Appendix 11 (Chapter 8)
Description for Rhetorical Citizenship Heuristics Assignment
One of the goals of this major is to equip you to be a more effective and ethical rhetor and rhetorician (i.e., someone who studies rhetoric) in all parts of your lifeworld—professional, civic, personal. You’ve learned how, historically, rhetorical education has focused on the development of practical wisdom (phronesis) and a search for the best course in our everyday lives and civic affairs. Rhetoric has always been tied to the cultivation of citizenship—both in ourselves and others. As Danielle Allen puts it in Talking to Strangers, “rhetoric is not a list of stylistic rules but an outline of the radical commitment to other citizens that is needed for a just democratic politics” (p. 157). And, for Allen and others, this commitment is primarily and most concretely enacted in our everyday interactions with others.
This assignment is designed to help you synthesize, build on, and practice applying what we’ll call “techne of rhetorical citizenship”. Techne has been defined as “productive knowledge,” or adaptable, value-driven knowledge-making that is guided by principles and attuned to the specifics of rhetorical contexts. As Janet Atwill explains, techne is “stable enough to be taught and transferred but flexible enough to be adapted to particular situations and purposes” (Rhetoric Reclaimed, p. 48). Beyond being taught, however, techne must be habituated through repeated mindful practice over time and across contexts; such habituation involves learning how to prepare for, engage others in, and adjust acts of knowledge-making, and it also involves learning when to do so.
Given today’s polarized politico-cultural climate, and the corresponding divisiveness, skepticism, and mean-spiritedness of much civic discourse, the focus of this unit will be on techne for engaging in more civil discourse, which in turn can foster stronger, more cooperative rhetorical citizenship and problem-solving. For the unit’s major assignment, you will work in small groups to design a portable, accessible heuristic—that is, a practical guide or tool for problem solving—that could help you and others identify an uncivil, demagogic form of argument (see esp. Roberts-Miller’s definition on pp. 33-35) and engage in an alternative techne of civil and ethical deliberation. In addition to learning more about characteristics of and reasons for uncivil discourse, we’ll learn more about various techne to counter these. Then, along with designing a heuristic for enacting one of these techne, your group will create a brief plan for distributing and encouraging the use of your heuristic.
Guiding Questions
In moving through this unit and assignment, we’ll explore the following questions:
What have you learned about the characteristics and value of rhetorical citizenship, particularly in a democracy?
What is the current state of civic, and especially political, discourse, and what are barriers to engaging in more civil discourse?
In what ways does our current discourse come of out and promote a culture of demagoguery, and what are the (potential) effects of this?
In order to engage in and foster civil, democratic discourse, what practices should we avoid, and what techne of rhetorical citizenship might we more thoughtfully engage in?
What kind of heuristic or tool/guide could help you and others apply such techne in your/their everyday civic lives?
Where and how might you highlight and showcase techne and values of rhetorical citizenship in your e-portfolio?
Topic and Group Selection
We’ll begin by identifying what you’ve learned about rhetoric and rhetorical citizenship from your time in the major, and then we’ll engage some readings that discuss barriers to and solutions for engaging in more civil discourse, aligned with what Patricia Roberts-Miller calls “democratic deliberation” and what Danielle Allen calls “political friendship.” Through our readings and discussions, we’ll identify a range of problems and techne for addressing them, and then you will form small groups based on your shared interest in a particular type of techne. Examples include but are not limited to those around facilitating fairness in rules of argument, promoting the value of diversity and pluralism in civic argument, shifting the focus of argument from group identity to a more productive stasis (or, as Allen states, “separating the people from the problem”), engaging in rhetorical listening, and generating trust through self-sacrifice. Whatever techne you decide to focus on should be tied substantively to the course readings but could also draw on additional sources.
Heuristic
In addition to identifying a type of barrier to civil discourse and techne for alleviating or countering it, your group will identify a set of principles and practical techniques for enacting this techne in your everyday lives. These, too, should draw on class readings (and other sources), but I’m also interested in your versions of principles and techniques. Based on these, you’ll develop a guide for applying these principle and techniques. We’ll discuss various heuristic types in class, but the possibilities include an infographic, poster, set of memes, some other visualization (e.g., flow chart, comic), “pocket guide” (e.g., set of questions or “rules of engagement”), and a “challenge” campaign (e.g., “7 Day Civility Challenge”); the more creative and user centered, the better. Your heuristic should be:
at least partly visual;
portable/sharable;
designed with a peer audience in mind (given that we will likely present these at the Upper-Division Symposium) but applicable to a fairly broad audience;
be nuanced enough to capture some of the complexity of the techne but accessible enough to be understood and used quickly;
designed for a type of forum and context (e.g., f2f conversations with friends or co-workers; posts on a social media platform) but adaptable to others as well.
Distribution Plan
Along with the heuristic itself, your group will develop a brief (2-3 pages) plan, in a memo to me, for distributing among your audience. This plan will explain how you designed the heuristic for rhetorical velocity and how you intend to share it with and encourage it use by others. Your ideas for distribution should be specific and realistic.
Connection to E-Portfolio
We’ll use this unit and assignment to think more about how to highlight and showcase relevant rhetorical techne and values in your e-portfolio. In addition, some of you might want to including your heuristic and plan as a sample in your e-portfolio, particularly if we end up presenting these at a public event.