Teacher Roles in Student Protests: When Passivity Becomes Rhetorical Action It’s spring break for my students and I in upstate New York, which means lots of snow, cancelled flights, undrivable roads and plenty of cancelled plans. It means there’s plenty of time for grading (and for procrastinating), and there’s plenty of time … Continue reading Teacher Roles In Student Protests: When Passivity Becomes Rhetorical Action
The scene is a familiar one. A student knocks reluctantly on my office door, enters the musty room with uncertainty and then proceeds to speak some deeply heartfelt words in a trembling, quivering voice. Something along the lines of “I do not feel comfortable with other people viewing the writing I produce for this class.” … Continue reading Discourse in Democracy: Composition, Digital Citizenship and the Crafting of Authentic Rhetorical Situations
One of my favorite writers, the Depression-era labor theorist and literary organizer Mike Gold, called upon the young writers of his day to stand boldly against passivity, to dare to speak and make their voices known, to audaciously demand an audience and to demand that audience's attention. Gold writes "the best and newest thing a young … Continue reading Go Left, Young Writers!
I've recently begun writing an ecocritical analysis of slow environmental violence as it ravages communities, specifically those below the poverty line both in the United States and abroad. My reading in my Ecocriticism graduate seminar (where ecology and studies of nature meet literary analysis) have led me to an analysis of Flint, Michigan, informed by the … Continue reading On the Events of Flint, Michigan
Jacob Richter 