When writing goes public: agitation, intervention, and disruption in public arguments about writing

Abstract

This dissertation argues that public engagement in the field of rhetoric and composition is more than publishing texts that explain the field to outside audiences. It also involves the cultivation of strategic relationships made durable by the ways practitioners orient themselves to public issues. These public orientations are potential stances toward public problems that writing studies practitioners use situationally to engage in public debates about writing. This dissertation suggests three possible public orientations: Agitation, which is a default stance oriented toward critique of the status quo; intervention, which is oriented toward partnership with members of the status quo; and disruption, which is oriented toward overthrowing the status quo entirely. By rhetorically analyzing the successes and shortcomings of public orientations in three discursive moments from the history of the field, this project shows how compositionists have relied upon public orientations in the past as a way to imagine how compositionists can adopt orientational approaches to contribute to future public issues related to writing. Such a move positions writing studies practitioners to make more meaningful and sustained engagements into public issues relevant to the field by bringing the disciplinary knowledge of writing studies to bear on immediate problems in our communities in addition to reinforcing and reclaiming the democratic mission of the university.