Teaching the Political Conflicts: A Rhetorical Schema

During the 1990-91 academic year, reports erupted into the national press about attempts at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Massachussetts at Amherst to address controversial political issues such as racism and sexism in freshman writing courses. One reason these attempts provoked disputes, within their own English departments as well as publicly, is that little basis has been established within the discipline of composition delineating either a theoretical framework or ethical guidelines for dealing with political controversies in writing courses. While I do not have the local knowledge necessary to judge the particular conception and implementation of the courses at Austin and Amherst, I want briefly to address the larger theoretical issues and then go on to outline my own model for incorporating critical thinking about politics in writing courses, an approach which has evolved over some twenty-five years of college teaching and a decade of presenting workshops based on this model.