space. Notice how he is not only planning how to adapt to his audience, but he is considering reasons, justifying his move, and then, in a wise and reflective move, he qualifies his own rhetorical ability: "I can tell him, . . . but until he opens his mouth its not going to happen. "
[ table 4 ]. Dialogic, Adaptive Moves (Adapt to the Other)
5 Interpret
Claim
Justify
Prompt [Opinion-Act? ]
Dialog [Plan-Adapt]
(In discussing going public, Travis gets men- tioned)
Brandon:
? I know Travis
? I know that he plays football,
? he don't want to get his personal life like his
LD out there.
? [Because] He plays football
? and they'll call him stupid and bring him
down.
Parent: (How would you coach a peer like
Travis who is afraid to admit his LD and get
help? )
Brandon:
? I would have him come into things like this,
meetings like this.
152
Linda Flower
Justify ? So he can get more comfortable with that. ? Being one on one with him I can tell him
everything he needs to know,
Qualify ? but until he opens his mouth its not going
to happen.
Looking back at the Think Tank as an experiment in counterpublic delib- eration, this analysis suggests that taking rhetorical agency in this setting draws on an embedded set of rhetorical moves that build on one another. At the core are expressive moves--identity-asserting statements that tell a per- sonal story or opinion. Speakers expand their reach with broader interpretive moves that respond to conflict, claims, or questions with new claims, rivals, or contributions that justify, qualify, or conditionalize our understanding. And finally, speakers may rise to what I have argued is the most powerful form of rhetorical agency in community literacy--a fully dialogic, knowledge-building engagement with the understanding of others. In acts of complexity and so- phistication, we see these speakers reinterpret the image of another speaker, rival or compare their own points, plan a response, or actively adapt to others.
This supported performance also helps us name three aspects of going public in the face of a disabling discourse. One is the way a structured discur- sive space, such as the Think Tank, can not only enfranchise speakers but also scaffold their rhetorical work--encouraging them to construct rivals and op- tions in response to others. Another is the way these two students use the occasion to grow and achieve in their own ways. Brandon, who had a history of denying he had a learning disability even within the SOS program, is look- ing publicly and reflectively at his own decision. In this public forum, he has found a way to affirm a "valid social identity" that embraces his learning dif- ficulties. But in other ways, it was Don's participation, speaking up in this public room that astounded his teachers. Don does not talk much; he strug- gles with academic tasks more than most students in the program. Yet here he is, to everyone's surprise and delight, volunteering his story and interven- ing in the discussion with the authority of a person with something to con- tribute.
Finally, in Brandon and other students we are seeing evidence of a distinc- tive form of rhetorical agency. The moves made in this Think Tank dialogue demonstrate a thinker who is entering into a public deliberation, choosing to engage with complex problems. Brandon is not only expressing himself (tell- ing his story or opinion) but also entering this event as an interpreter of prob- lems and as a dialogic meaning maker. In doing so, in going public as a rhetorical agent, he is, in his own way, transforming the discourse of disability. That may seem like a big claim, but in casting his bread on the water, throw- ing his words into circulation, he is helping shape a more public dialogic deliberation about a common good, and in joining that public (created in
Going Public--in a Disabling Discourse 153
Warner's sense) we too are in turn implicated in the life success of students with learning disabilities. As collaborative-critical activists (as teachers, researchers, and college students) the public work of rhetoric need not be about our own voice, but can rest on our ability to help call local publics into being, to nur- ture the rhetorical agency of marginalized speakers, and to use the power of rhetoric to document agency and expertise in a way that challenges and per- haps even transforms the discourses it enters.
Notes
1. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 119.
2. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 76.
3. For examples of the range of literacy practices, see Coogan, "Community Liter-
acy"; Cushman, "Toward a Praxis"; Higgins, Long, and Flower, "Community Literacy"; Hull and Katz, "Crafting"; Rousculp, "When the Community. " For synthetic, critical overviews, see Deans, Writing Partnerships; Long, Community Literacy. The specific prac- tice of community literacy referred to here supports public engagement through in- tercultural inquiry. Developed at the Community Literacy Center, grounded in the prophetic pragmatism of John Dewey and Cornel West, it supports rhetorical problem solving through community-university partnerships. See Flower, Community Literacy, for a study of this literate practice and a textual archive in the CLC "Snapshot History" at http://English. cmu. edu/research/inquiry/two. html (accessed July 12, 2008).
4. Brueggemann et al. , "Becoming Visible," 371. The authors' excellent multifaceted overview of the meaning of disability for composition studies highlights the difficulty of "becoming visible," while I focus here on the hazards of recognition. The problem in both cases is being represented in the language and categories to which you have contributed, to bring about, as they put it, "nothing about us without us. " Ibid. , 391.
5. Although "claiming disability [is a] a move that will necessarily 'disrupt the social order,' as disabled people come out," that is not a necessary or immediate effect. Ibid. , 373.
6. Andrea Lowenstein treats identity-making as a personal narrative of discovery, understanding, and accommodation. Lowenstein, "My Learning Disability. " Self-repre- sentation shapes many arguments in LD OnLine www. ldonline. org; in Mel Levine's "All Kinds of Minds," www. allkindsofminds. org; and the powerful Mooney and Cole, Learn- ing Outside the Lines.
7. Brueggemann et al. , "Becoming Visible," 391.
8. Director Stacie Dojonovic's SOS program, which offers support for the transition from school to work for students with learning disabilities, has been recognized as a model by the National Organization on Disability. Most of the SOS students in this Think Tank team had already been scholars in my Decision Makers community literacy program at CMU (Carnegie Mellon).
9. An outgrowth of the Community Literacy Center, the Carnegie Mellon Community Think Tank had already addressed a series of workplace/worklife problems, bringing marginalized employees into problem-solving dialogues with administrative and policy people. Its methods and findings are at www. cmu. edu/thinktank (accessed July 12, 2008).
10. Kantrowitz and Underwood, "Dyslexia. " 11. White, "Learning Disability," 727.
12. Ibid. , 720.
154 Linda Flower
13. See Haller, Dorrier, and Rahn's description of the partly successful campaign to "replace holistic designations, such as 'the mentally disabled' . . . (that reduce a human to his or her impairment), with modified terms, i. e. , 'people with a learning disability. '" Haller, Dorrier, and Rahn, "Media Labeling. " See also Morse, Introduction.
14. Hull et al. , "Remediation. "
15. Ibid. , 311.
16. Ibid. , 312.
17. Silver, Misunderstood Child, 38-55. 18. White, "Learning Disability," 709. 19. Ibid. , 717.
20. Mooney and Cole, Learning Outside the Lines.
21.
All the speakers in this sequence, identified by pseudonyms, are high school stu-
dents, except for Trista, a University of Massachusetts student, and myself. 22. Mehan, "Beneath the Skin. "
23. McDermott, "Acquisition," 272.
24. Goodley, "Locating Self-Advocacy," 373.
25. Swain and Cameron, "Unless Otherwise Stated," 69. 26. Ibid. , 79.
27. See Corker and French, Disability Discourse.
28. Goodley, "Locating Self-Advocacy," 373.
29. Goodley, "Supporting People," 441.
30. Swain and Cameron, "Unless Otherwise Stated," 76.
31. Davies, "Discursive Production," 239, quoted in Priestley, "Transforming Disabil- ity," 97.
32. Priestley, "Transforming Disability," 97.
33. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 27.
34. See Nancy Fraser's influential critique of the Habermas ideal. Fraser, "Rethinking
the Public Sphere. "
35. See Hauser's coherent framing of this new view in his discussion of what he calls
the "vernacular voices" of the "reticulate" and "rhetorical" public sphere. Hauser, Ver- nacular Voices, 44-64.
36. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 114.
37. For Gloria Anzaldua, a mestiza (mixed) voice is one that embraces rather than avoids conflict and contradiction: "I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue--my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence. " Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera, 81.
38. Goodley, "Locating Self-Advocacy," 367-79.
39. For an overview of "The Decision Makers Assessment: A Web-based Assessment Tool for Reflective Decision Making Based on Writer's Planning and Self-reflection" (2006), visit http://English. cmu. edu/research/inquiry/decisionmakers/index. html (accessed June 21, 2009).
40. For an extended discussion of this notion of rhetorical agency and the collabora- tive, meaning-making processes of urban rhetors, see Flower, Community Literacy.
41. For an overview of the rhetorical structure of the Community Think Tank, see Flower, "Intercultural Knowledge Building. "
42. Belenky, Bond, and Weinstock, Tradition.
43. For Habermas, "strategic" is a manipulative alternative to "communicative" action; in my perspective from classical and cognitive rhetoric, the art of inquiry is itself
Going Public--in a Disabling Discourse 155 a heuristic and strategically self-conscious process. Habermas, Theory, 258. Freire, Peda-
gogy of the Oppressed.
Works Cited
Alinsky, Saul D. Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals. New York: Vin- tage Books, 1989.
Alzaldua. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987. Barton, Ellen. "Discourses of Disability in the Digest. " JAC 21 (2001): 555-81.
Belenky, Mary Field, Lynne A. Bond, and Jacqueline S. Weinstock. A Tradition That Has
No Name: Nurturing the Development of People, Families, and Communities. New York:
Basic Books, 1997.
Brueggemann, Brenda Jo, Linda Feldmeier White, Patricia A Dunn, Barbara A. Heifferon,
and Johnson Cheu. "Becoming Visible: Lessons in Disability. " College Composition and
Communication 52 (2001): 368-98.
Coogan, David. "Community Literacy as Civic Dialogue. " Community Literacy 1, no. 1
(2006): 95-108.
Corker, Mairian, and Sally French, eds. Disability Discourse. Philadelphia: Open Univer-
sity Press, 1999.
Cushman, Ellen. "Toward a Praxis of New Media. " Reflections 5, nos. 1-2 (2006): 111-32. Davies, B. "The Discursive Production of the Male/Female Dualism in School Settings. "
Oxford Review of Education 15 (1989): 229-41.
Deans, Thomas. Writing Partnerships: Service-Learning in Composition. Urbana, Ill. : National
Council of Teachers of English, 2000.
Flower, Linda. Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Public Engagement. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008.
------. "Intercultural Knowledge Building: The Literate Action of a Community Think
Tank. " In Writing Selves/Writing Societies: Research from Activity Perspectives, edited by Charles Bazerman and David Russell, 239-79. Fort Collins, Colo. : WAC Clearing- house and Mind, Culture, and Activity, 2002.
Fraser, Nancy. "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actu- ally Existing Democracy. " Social Text 25/26 (1990): 58-60.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Continuum, 1985.
Goodley, Dan. "Locating Self-Advocacy in Models of Disability: Understanding Disabil- ity in the Support of Self-Advocates with Learning Difficulties. " Disability & Society 12 (1997): 367-79.
------. "Supporting People with Learning Difficulties in Self-Advocacy Groups and Models of Disability. " Health and Social Care in the Community 6 (1998): 438-46.
Habermas, Ju? rgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Cate- gory of Bourgeois Society. Translated by Thomas Burger, with Frederick Lawrence. Cam- bridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1989.
------. A Theory of Communication Action. Translated by Thomas McCarthy. Vol. 1. Boston: Beacon, 1984.
Haller, Beth, Bruce Dorrier, and Jessica Rahn. "Media Labeling versus the Us Disability Community Identity: A Study of Shifting Cultural Language. " Disability & Society 21 (2006): 61-75.
Hauser, Gerard. Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.
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Higgins, Lorraine, Elenore Long, and Linda Flower. "Community Literacy: A Rhetorical Model of Personal and Public Inquiry. " Community Literacy 1, no. 1 (2006): 9-43. Hull, Glynda, and Mira-Lisa Katz. "Crafting an Agentive Self: Case Studies of Digital Sto-
rytelling. " Research in Teaching of English 41, no. 1 (2006): 43-82.
Hull, Glynda, Mike Rose, Kay Losey Fraser, and Marisa Castellano. "Remediation as Social Construct: Perspectives from an Analysis of Classroom Discourse. " College Composi-
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Parlor Press, 2008.
Lowenstein, Andrea Freud. "My Learning Disability: A (Digressive) Essay. " College English
66 (2004): 585-602.
McDermott, R. P. "The Acquisition of a Child by a Learning Disability. " In Understand-
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Mooney, Jonathan, and David Cole. Learning Outside the Lines. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.
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Silver, Larry. The Misunderstood Child. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1984.
Swain, John, and Colin Cameron. "Unless Otherwise Stated: Discourses of Labeling and Identity in Coming Out. " In Disability Discourse, edited by Mairian Corker and Sally
French, 68-78. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1999.
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White, Linda Feldmeier. "Learning Disability, Pedagogies, and Public Discourse. " College
Composition and Communication 53 (2002): 705-38.
? Sophists for Social Change
David J. Coogan
It began almost casually, on a warm summer evening in Church Hill, Virginia, as a conversation among friends looking for something to do. "Do you want to rob somebody? " asked one boy, according to police. "All right," answered another.
the teacher was gonna collect it.
? She asked if I was having trouble with it
? and I was like yeah.
? I said it says on my IEP that I have more
time on my work
? and he said I could take it home to finish it.
Brandon:
? If they don't recognize it, I don't put it out
there.
? Until I really need help.
? And if I don't really need help, I don't
enforce it.
Tell [Decision ] Conditionalize Conditionalize Conditionalize
In table 1, "Expressive Moves," the discussion has turned to interactions with teachers. As the schematic representation suggests, Don responds to a "do you agree? " prompt with a counterclaim (disagreeing with both examples
Going Public--in a Disabling Discourse 149
in the briefing book). At another point he responds to a narrative prompt with a supporting story. As Belenky, Bond, and Weinstock have shown with other marginalized, typically silent speakers, this first, expressive level of par- ticipation can in fact be a significant act of asserting one's identity and a sense of one's self as a knower, a speaker, and an authority on one's own experi- ence. 42 In fact, the evidence of this normally silent student actively speaking out in this public space with strangers was received by Don's teachers with surprise. In example 2, we see Brandon also responding with an expressive move, though notice how in this case it is the story of a decision, embedded in a highly conditionalized account of what he sees as appropriate action.
Our images of marginalized, socially disabled speakers (like those of inex- perienced writers) often lead us to expect expressive discourse, but little more. However, the rhetorical performance of these teenagers asserts another level of rhetorical agency in which one responds as the interpreter of a problem or a conflict or a question. In table 2, "Interpretive Moves," we see Brandon being asked to respond with a truth claim (Do teachers really care? ). He replies not just by offering a yes/no expressive opinion, but by interpreting the situation: they care, but it demands time and effort as well as strategies and knowledge they do not have. His interpretation is laced with the condi- tions, qualifications, and justifications that mark a reasoned argument. More important, as a contribution to this public discussion of the teacher's role in learning difficulties, Brandon's contribution to the inquiry is a balanced, qualified, conditionalized, and insightful interpretation of the problem itself. Going well beyond a personal experience narrative, he addresses the complex issue of "whose problem is this? " exploring how and why teachers of good- will participate in turning differences among all into a disability for some.
[ table 2 ] Interpretive Moves
3 Prompt [True? ] Interpret
Claim Qualify
Claim
Claim
Claim Conditionalize Conditionalize
Parent: Do you think teachers care? Brandon:
? I think they do care,
? but the LD it will take them more time and
effort for a strategy and a work plan
? Most LD students they have mainstream
classes
? and mainstream teachers don't know how to
handle and LD student.
? Most of the time there's only one or two and
she don't know how to deal with them.
? If she slows down the process for the whole
class people are gonna get bored.
? And if she speeds it up the LDs are gonna get
lost.
150 Linda Flower
Claim Qualify Justify Claim
Claim
? In a way the teachers care,
? but in certain situations they don't enforce it. ? [Because] There's more students that need
her help that she knows how to help in
other ways
? than [there are] LD students who she doesn't
know how to help them as well as she would like.
However, not all interpretive moves are equally sophisticated. Should we really expect to see the more fully dialogic, self-conscious, reflective, and strate- gic moves that we associate with higher levels of literacy and rhetorical agency? Is that not a lot to ask of young students from urban schools who may even be struggling to succeed at what Freire calls knowledge "banking"? What form would such agency take in this public deliberation with unknown adults? 43
In table 3, "Dialogic, Re-interpretive Moves," example 4, one of the adults tells the story of his own child who flunked his first year of college and then went for help, offering this as a prompt (and implicit advice? ) to Brandon. Brandon, however, responds by reinterpreting the other speaker's story (that is, it is just that your son's strategy failed). Brandon then justifies his alterna- tive scenario, and at the same time rivals himself. That is, the Achilles' heel of Brandon's own solution (that is, don't ask for help; don't tell) is that his strategy has not failed--yet. By the end, his analysis has connected a condi- tionalized analysis of when to get help with a reflection on the motivation to remain silent--pride. Once again, this student's situated understanding of a problem has yielded bona fide insight--evidence of expertise. But even more significant is that as a member of a deliberative public, he has contributed a reflective reinterpretation of someone else's image of the problem. He has engaged in that essential dialogic move of listening then building on, chal- lenging, qualifying, or expanding our understanding, creating a more com- plex and negotiated meaning.
[ table 3 ] Dialogic, Reinterpretive Moves (Reinterpret the other's image)
4 Prompt [Opinion-story? ]
Tell [Opinion] Dialog [Reinterpret]
[Parent: Tells of own child who flunked 1st semester in college; then went back asking for help. ]
What would stop you from doing that? Brandon: Pride mostly.
? From your son, he actually went through
everything
? and the strategy that he tried to do it, it
failed.
Justify Rival
Prompt [Recap ]
? So, in other words he had to come straight up front about it.
? From my point, my strategy hasn't failed yet. Counselor: He tried a way and that didn't
work out so he doubled back and tried
Rival self /
Conditionalize work
Claim Reflect
? So when I get to that and my strategy don't ? then I'll just have to confront my own self.
? My own pride.
Going Public--in a Disabling Discourse 151
another way. But you haven't failed yet. Interpret Brandon:
My final example, table 4, "Dialogic, Adaptive Moves," takes this dialogic process one step further, demonstrating a dialogic rhetorical agency that not only interprets but also adapts to other speakers. Asked how he might speak to his friend Travis, who is afraid to admit that he has a learning disability, Brandon begins by imaginatively projecting what Travis would be thinking. Then he begins to lay out a rhetorical plan for drawing his friend into this local public, into an inquiry about learning disabilities as both a reflective and physical space. Notice how he is not only planning how to adapt to his audience, but he is considering reasons, justifying his move, and then, in a wise and reflective move, he qualifies his own rhetorical ability: "I can tell him, . . . but until he opens his mouth its not going to happen. "
[ table 4 ]. Dialogic, Adaptive Moves (Adapt to the Other)
5 Interpret
Claim
Justify
Prompt [Opinion-Act? ]
Dialog [Plan-Adapt]
(In discussing going public, Travis gets men- tioned)
Brandon:
? I know Travis
? I know that he plays football,
? he don't want to get his personal life like his
LD out there.
? [Because] He plays football
? and they'll call him stupid and bring him
down.
Parent: (How would you coach a peer like
Travis who is afraid to admit his LD and get
help? )
Brandon:
? I would have him come into things like this,
meetings like this.
152
Linda Flower
Justify ? So he can get more comfortable with that. ? Being one on one with him I can tell him
everything he needs to know,
Qualify ? but until he opens his mouth its not going
to happen.
Looking back at the Think Tank as an experiment in counterpublic delib- eration, this analysis suggests that taking rhetorical agency in this setting draws on an embedded set of rhetorical moves that build on one another. At the core are expressive moves--identity-asserting statements that tell a per- sonal story or opinion. Speakers expand their reach with broader interpretive moves that respond to conflict, claims, or questions with new claims, rivals, or contributions that justify, qualify, or conditionalize our understanding. And finally, speakers may rise to what I have argued is the most powerful form of rhetorical agency in community literacy--a fully dialogic, knowledge-building engagement with the understanding of others. In acts of complexity and so- phistication, we see these speakers reinterpret the image of another speaker, rival or compare their own points, plan a response, or actively adapt to others.
This supported performance also helps us name three aspects of going public in the face of a disabling discourse. One is the way a structured discur- sive space, such as the Think Tank, can not only enfranchise speakers but also scaffold their rhetorical work--encouraging them to construct rivals and op- tions in response to others. Another is the way these two students use the occasion to grow and achieve in their own ways. Brandon, who had a history of denying he had a learning disability even within the SOS program, is look- ing publicly and reflectively at his own decision. In this public forum, he has found a way to affirm a "valid social identity" that embraces his learning dif- ficulties. But in other ways, it was Don's participation, speaking up in this public room that astounded his teachers. Don does not talk much; he strug- gles with academic tasks more than most students in the program. Yet here he is, to everyone's surprise and delight, volunteering his story and interven- ing in the discussion with the authority of a person with something to con- tribute.
Finally, in Brandon and other students we are seeing evidence of a distinc- tive form of rhetorical agency. The moves made in this Think Tank dialogue demonstrate a thinker who is entering into a public deliberation, choosing to engage with complex problems. Brandon is not only expressing himself (tell- ing his story or opinion) but also entering this event as an interpreter of prob- lems and as a dialogic meaning maker. In doing so, in going public as a rhetorical agent, he is, in his own way, transforming the discourse of disability. That may seem like a big claim, but in casting his bread on the water, throw- ing his words into circulation, he is helping shape a more public dialogic deliberation about a common good, and in joining that public (created in
Going Public--in a Disabling Discourse 153
Warner's sense) we too are in turn implicated in the life success of students with learning disabilities. As collaborative-critical activists (as teachers, researchers, and college students) the public work of rhetoric need not be about our own voice, but can rest on our ability to help call local publics into being, to nur- ture the rhetorical agency of marginalized speakers, and to use the power of rhetoric to document agency and expertise in a way that challenges and per- haps even transforms the discourses it enters.
Notes
1. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 119.
2. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 76.
3. For examples of the range of literacy practices, see Coogan, "Community Liter-
acy"; Cushman, "Toward a Praxis"; Higgins, Long, and Flower, "Community Literacy"; Hull and Katz, "Crafting"; Rousculp, "When the Community. " For synthetic, critical overviews, see Deans, Writing Partnerships; Long, Community Literacy. The specific prac- tice of community literacy referred to here supports public engagement through in- tercultural inquiry. Developed at the Community Literacy Center, grounded in the prophetic pragmatism of John Dewey and Cornel West, it supports rhetorical problem solving through community-university partnerships. See Flower, Community Literacy, for a study of this literate practice and a textual archive in the CLC "Snapshot History" at http://English. cmu. edu/research/inquiry/two. html (accessed July 12, 2008).
4. Brueggemann et al. , "Becoming Visible," 371. The authors' excellent multifaceted overview of the meaning of disability for composition studies highlights the difficulty of "becoming visible," while I focus here on the hazards of recognition. The problem in both cases is being represented in the language and categories to which you have contributed, to bring about, as they put it, "nothing about us without us. " Ibid. , 391.
5. Although "claiming disability [is a] a move that will necessarily 'disrupt the social order,' as disabled people come out," that is not a necessary or immediate effect. Ibid. , 373.
6. Andrea Lowenstein treats identity-making as a personal narrative of discovery, understanding, and accommodation. Lowenstein, "My Learning Disability. " Self-repre- sentation shapes many arguments in LD OnLine www. ldonline. org; in Mel Levine's "All Kinds of Minds," www. allkindsofminds. org; and the powerful Mooney and Cole, Learn- ing Outside the Lines.
7. Brueggemann et al. , "Becoming Visible," 391.
8. Director Stacie Dojonovic's SOS program, which offers support for the transition from school to work for students with learning disabilities, has been recognized as a model by the National Organization on Disability. Most of the SOS students in this Think Tank team had already been scholars in my Decision Makers community literacy program at CMU (Carnegie Mellon).
9. An outgrowth of the Community Literacy Center, the Carnegie Mellon Community Think Tank had already addressed a series of workplace/worklife problems, bringing marginalized employees into problem-solving dialogues with administrative and policy people. Its methods and findings are at www. cmu. edu/thinktank (accessed July 12, 2008).
10. Kantrowitz and Underwood, "Dyslexia. " 11. White, "Learning Disability," 727.
12. Ibid. , 720.
154 Linda Flower
13. See Haller, Dorrier, and Rahn's description of the partly successful campaign to "replace holistic designations, such as 'the mentally disabled' . . . (that reduce a human to his or her impairment), with modified terms, i. e. , 'people with a learning disability. '" Haller, Dorrier, and Rahn, "Media Labeling. " See also Morse, Introduction.
14. Hull et al. , "Remediation. "
15. Ibid. , 311.
16. Ibid. , 312.
17. Silver, Misunderstood Child, 38-55. 18. White, "Learning Disability," 709. 19. Ibid. , 717.
20. Mooney and Cole, Learning Outside the Lines.
21.
All the speakers in this sequence, identified by pseudonyms, are high school stu-
dents, except for Trista, a University of Massachusetts student, and myself. 22. Mehan, "Beneath the Skin. "
23. McDermott, "Acquisition," 272.
24. Goodley, "Locating Self-Advocacy," 373.
25. Swain and Cameron, "Unless Otherwise Stated," 69. 26. Ibid. , 79.
27. See Corker and French, Disability Discourse.
28. Goodley, "Locating Self-Advocacy," 373.
29. Goodley, "Supporting People," 441.
30. Swain and Cameron, "Unless Otherwise Stated," 76.
31. Davies, "Discursive Production," 239, quoted in Priestley, "Transforming Disabil- ity," 97.
32. Priestley, "Transforming Disability," 97.
33. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 27.
34. See Nancy Fraser's influential critique of the Habermas ideal. Fraser, "Rethinking
the Public Sphere. "
35. See Hauser's coherent framing of this new view in his discussion of what he calls
the "vernacular voices" of the "reticulate" and "rhetorical" public sphere. Hauser, Ver- nacular Voices, 44-64.
36. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 114.
37. For Gloria Anzaldua, a mestiza (mixed) voice is one that embraces rather than avoids conflict and contradiction: "I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue--my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence. " Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera, 81.
38. Goodley, "Locating Self-Advocacy," 367-79.
39. For an overview of "The Decision Makers Assessment: A Web-based Assessment Tool for Reflective Decision Making Based on Writer's Planning and Self-reflection" (2006), visit http://English. cmu. edu/research/inquiry/decisionmakers/index. html (accessed June 21, 2009).
40. For an extended discussion of this notion of rhetorical agency and the collabora- tive, meaning-making processes of urban rhetors, see Flower, Community Literacy.
41. For an overview of the rhetorical structure of the Community Think Tank, see Flower, "Intercultural Knowledge Building. "
42. Belenky, Bond, and Weinstock, Tradition.
43. For Habermas, "strategic" is a manipulative alternative to "communicative" action; in my perspective from classical and cognitive rhetoric, the art of inquiry is itself
Going Public--in a Disabling Discourse 155 a heuristic and strategically self-conscious process. Habermas, Theory, 258. Freire, Peda-
gogy of the Oppressed.
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? Sophists for Social Change
David J. Coogan
It began almost casually, on a warm summer evening in Church Hill, Virginia, as a conversation among friends looking for something to do. "Do you want to rob somebody? " asked one boy, according to police. "All right," answered another.
