See Newkirk,
Performance
of Self.
The Public Work of Rhetoric_nodrm
While useful in many ways, this work seemed an un- realistic model for students, since these journalists were publishing in venues like the New Yorker and the New York Times, and, for them, finding responsive readers was never in question.
The second time this course was offered, stu- dents additionally discussed dissident press writings, from contemporary local writers as well as from historical positions, to help writers think through how to lend their voices to the creation of a public, rather than being a one-off cry in the wild.
In such a sense that students are trying to write their way into the publics they seek to join--whether they be academic, political, social, and so forth--reading the work of outsiders seeking to create a responsive public can provide the bases for useful conversations.
260 Diana George and Paula Mathieu
But Are We Teaching Bad Rhetoric?
Even though rhetoricians are interested in the social function of texts and how language makes changes in the world, in what ways might we still be governed by questions of aesthetics instead of performativity? In other words, are we reticent to teach dissident press publications because we think it is just "bad writing"? In a recent discussion on the WPA Listserv, for example, one writer sought help finding examples of "good political writing" and prefaced his request with the caveat that he did not want examples of texts that he thought were "too moralistic or partisan" to engage students. Rather than questioning the writer's assumption that good political writing must not be too partisan or must not moralize, some responders to this thread offered examples of texts that defined "political" as bipartisan writing that took no clear political position: "[the writer] is not running for anything, has no hid- den agenda . . . for . . . people . . . on both sides of the aisle. " Alternatively, others suggested texts that took no political positions but rather analyzed political rhetoric to help students see that we "get 'fooled' by our culture into seeing every issue as having only two sides. " Such analyses of rhetoric are valuable in any class, but we would argue that analysis is not a substitute for strong rhetorical claims that passionately seek to persuade their readers of the justness of a cause. Analysis of political rhetoric is not a substitute for politi- cal, or politicized, rhetoric, and we believe a rhetoric classroom can and should be a place to examine and explore rhetoric that can be highly partisan, can be moralizing, can have clear agendas, and not be written for both, or either, side of the aisle.
What, then, might be the reluctance in recommending baldly political texts? One fear, expressed by the original writer of the question, is that stu- dents of an opposing political position would be turned off by the strong argument. But if we are trying to show that counterpublic discourses appeal to some readers while not appealing to most readers, would not such a response be an important part of the discussion in understanding how dissident rhet- oric works? If an argument were immediately appealing and accepted by all, it would not be dissident, and it might well not be an argument at all. Dissi- dent rhetoric works by appealing to some while turning off many others.
Take, for example, Grant Allen's editorial in the March 1920 issue of "Hobo" News. In it, he sets up a worldview of clear Manichaean opposites of good and evil:
If you are on the side of the Spoilers, then you are a Bad Man.
If you are on the side of Social Justice, then you are a Good Man. There is no effective test of High Morality at the present day save this. Critics of the Middle Class type often explain, of reasoning like this,
"What on earth makes him say it? What has he to gain by talking in that way? What does he expect to get by it? So bound up are they in
The Dissident Press in a Rhetorical Education 261
the idea of selfinterest [sic] as the one motive of action, that they never even seem to conceive of honest conviction as a ground for speaking out the truth that is in one.
To such critics, I would answer, "The reason why I write all this is because I profoundly believe it.
I believe the poor are being kept out of their own. I believe the rich are, for the most part, selfish and despicable. I believe wealth has been piled up by cruel and unworthy means.
I believe it is wrong in us to acquiesce in the wicked inequalities of
our existing Social State, instead of trying our utmost to bring about another, where Right would be done to all, where Poverty would be impossible. I believe such a system is perfectly practicable, and that nothing stands in its way save the selfish fears and prejudices of indi- viduals. And I believe even those craven fears and narrow prejudices are wholly mistaken: that everybody, even the rich themselves, would be infinitely happier in a world where no Poverty existed, where no hateful sights and sound met the eye at every turn, where all slums were swept away, and where everybody had their just and even share of pleasure and refinements in a free and equal community.
Arguably, this polemical statement might easily be dismissed by many stu- dents, because it conflicts with their beliefs or identity or seems too utopian. 51 But as an example of dissident rhetoric, it would not be expected to be em- braced by most readers. What would be interesting, when discussing a text like this, is to consider to whom such an argument might appeal. What aspects, if any, of Allen's worldview seem appealing to any students? To whom is he writing if he describes the rich as "for the most part, selfish and despicable"? It would also be important to discuss the ethics and responsibility of such writing: is it ever acceptable to characterize a person or a group as "despica- ble," "cruel," and "unjust"? Are issues of the relative power and prestige of the writer versus his or her subject germane to the discussion?
Beyond student resistance, we might hesitate to teach dissident writing in a rhetoric class based on aesthetic grounds: despite all its good intentions, dis- sident publications may not represent very good writing as we typically imag- ine it. Certainly Allen's article lacks subtlety or nuance. English-department aesthetics generally favor ambiguity over polemics, complexity over clarity. 52 Perhaps we fear we might infect students with "bad taste" if we take up lan- guage that aims more to do things than to mean, reverberate, and echo. Per- haps we additionally fear that we already live in a world saturated by "bad rhetoric": blogs, talk radio, and chat rooms that seek more to malign individ- uals than to argue for ideas or positions. Bringing in rhetoric like Allen's might only add to the cheapening of public discourse. Why give students examples of "bad rhetoric" if we all swim in a sea of it daily?
262 Diana George and Paula Mathieu
We would argue that dissident press rhetoric may, indeed, engage in some of the same rhetorical moves of character-assassinating blogs, discussion boards, and so forth, but the aim of bringing this rhetoric into the classroom is not imitation so much as it is a lesson in understanding rhetorical strategy. Moreover, the aim of a piece like Allen's is not to eliminate or ignore opposi- tion. Allen's vision is to take all people--rich and poor--along to a better, more just world. His goal is not to murder or eradicate the rich, but to change hearts and minds. Dissident-press writing, then, might not teach students how to write a model essay in the traditional sense of that word, but it can show them something about focusing on an issue passionately and seeking to bring readers along in the struggle.
Returning, then, to the question that began our discussion: should a first- year composition class teach public or academic writing? Rather than argu- ing one side or the other--public or academic--we would suggest another tact entirely. Relying on recent discussions of genre theory, we would argue that a first-year composition course ought to take as its focus the question of how language works, within situations, within genres, to consider how writ- ing and speaking can move audiences to action. 53 In such a class one would explore how public or academic arguments are made, arguments that result in, say, ordinances that ban the distribution of food to homeless men, women, and children, and how voices from the margins respond to such changes.
Nearly twenty years ago, when speaking about teaching rhetoric in the age of George H. W. Bush politics, Richard Ohmann, who describes himself as "a dissident intellectual," challenged our discipline with these words:
As everyone has heard, socialism is now dead, capitalism is trium- phant, and history is at an end. Let my irony not be read as a slur on the bold revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe. People there need our hopes and help as they try to shake off the tyrannies and bureauc- racies that claimed and tarnished the name of socialism. But they enter a world system whose tensions and crises grow ever more taut, more threatening to a decent future on the planet. Capitalism triumphant needs critical thought and liberatory rhetoric still more than capitalism militant in mortal combat with the Evil Empire. We will have to invent something new, or decay and perish. Can vision become a goal for rhetoric? 54
That question, "Can vision become a goal for rhetoric? " is one we believe is at the center of our desire to bring a rhetoric of dissidence into the writing classroom. A second Bush era has now come nearly to its end. In its wake, per- haps "vision" is the only appropriate goal for rhetoric today.
Notes
We thank the many friends and colleagues who encouraged us in this work and read bits and pieces of drafts or listened as we talked through so many of the issues raised
The Dissident Press in a Rhetorical Education 263
by the dissident press. Among them, we especially thank John Trimbur, who is both a good listener and a powerful skeptic; Allison Manuel, who read a late draft of this arti- cle and helped put us back on track; Lauren Goldstein, who help us with formatting; and the wonderful and generous men and women working in the basement and in the archives of the St. Louis Public Library. In many ways, this essay was written for Diana's great-great uncle Thomas Scanlon (1855-1938), who lived as a hobo in St. Louis at the turn of the last century, who surely walked under and past the Eads Bridge, and who, we imagine, might well have been one of the thousands of men carrying "Hobo" News from one harvest to the next.
1. Glenn, Lyday, and Sharer, Rhetorical Education in America. 2. Kushner, Design of Dissent.
3. MLA, "Focus. "
4. Berlin, Rhetoric and Reality, 4.
5. "Times and Iraq. "
6. National Coalition for the Homeless, "Feeding Intolerance," para. 13. 7. Pew Project, "State. "
8. Berlin, Rhetoric.
9. See Trimbur, "Review Essay"; Mathieu, Tactics of Hope.
10. Glenn, Lyday, and Sharer, Rhetorical Education, viii.
11. Cornish and Russwurm, Freedom's Journal, March 16, 1827. 12. Glenn, Lyday, and Sharer, Rhetorical Education, ix.
13. Kushner, "Design," 220-21.
14. Berlin, Rhetoric, 5.
15. Kessler, Dissident Press.
16. Ibid. , 155.
17. Ibid. , 14.
18. Streitmatter, Voices of Revolution, x. 19. Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 7.
20. Masses, October 1913.
21. Crowley and Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics.
22. See Trimbur, "Review Essay. "
23. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 56.
24. Ibid. , 90.
25. For more information, see www. streetnewsservice. com. 26. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics.
27. Adrian, "World We Shall Win. "
28. "Hobo" News, November 1916.
29. Ibid.
30. De Pastino, Citizen Hobo.
31. Ibid. , 17.
32. Ibid. , 4.
33. Ibid.
34. How, "First Letter. "
35. "End of an Idealist. "
36. "Millionaire Hobo. "
37. Ibid.
38. Adrian, "World," 105.
39. "Editor's Statement," "Hobo" News 1, no. 1 (1915): 2.
40. O'Brien, "Light," 5.
264 Diana George and Paula Mathieu
41. Quoted in "Millionaire Hobo. "
42. Adrian, "World," 111.
43. See, for example, "Hard to Get"; Sayer, "Art and Politics," 42-78.
44. See, in particular, London, People of the Abyss; Riis, How the Other Half Lives. 45. How, "First Letter. "
46. London, People of the Abyss, 78.
47. Riis, How the Other Half Lives, 1.
48. Ibid.
49. How, "First Letter. "
50. Kushner, "Design," 221.
51. This is a rhetorical strategy used, for example, by Catholic Worker cofounder Peter Maurin in what he called his "easy essays. " In them, he offered straightforward chal- lenges for change:
Better Or Better Off
The world would be better off, if people tried
to become better.
And people would
become better
if they stopped trying
to be better off.
For when everybody tries to become better off, nobody is better off.
But when everybody tries to become better, everybody is better off. Everybody would be rich
if nobody tried
to be richer.
And nobody would be poor if everybody tried
to be the poorest.
And everybody would be what he ought to be
if everybody tried to be what he wants
the other fellow to be.
52.
See Newkirk, Performance of Self. In it, he argues that writing teachers by and large share a tacit aesthetic about what constitutes good writing, which includes writ- ing that takes tentative or exploratory stances and which is not overly emotional or sentimental.
53. See, for example, Bawarshi, Genre; Devitt, "Generalizing about Genre"; Miller, "Genre as Social Action. "
54. Ohmann, "Kinder, Gentler Nation," 230.
The Dissident Press in a Rhetorical Education 265
Works Cited
Adrian, Lynne M. "The World We Shall Win for Labor: Early 20th Century Hobo Self- Publication. " In Print Culture in a Diverse America, edited by James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, 101-27. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Bawarshi, Anis. Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2003.
Berlin, James. Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987.
Cornish, Samuel, and John Russwurm. Freedom's Journal, March 16, 1827.
Crowley, Shanon, and Deborah Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd
ed. Boston: Pearson, 2004.
De Pastino, Todd. Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Devitt, Amy. "Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept. " College
Composition and Communication 44 (1993): 573-86.
"End of an Idealist. " Time, August 4, 1930. http://www. time. com/time/magazine/article/
0,9171,740008,00. html (accessed March 22, 2009).
Glenn, Cheryl, Margaret M. Lyday, and Wendy B. Sharer, eds. Rhetorical Education in
America. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004.
"Hard to Get Jury for 'Masses' Trial," New York Times, April 16, 1918.
How, James. "The First Letter. " "Hobo" News, 1, no. 1, April 1915.
Kessler, Lauren. The Dissident Press: Alternative Journalism in American History. London:
Sage, 1984.
Kushner, Tony. "The Design of Dissent. " In The Design of Dissent, edited by Milton
Glaser and Mirko Ilic , 220-23. Gloucester, Mass. : Rockport, 2005.
London, Jack. People of the Abyss. London: Echo Library, 2007.
Mathieu, Paula. Tactics of Hope: The Public Turn in Composition. Portsmouth, N. H. : Boyn-
ton, Cook, Heinemann, 2005.
Maurin, Peter. "Easy Essays. " Catholic Worker Movement. Catholicworker. org. http://
www. catholicworker. org/roundtable/easyessays. cfm#%3CSTRONG%3ENo%20Re
course%3C/STRONG%3E (accessed March 22, 2009).
Miller, Carolyn. "Genre as Social Action. " Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (1984): 151-67. "Millionaire Hobo Seeks Cure for Jobless Men. " New York Times, May 14, 1911.
Modern Language Association (MLA). "The Focus of First-Year Composition: Academic
or Public Writing? " Modern Language Association Roundtable sponsored by the
Council of Writing Program Administrators, December 30, 2007.
National Coalition for the Homeless. "Feeding Intolerance: Prohibitions on Sharing Food with People Experiencing Homelessness. " http://www. nationalhomeless. org/
publications/foodsharing/intro. html#4 (accessed January 7, 2008).
Newkirk, Thomas. The Performance of Self in Student Writing. Portsmouth, N. H. : Heine-
mann, 1997.
O'Brien, Dan. "Light on the Hobo Problem. " "Hobo" News, 5, no. 5, March 1920. Ohmann, Richard. "A Kinder, Gentler Nation: Education and Rhetoric in the Bush Era. "
JAC 10, no. 2 (1990): 215-30.
Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism. "The State of the News Media 2007. "
http://www. stateofthenewsmedia. com/2007/ (accessed January 7, 2008).
266 Diana George and Paula Mathieu
Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. 1901. Reprint, New York: Digireads, 2005.
Sayer, John. "Art and Politics, Dissent and Repression: The Masses Magazine versus the Government, 1917-1918. " American Journal of Legal History 32, no. 1 (January 1988): 42-78.
Streitmatter, Rodger. Voices of Revolution: The Dissident Press in America. New York: Colum- bia University Press, 2001.
"The Times and Iraq. " New York Times, May 26, 2004.
Trimbur, John. "Review Essay: Taking the Social Turn: Teaching Writing Post-Process. "
Review of Academic Discourse and Critical Consciousness by Patricia Bizzell, Critical Teaching and the Idea of Literacy by C. H. Knoblauch and Lil Brannon, and Common Ground: Dialogue, Understanding, and the Teaching of Composition by Kurt Spellmeyer. CCC 1 (1994): 108-18.
Warner, Michael. Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books, 2002.
Young, Iris Marion. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
? The Community Literacy Advocacy Project
Civic Revival through Rhetorical Activity in Rural Arkansas
David A. Jolliffe
This essay analyzes an interesting, yet thorny, case in the public work of rhet- oric. It tells the story of an academic office at a public, research university supporting the public, rhetorical work of a small town in eastern Arkansas. All corners of the town are striving to craft a new statement about it. Its citi- zens are making Herculean efforts to reshape the rhetoric that they employ with one another when they talk about civic survival and, ideally, economic turnaround. Its leaders are offering a whole new perspective when they char- acterize the town's current status and its potential to prospective citizens and employers. Confronting what many observers would characterize as the hall- marks of civic decay, Augusta, Arkansas--population 2,390, county seat of Woodruff County, population around 7,900--working in collaboration with the Office of the Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas, is announcing to its citizens, to the state, and to others who care to listen that it is the town that reads and writes together, the town where literacy makes a difference.
The thorny aspect of the case emerges from the new message itself. Sitting at the center of Augusta's rhetorical activity is a hotly contested term, literacy, and the rhetorical campaign to promote more and better reading and writing in the town has developed without much attention to the historical roots of the issues being addressed and the political and social implications of the work. So what should an academic collaborator in this civic campaign do? As I explain below, my path has been to help the movement grow in the direc- tion it wants to grow and then to use the project as a teaching opportunity to help University of Arkansas students and the citizens involved to under- stand the deeper ideological issues involved and eventually, I hope, to act in responsible, productive ways about those issues.
In what follows I describe in some detail the rhetorical/revival campaign that Augusta has undertaken since 2005, document its successes in its first
268 David A. Jolliffe
year, and unpack several problematic issues that the project raises, issues that will eventually need to be addressed as part of an effort to teach an inclusive definition of literacy. To start, however, let me set out three perspectives that build a foundation for explaining how municipalities (and community literacy programs within them) craft rhetorical statements and how those statements can influence social change and, ideally, economic and material progress.
How Do Towns, Cities, and Literacy Programs Make a Rhetorical Statement?
Both ancient and contemporary rhetorical theories provide explanations about how towns and cities craft rhetorical statements about themselves. The clas- sical perspective is thoroughly Aristotelian; one contemporary perspective de- rives from social form theory; another contemporary theory examines the tropes underlying community literacy programs and, by extension, commu- nity-building efforts.
An Aristotelian rhetorician (which I unabashedly characterize myself as)1 would contend that towns and cities make rhetorical statements about them- selves in essentially the same way any text or any graphic--a picture, a car- toon, a chart, a graph, an advertisement, a billboard, and so on--does: by developing an argument that, in Stephen Toulmin's neo-Aristotelian terms, incorporates "data" and makes a claim, with the data and the claim con- nected by warrants: generally unspoken "because" statements, assumptions that the author/creator of the text hopes its readers/listeners/consumers share with him or her. 2 A verbal text manifests organizational patterns, choices of diction and syntax, imagistic and figurative language that fleshes out its cen- tral argument, appealing to the writer's character and credibility and the audi- ences' emotions and life states all the while. A graphic text does the same thing, only incorporating actual images--sights and sounds--as well as imag- istic language.
Cities and towns take advantage of verbal and nonverbal texts in both offi- cial and unofficial documents to make a statement--that is, to offer an argu- ment about what kind of city or town it is, why people live there, why people might visit or move there, and so on. Consider this example of an official document making a rhetorical statement for a city: if one searches for "Little Rock" on the Internet, one quickly finds a link titled "Little Rock City Limit- less. " (Notice, even from the outset, that the title's punning intertextuality with the phrase "city limits" creates a kind of "in" joke between the creator and the viewer, thus strengthening the former's ethos. ) By clicking on the link, one gets to www. littlerock. com, the homepage of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors' Bureau. This homepage is dominated by a beautiful photograph of the Arkansas River as it flows past downtown Little Rock, with the words "River Magic" superimposed on it. The text on the page describes in detail the cultural and recreational activities happening in the near future in Little Rock,
The Community Literacy Advocacy Project 269
and it lists the two dozen or so organizations that are holding conventions in Little Rock over the coming months. Here is the enthymeme, cast in the Toul- min's terms:
Data: Little Rock has abundant cultural events and recreational possibilities available at all times.
Claim: Little Rock is a "magical" city, with "limitless" possibilities. Warrant: The greater number and variety of recreational and cultural events that a city makes available to tourists and other visitors, the more attrac-
tive, "magical," and "limitless" it becomes to them.
As one processes this enthymeme, one glances at the portrait of President William Clinton over the link to the Clinton Library and Museum, at the graphic representations of local and touring Broadway shows that are coming to theaters in the city, at the announcements of upcoming concerts by the Arkansas Symphony, and the advertisement for the Arkansas Water Sports Association. The ethos of the city is strong: it is goodwilled; it is on your side. The pathos of the city is strong: it appeals to your sense of adventure, fun, excitement. Little Rock is apparently quite a hip place.
Unofficial "texts" about a town or city also make rhetorical statements. Consider Chicagoans' frequent invocation of the phrase "city of big shoul- ders," taken from Carl Sandburg's poem about the city. Here is the claim: Chi- cago is, despite its many cultural and commercial amenities, still a simple, solid, working-class city. Here are the "data": the famous cuisine is deep-dish pizza and hot dogs; the football team is the Bears (da Bares), "the monsters of the Midway"; the mayor (da mare) for much of the past half-century has been a plainspoken Irish American named Daley who talks tough with the media and makes sure the garbage is picked up. The ethos of the "city of big shoul- ders" and the pathos that its images conjure up work together to establish the warrant that the best American city is the down-to-earth, unpretentious one, where the work ethic that made America great remains at the center of civic life. The implicit claim is that Chicago is that city.
A second perspective on how cities and towns make rhetorical statements about themselves comes from the work of the contemporary communication theorist David Procter, who studies "how rural communities--read as small towns--communicate in a pattern that enhances their chances to survive and thrive. "3 Maintaining that that "language is a fundamental component in creating a sense of community," Procter explores "the ways citizens in a small town instill a sense of interdependence, fulfillment, and concern for one another" via "symbolic forms and cultural performances used to create those feelings of interdependence, fulfillment, and concern. "4 He explains: "As peo- ple talk about their town, they are doing more than expressing their indi- vidual support or disgust for their locality"; instead, "citizen rhetoric about locality-oriented events and acts is the materialization of a larger synthesis of
270 David A. Jolliffe
community sociopolitical beliefs and values. " And, Procter notes further, "this citizen rhetoric functions to create community belief and motivation. Com- munity rhetors . . . enact community by organizing experiences and then naming those experiences, thereby feeling communal with one another. "5
Central to Procter's analysis is his concept of "civic communions": "spe- cific and significant moments of community interaction directed toward civic issues. " Civic communions embody "rhetorical processes and cultural perform- ances that function to build community"; moreover, "they are fundamentally a rhetorical and performative civic sacrament functioning to bond citizenry around the social and political structures--local ways of life, community goals, and political operations--of a specific people. "6 Procter's analogy comparing religious and civic communions is instructive: "Just as church leaders recall important texts and parables that function to connect the faith community and guide religious behavior," Procter explains, "civic leaders recall important historic texts, people, and events that ultimately serve to solidify community identity and offer guides to appropriate civic values and practices. " As a re- sult, he argues, "organizers and citizens celebrate some features of commu- nity while devaluing others. "7
Yet another contemporary perspective examines the rhetorical activity specifically of community literacy programs. Since the remainder of this essay describes how Augusta, Arkansas, has placed its Community Literacy Advo- cacy Project at the forefront of its civic revitalization project, this perspective is relevant to the analytic task at hand. In Community Literacy and the Rheto- ric of Local Publics, Eleanor Long analyzes community literacy programs in terms of their dominant tropes, their rhetorical situations, their discursive features, and what might be termed their perlocutionary effects--the impli- cations of their rhetorical work. Arguing that community literacy programs represent "symbolic constructs enacted in time and place around shared exi- gencies"--constructs that Long labels "local publics"--she explains that peo- ple develop community literacy programs "around distinct rhetorical agendas that range from socializing children into appropriate language use . . . to eliciting stakeholders' perspectives on a shared problem . . . to demand- ing respect under conditions that yield little of it. "8 In other words, when a community literacy program has an agenda, as it does in Augusta, Arkansas, to revitalize the community and support economic growth, then that agenda is purposefully rhetorical.
To analyze the rhetoric of community literacy programs, Long creates a five-element "point-of-comparison" model. For any program, Long maintains, one can name its "guiding metaphor," or "the image that describes the discur- sive space where ordinary people go public"; the "context," or the "location, as well as other context-specific features that give public literacies their mean- ing"; the "tenor of the discourse," or the "register--the affective quality of the discourse"; the "literacy," or the "key practices that comprise the discourse"
The Community Literacy Advocacy Project 271
or "how people use writing and words to carry out their purposes for going public"; and the "rhetorical invention," or the "the generative processes by which people respond to the exigencies that call the local public into being. "9
All three perspectives can be used, as I do below, to analyze the new rhetor- ical work that is ongoing in Augusta--new rhetorical activity that stands in contrast to the tacit, unpromising message that Augusta was communicating about itself in the first years of the new millennium. The work of the Augusta Community Literacy Advocacy Project, a collaborative effort of the White River Rural Health Center and the Office of the Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas, has yielded a sustained and continuing project of rhetorical activity and civic communions designed to promote community literacy and revive the dying town.
Augusta on Life Support
Sitting as it does on U. S. 64, the "old highway" to Memphis for motorists who do not want to fight the truck traffic on Interstate 40, most of Augusta is hidden from the casual driver-through.
260 Diana George and Paula Mathieu
But Are We Teaching Bad Rhetoric?
Even though rhetoricians are interested in the social function of texts and how language makes changes in the world, in what ways might we still be governed by questions of aesthetics instead of performativity? In other words, are we reticent to teach dissident press publications because we think it is just "bad writing"? In a recent discussion on the WPA Listserv, for example, one writer sought help finding examples of "good political writing" and prefaced his request with the caveat that he did not want examples of texts that he thought were "too moralistic or partisan" to engage students. Rather than questioning the writer's assumption that good political writing must not be too partisan or must not moralize, some responders to this thread offered examples of texts that defined "political" as bipartisan writing that took no clear political position: "[the writer] is not running for anything, has no hid- den agenda . . . for . . . people . . . on both sides of the aisle. " Alternatively, others suggested texts that took no political positions but rather analyzed political rhetoric to help students see that we "get 'fooled' by our culture into seeing every issue as having only two sides. " Such analyses of rhetoric are valuable in any class, but we would argue that analysis is not a substitute for strong rhetorical claims that passionately seek to persuade their readers of the justness of a cause. Analysis of political rhetoric is not a substitute for politi- cal, or politicized, rhetoric, and we believe a rhetoric classroom can and should be a place to examine and explore rhetoric that can be highly partisan, can be moralizing, can have clear agendas, and not be written for both, or either, side of the aisle.
What, then, might be the reluctance in recommending baldly political texts? One fear, expressed by the original writer of the question, is that stu- dents of an opposing political position would be turned off by the strong argument. But if we are trying to show that counterpublic discourses appeal to some readers while not appealing to most readers, would not such a response be an important part of the discussion in understanding how dissident rhet- oric works? If an argument were immediately appealing and accepted by all, it would not be dissident, and it might well not be an argument at all. Dissi- dent rhetoric works by appealing to some while turning off many others.
Take, for example, Grant Allen's editorial in the March 1920 issue of "Hobo" News. In it, he sets up a worldview of clear Manichaean opposites of good and evil:
If you are on the side of the Spoilers, then you are a Bad Man.
If you are on the side of Social Justice, then you are a Good Man. There is no effective test of High Morality at the present day save this. Critics of the Middle Class type often explain, of reasoning like this,
"What on earth makes him say it? What has he to gain by talking in that way? What does he expect to get by it? So bound up are they in
The Dissident Press in a Rhetorical Education 261
the idea of selfinterest [sic] as the one motive of action, that they never even seem to conceive of honest conviction as a ground for speaking out the truth that is in one.
To such critics, I would answer, "The reason why I write all this is because I profoundly believe it.
I believe the poor are being kept out of their own. I believe the rich are, for the most part, selfish and despicable. I believe wealth has been piled up by cruel and unworthy means.
I believe it is wrong in us to acquiesce in the wicked inequalities of
our existing Social State, instead of trying our utmost to bring about another, where Right would be done to all, where Poverty would be impossible. I believe such a system is perfectly practicable, and that nothing stands in its way save the selfish fears and prejudices of indi- viduals. And I believe even those craven fears and narrow prejudices are wholly mistaken: that everybody, even the rich themselves, would be infinitely happier in a world where no Poverty existed, where no hateful sights and sound met the eye at every turn, where all slums were swept away, and where everybody had their just and even share of pleasure and refinements in a free and equal community.
Arguably, this polemical statement might easily be dismissed by many stu- dents, because it conflicts with their beliefs or identity or seems too utopian. 51 But as an example of dissident rhetoric, it would not be expected to be em- braced by most readers. What would be interesting, when discussing a text like this, is to consider to whom such an argument might appeal. What aspects, if any, of Allen's worldview seem appealing to any students? To whom is he writing if he describes the rich as "for the most part, selfish and despicable"? It would also be important to discuss the ethics and responsibility of such writing: is it ever acceptable to characterize a person or a group as "despica- ble," "cruel," and "unjust"? Are issues of the relative power and prestige of the writer versus his or her subject germane to the discussion?
Beyond student resistance, we might hesitate to teach dissident writing in a rhetoric class based on aesthetic grounds: despite all its good intentions, dis- sident publications may not represent very good writing as we typically imag- ine it. Certainly Allen's article lacks subtlety or nuance. English-department aesthetics generally favor ambiguity over polemics, complexity over clarity. 52 Perhaps we fear we might infect students with "bad taste" if we take up lan- guage that aims more to do things than to mean, reverberate, and echo. Per- haps we additionally fear that we already live in a world saturated by "bad rhetoric": blogs, talk radio, and chat rooms that seek more to malign individ- uals than to argue for ideas or positions. Bringing in rhetoric like Allen's might only add to the cheapening of public discourse. Why give students examples of "bad rhetoric" if we all swim in a sea of it daily?
262 Diana George and Paula Mathieu
We would argue that dissident press rhetoric may, indeed, engage in some of the same rhetorical moves of character-assassinating blogs, discussion boards, and so forth, but the aim of bringing this rhetoric into the classroom is not imitation so much as it is a lesson in understanding rhetorical strategy. Moreover, the aim of a piece like Allen's is not to eliminate or ignore opposi- tion. Allen's vision is to take all people--rich and poor--along to a better, more just world. His goal is not to murder or eradicate the rich, but to change hearts and minds. Dissident-press writing, then, might not teach students how to write a model essay in the traditional sense of that word, but it can show them something about focusing on an issue passionately and seeking to bring readers along in the struggle.
Returning, then, to the question that began our discussion: should a first- year composition class teach public or academic writing? Rather than argu- ing one side or the other--public or academic--we would suggest another tact entirely. Relying on recent discussions of genre theory, we would argue that a first-year composition course ought to take as its focus the question of how language works, within situations, within genres, to consider how writ- ing and speaking can move audiences to action. 53 In such a class one would explore how public or academic arguments are made, arguments that result in, say, ordinances that ban the distribution of food to homeless men, women, and children, and how voices from the margins respond to such changes.
Nearly twenty years ago, when speaking about teaching rhetoric in the age of George H. W. Bush politics, Richard Ohmann, who describes himself as "a dissident intellectual," challenged our discipline with these words:
As everyone has heard, socialism is now dead, capitalism is trium- phant, and history is at an end. Let my irony not be read as a slur on the bold revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe. People there need our hopes and help as they try to shake off the tyrannies and bureauc- racies that claimed and tarnished the name of socialism. But they enter a world system whose tensions and crises grow ever more taut, more threatening to a decent future on the planet. Capitalism triumphant needs critical thought and liberatory rhetoric still more than capitalism militant in mortal combat with the Evil Empire. We will have to invent something new, or decay and perish. Can vision become a goal for rhetoric? 54
That question, "Can vision become a goal for rhetoric? " is one we believe is at the center of our desire to bring a rhetoric of dissidence into the writing classroom. A second Bush era has now come nearly to its end. In its wake, per- haps "vision" is the only appropriate goal for rhetoric today.
Notes
We thank the many friends and colleagues who encouraged us in this work and read bits and pieces of drafts or listened as we talked through so many of the issues raised
The Dissident Press in a Rhetorical Education 263
by the dissident press. Among them, we especially thank John Trimbur, who is both a good listener and a powerful skeptic; Allison Manuel, who read a late draft of this arti- cle and helped put us back on track; Lauren Goldstein, who help us with formatting; and the wonderful and generous men and women working in the basement and in the archives of the St. Louis Public Library. In many ways, this essay was written for Diana's great-great uncle Thomas Scanlon (1855-1938), who lived as a hobo in St. Louis at the turn of the last century, who surely walked under and past the Eads Bridge, and who, we imagine, might well have been one of the thousands of men carrying "Hobo" News from one harvest to the next.
1. Glenn, Lyday, and Sharer, Rhetorical Education in America. 2. Kushner, Design of Dissent.
3. MLA, "Focus. "
4. Berlin, Rhetoric and Reality, 4.
5. "Times and Iraq. "
6. National Coalition for the Homeless, "Feeding Intolerance," para. 13. 7. Pew Project, "State. "
8. Berlin, Rhetoric.
9. See Trimbur, "Review Essay"; Mathieu, Tactics of Hope.
10. Glenn, Lyday, and Sharer, Rhetorical Education, viii.
11. Cornish and Russwurm, Freedom's Journal, March 16, 1827. 12. Glenn, Lyday, and Sharer, Rhetorical Education, ix.
13. Kushner, "Design," 220-21.
14. Berlin, Rhetoric, 5.
15. Kessler, Dissident Press.
16. Ibid. , 155.
17. Ibid. , 14.
18. Streitmatter, Voices of Revolution, x. 19. Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 7.
20. Masses, October 1913.
21. Crowley and Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics.
22. See Trimbur, "Review Essay. "
23. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 56.
24. Ibid. , 90.
25. For more information, see www. streetnewsservice. com. 26. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics.
27. Adrian, "World We Shall Win. "
28. "Hobo" News, November 1916.
29. Ibid.
30. De Pastino, Citizen Hobo.
31. Ibid. , 17.
32. Ibid. , 4.
33. Ibid.
34. How, "First Letter. "
35. "End of an Idealist. "
36. "Millionaire Hobo. "
37. Ibid.
38. Adrian, "World," 105.
39. "Editor's Statement," "Hobo" News 1, no. 1 (1915): 2.
40. O'Brien, "Light," 5.
264 Diana George and Paula Mathieu
41. Quoted in "Millionaire Hobo. "
42. Adrian, "World," 111.
43. See, for example, "Hard to Get"; Sayer, "Art and Politics," 42-78.
44. See, in particular, London, People of the Abyss; Riis, How the Other Half Lives. 45. How, "First Letter. "
46. London, People of the Abyss, 78.
47. Riis, How the Other Half Lives, 1.
48. Ibid.
49. How, "First Letter. "
50. Kushner, "Design," 221.
51. This is a rhetorical strategy used, for example, by Catholic Worker cofounder Peter Maurin in what he called his "easy essays. " In them, he offered straightforward chal- lenges for change:
Better Or Better Off
The world would be better off, if people tried
to become better.
And people would
become better
if they stopped trying
to be better off.
For when everybody tries to become better off, nobody is better off.
But when everybody tries to become better, everybody is better off. Everybody would be rich
if nobody tried
to be richer.
And nobody would be poor if everybody tried
to be the poorest.
And everybody would be what he ought to be
if everybody tried to be what he wants
the other fellow to be.
52.
See Newkirk, Performance of Self. In it, he argues that writing teachers by and large share a tacit aesthetic about what constitutes good writing, which includes writ- ing that takes tentative or exploratory stances and which is not overly emotional or sentimental.
53. See, for example, Bawarshi, Genre; Devitt, "Generalizing about Genre"; Miller, "Genre as Social Action. "
54. Ohmann, "Kinder, Gentler Nation," 230.
The Dissident Press in a Rhetorical Education 265
Works Cited
Adrian, Lynne M. "The World We Shall Win for Labor: Early 20th Century Hobo Self- Publication. " In Print Culture in a Diverse America, edited by James P. Danky and Wayne A. Wiegand, 101-27. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Bawarshi, Anis. Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2003.
Berlin, James. Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987.
Cornish, Samuel, and John Russwurm. Freedom's Journal, March 16, 1827.
Crowley, Shanon, and Deborah Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd
ed. Boston: Pearson, 2004.
De Pastino, Todd. Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Devitt, Amy. "Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept. " College
Composition and Communication 44 (1993): 573-86.
"End of an Idealist. " Time, August 4, 1930. http://www. time. com/time/magazine/article/
0,9171,740008,00. html (accessed March 22, 2009).
Glenn, Cheryl, Margaret M. Lyday, and Wendy B. Sharer, eds. Rhetorical Education in
America. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004.
"Hard to Get Jury for 'Masses' Trial," New York Times, April 16, 1918.
How, James. "The First Letter. " "Hobo" News, 1, no. 1, April 1915.
Kessler, Lauren. The Dissident Press: Alternative Journalism in American History. London:
Sage, 1984.
Kushner, Tony. "The Design of Dissent. " In The Design of Dissent, edited by Milton
Glaser and Mirko Ilic , 220-23. Gloucester, Mass. : Rockport, 2005.
London, Jack. People of the Abyss. London: Echo Library, 2007.
Mathieu, Paula. Tactics of Hope: The Public Turn in Composition. Portsmouth, N. H. : Boyn-
ton, Cook, Heinemann, 2005.
Maurin, Peter. "Easy Essays. " Catholic Worker Movement. Catholicworker. org. http://
www. catholicworker. org/roundtable/easyessays. cfm#%3CSTRONG%3ENo%20Re
course%3C/STRONG%3E (accessed March 22, 2009).
Miller, Carolyn. "Genre as Social Action. " Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (1984): 151-67. "Millionaire Hobo Seeks Cure for Jobless Men. " New York Times, May 14, 1911.
Modern Language Association (MLA). "The Focus of First-Year Composition: Academic
or Public Writing? " Modern Language Association Roundtable sponsored by the
Council of Writing Program Administrators, December 30, 2007.
National Coalition for the Homeless. "Feeding Intolerance: Prohibitions on Sharing Food with People Experiencing Homelessness. " http://www. nationalhomeless. org/
publications/foodsharing/intro. html#4 (accessed January 7, 2008).
Newkirk, Thomas. The Performance of Self in Student Writing. Portsmouth, N. H. : Heine-
mann, 1997.
O'Brien, Dan. "Light on the Hobo Problem. " "Hobo" News, 5, no. 5, March 1920. Ohmann, Richard. "A Kinder, Gentler Nation: Education and Rhetoric in the Bush Era. "
JAC 10, no. 2 (1990): 215-30.
Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism. "The State of the News Media 2007. "
http://www. stateofthenewsmedia. com/2007/ (accessed January 7, 2008).
266 Diana George and Paula Mathieu
Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. 1901. Reprint, New York: Digireads, 2005.
Sayer, John. "Art and Politics, Dissent and Repression: The Masses Magazine versus the Government, 1917-1918. " American Journal of Legal History 32, no. 1 (January 1988): 42-78.
Streitmatter, Rodger. Voices of Revolution: The Dissident Press in America. New York: Colum- bia University Press, 2001.
"The Times and Iraq. " New York Times, May 26, 2004.
Trimbur, John. "Review Essay: Taking the Social Turn: Teaching Writing Post-Process. "
Review of Academic Discourse and Critical Consciousness by Patricia Bizzell, Critical Teaching and the Idea of Literacy by C. H. Knoblauch and Lil Brannon, and Common Ground: Dialogue, Understanding, and the Teaching of Composition by Kurt Spellmeyer. CCC 1 (1994): 108-18.
Warner, Michael. Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books, 2002.
Young, Iris Marion. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
? The Community Literacy Advocacy Project
Civic Revival through Rhetorical Activity in Rural Arkansas
David A. Jolliffe
This essay analyzes an interesting, yet thorny, case in the public work of rhet- oric. It tells the story of an academic office at a public, research university supporting the public, rhetorical work of a small town in eastern Arkansas. All corners of the town are striving to craft a new statement about it. Its citi- zens are making Herculean efforts to reshape the rhetoric that they employ with one another when they talk about civic survival and, ideally, economic turnaround. Its leaders are offering a whole new perspective when they char- acterize the town's current status and its potential to prospective citizens and employers. Confronting what many observers would characterize as the hall- marks of civic decay, Augusta, Arkansas--population 2,390, county seat of Woodruff County, population around 7,900--working in collaboration with the Office of the Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas, is announcing to its citizens, to the state, and to others who care to listen that it is the town that reads and writes together, the town where literacy makes a difference.
The thorny aspect of the case emerges from the new message itself. Sitting at the center of Augusta's rhetorical activity is a hotly contested term, literacy, and the rhetorical campaign to promote more and better reading and writing in the town has developed without much attention to the historical roots of the issues being addressed and the political and social implications of the work. So what should an academic collaborator in this civic campaign do? As I explain below, my path has been to help the movement grow in the direc- tion it wants to grow and then to use the project as a teaching opportunity to help University of Arkansas students and the citizens involved to under- stand the deeper ideological issues involved and eventually, I hope, to act in responsible, productive ways about those issues.
In what follows I describe in some detail the rhetorical/revival campaign that Augusta has undertaken since 2005, document its successes in its first
268 David A. Jolliffe
year, and unpack several problematic issues that the project raises, issues that will eventually need to be addressed as part of an effort to teach an inclusive definition of literacy. To start, however, let me set out three perspectives that build a foundation for explaining how municipalities (and community literacy programs within them) craft rhetorical statements and how those statements can influence social change and, ideally, economic and material progress.
How Do Towns, Cities, and Literacy Programs Make a Rhetorical Statement?
Both ancient and contemporary rhetorical theories provide explanations about how towns and cities craft rhetorical statements about themselves. The clas- sical perspective is thoroughly Aristotelian; one contemporary perspective de- rives from social form theory; another contemporary theory examines the tropes underlying community literacy programs and, by extension, commu- nity-building efforts.
An Aristotelian rhetorician (which I unabashedly characterize myself as)1 would contend that towns and cities make rhetorical statements about them- selves in essentially the same way any text or any graphic--a picture, a car- toon, a chart, a graph, an advertisement, a billboard, and so on--does: by developing an argument that, in Stephen Toulmin's neo-Aristotelian terms, incorporates "data" and makes a claim, with the data and the claim con- nected by warrants: generally unspoken "because" statements, assumptions that the author/creator of the text hopes its readers/listeners/consumers share with him or her. 2 A verbal text manifests organizational patterns, choices of diction and syntax, imagistic and figurative language that fleshes out its cen- tral argument, appealing to the writer's character and credibility and the audi- ences' emotions and life states all the while. A graphic text does the same thing, only incorporating actual images--sights and sounds--as well as imag- istic language.
Cities and towns take advantage of verbal and nonverbal texts in both offi- cial and unofficial documents to make a statement--that is, to offer an argu- ment about what kind of city or town it is, why people live there, why people might visit or move there, and so on. Consider this example of an official document making a rhetorical statement for a city: if one searches for "Little Rock" on the Internet, one quickly finds a link titled "Little Rock City Limit- less. " (Notice, even from the outset, that the title's punning intertextuality with the phrase "city limits" creates a kind of "in" joke between the creator and the viewer, thus strengthening the former's ethos. ) By clicking on the link, one gets to www. littlerock. com, the homepage of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors' Bureau. This homepage is dominated by a beautiful photograph of the Arkansas River as it flows past downtown Little Rock, with the words "River Magic" superimposed on it. The text on the page describes in detail the cultural and recreational activities happening in the near future in Little Rock,
The Community Literacy Advocacy Project 269
and it lists the two dozen or so organizations that are holding conventions in Little Rock over the coming months. Here is the enthymeme, cast in the Toul- min's terms:
Data: Little Rock has abundant cultural events and recreational possibilities available at all times.
Claim: Little Rock is a "magical" city, with "limitless" possibilities. Warrant: The greater number and variety of recreational and cultural events that a city makes available to tourists and other visitors, the more attrac-
tive, "magical," and "limitless" it becomes to them.
As one processes this enthymeme, one glances at the portrait of President William Clinton over the link to the Clinton Library and Museum, at the graphic representations of local and touring Broadway shows that are coming to theaters in the city, at the announcements of upcoming concerts by the Arkansas Symphony, and the advertisement for the Arkansas Water Sports Association. The ethos of the city is strong: it is goodwilled; it is on your side. The pathos of the city is strong: it appeals to your sense of adventure, fun, excitement. Little Rock is apparently quite a hip place.
Unofficial "texts" about a town or city also make rhetorical statements. Consider Chicagoans' frequent invocation of the phrase "city of big shoul- ders," taken from Carl Sandburg's poem about the city. Here is the claim: Chi- cago is, despite its many cultural and commercial amenities, still a simple, solid, working-class city. Here are the "data": the famous cuisine is deep-dish pizza and hot dogs; the football team is the Bears (da Bares), "the monsters of the Midway"; the mayor (da mare) for much of the past half-century has been a plainspoken Irish American named Daley who talks tough with the media and makes sure the garbage is picked up. The ethos of the "city of big shoul- ders" and the pathos that its images conjure up work together to establish the warrant that the best American city is the down-to-earth, unpretentious one, where the work ethic that made America great remains at the center of civic life. The implicit claim is that Chicago is that city.
A second perspective on how cities and towns make rhetorical statements about themselves comes from the work of the contemporary communication theorist David Procter, who studies "how rural communities--read as small towns--communicate in a pattern that enhances their chances to survive and thrive. "3 Maintaining that that "language is a fundamental component in creating a sense of community," Procter explores "the ways citizens in a small town instill a sense of interdependence, fulfillment, and concern for one another" via "symbolic forms and cultural performances used to create those feelings of interdependence, fulfillment, and concern. "4 He explains: "As peo- ple talk about their town, they are doing more than expressing their indi- vidual support or disgust for their locality"; instead, "citizen rhetoric about locality-oriented events and acts is the materialization of a larger synthesis of
270 David A. Jolliffe
community sociopolitical beliefs and values. " And, Procter notes further, "this citizen rhetoric functions to create community belief and motivation. Com- munity rhetors . . . enact community by organizing experiences and then naming those experiences, thereby feeling communal with one another. "5
Central to Procter's analysis is his concept of "civic communions": "spe- cific and significant moments of community interaction directed toward civic issues. " Civic communions embody "rhetorical processes and cultural perform- ances that function to build community"; moreover, "they are fundamentally a rhetorical and performative civic sacrament functioning to bond citizenry around the social and political structures--local ways of life, community goals, and political operations--of a specific people. "6 Procter's analogy comparing religious and civic communions is instructive: "Just as church leaders recall important texts and parables that function to connect the faith community and guide religious behavior," Procter explains, "civic leaders recall important historic texts, people, and events that ultimately serve to solidify community identity and offer guides to appropriate civic values and practices. " As a re- sult, he argues, "organizers and citizens celebrate some features of commu- nity while devaluing others. "7
Yet another contemporary perspective examines the rhetorical activity specifically of community literacy programs. Since the remainder of this essay describes how Augusta, Arkansas, has placed its Community Literacy Advo- cacy Project at the forefront of its civic revitalization project, this perspective is relevant to the analytic task at hand. In Community Literacy and the Rheto- ric of Local Publics, Eleanor Long analyzes community literacy programs in terms of their dominant tropes, their rhetorical situations, their discursive features, and what might be termed their perlocutionary effects--the impli- cations of their rhetorical work. Arguing that community literacy programs represent "symbolic constructs enacted in time and place around shared exi- gencies"--constructs that Long labels "local publics"--she explains that peo- ple develop community literacy programs "around distinct rhetorical agendas that range from socializing children into appropriate language use . . . to eliciting stakeholders' perspectives on a shared problem . . . to demand- ing respect under conditions that yield little of it. "8 In other words, when a community literacy program has an agenda, as it does in Augusta, Arkansas, to revitalize the community and support economic growth, then that agenda is purposefully rhetorical.
To analyze the rhetoric of community literacy programs, Long creates a five-element "point-of-comparison" model. For any program, Long maintains, one can name its "guiding metaphor," or "the image that describes the discur- sive space where ordinary people go public"; the "context," or the "location, as well as other context-specific features that give public literacies their mean- ing"; the "tenor of the discourse," or the "register--the affective quality of the discourse"; the "literacy," or the "key practices that comprise the discourse"
The Community Literacy Advocacy Project 271
or "how people use writing and words to carry out their purposes for going public"; and the "rhetorical invention," or the "the generative processes by which people respond to the exigencies that call the local public into being. "9
All three perspectives can be used, as I do below, to analyze the new rhetor- ical work that is ongoing in Augusta--new rhetorical activity that stands in contrast to the tacit, unpromising message that Augusta was communicating about itself in the first years of the new millennium. The work of the Augusta Community Literacy Advocacy Project, a collaborative effort of the White River Rural Health Center and the Office of the Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas, has yielded a sustained and continuing project of rhetorical activity and civic communions designed to promote community literacy and revive the dying town.
Augusta on Life Support
Sitting as it does on U. S. 64, the "old highway" to Memphis for motorists who do not want to fight the truck traffic on Interstate 40, most of Augusta is hidden from the casual driver-through.
