What
is Civic Literacy and Does It Have a Place in the Composition Classroom?
A
talk given at the UC Writing Programs Conference at UC Berkeley, November 1997
(Revised
1998-2002)
REASONS
FOR INTEREST
In
recent years new interest has arisen among English instructors in civic
literacy. I became interested for a
variety of reasons, among them frustration with trying to discuss writings and
issues in a virtual vacuum, not only of historical knowledge and civic
principles but of interest even in why such things should concern one.
Probably all of us have had the experience of discussing an issue in such
a vacuum, only to be surprised by the occasional phenomenon of the student who knows
history (sometimes a history major), who can make real, deep sense of the matter
at hand. It’s usually a bit of a
shock, or at least a curiosity to both instructor and class.
At the least, it underscores the difficulty of discussing issues when
participants lack the necessary framework.
Moreover, it points to at least one possible cause for a fundamental
weakness in much college writing: the inability and/or reluctance to develop
ideas in depth, due in no small part to the dearth of background knowledge.
I
plan to (1) introduce the issue; (2) offer some definitions; (3) discuss a few
methods teachers are using to incorporate civic literacy in their courses; (4)
raise the issue of how civic literacy connects with other “literacies,” like
cultural and critical; (5) discuss some of the larger obstacles in the path of
teachers wanting to foster civic literacy; (6) offer some questions for
discussion about rationale and method.
BACKGROUND
Interest
in civic literacy among English teachers seems to have arisen from concerns
about the decline of public discourse, the fragmentation of public life, and a
perception that the issue of civic literacy (and civic discourse) has largely
been given over to social scientists, rhetoricians, and speech instructors. Such concerns inform a recent editorial in English Journal, titled “Toward a Literate Citizenship,” by Ben
F. Nelms. Nelms writes that
“[e]ven our most sophisticated students are sometimes hopelessly naive about
the uses and abuses of language to shape public opinion.”
He argues that students at all levels “can and will read critically and
write thoughtfully when they are challenged by real-world materials and
purposes.” Ending with a
flourish, Nelms exhorts English teachers to take up the challenge:
The task of
educating literate citizens, of raising the level of public communication, of
preparing students for active commitment to and participation in the democratic
process has always fallen to the schools. It’s
one of the reasons for free public education.
English teachers must not abdicate that responsibility; we must not
delegate the task to speech teachers or social-studies teachers.
We may work with those colleagues (indeed, we should), but the primary
task of teaching the use of the language, whether in critical reading or
deliberative talk or persuasive writing, still falls to us.
To shrink from the task is to handicap our students and imperil the
future.
Language,
as Nelms implies, is the crucible in which ideas must be tested, and the English
classroom is typically the only place on campus (aside from language courses)
where language has top billing.
DEFINITIONS
Civic
Literacy has been defined by political scientist Benjamin Barber as “the
fundamental literacy by which we live in a civil society.
It encompasses the competence to participate in democratic communities,
the ability to think critically and act with deliberation in a pluralistic
world, and the empathy to identify sufficiently with others to live with them
despite conflicts of interest and differences in character.”
In
the introduction to a collection of essays by teachers who have tried to
integrate civic literacy into their English courses, Sandra Stotsky writes:
The ethical framework that should guide the behavior of Americans as citizens is
complex.
It integrates
three distinct ethical strands: an ethic based on a respect for majority rule,
an ethic based on a regard for
individual rights, and an ethic based on a concern for the common good--the
civic ethic.
The
erosion of a civic ethic, she notes, accompanies a general decline of civic
identity. “Indeed, for many of us, our identity as members of various
religious, ethnic, economic, racial, and gender groups may be far stronger than
our civic identity today. . . . The
revitalization of a civic ethic and the strengthening of civic identity and
civic self-esteem are of particular importance in a multi-ethnic society whose
people have no common religious values or historical memories” (Connecting
Civic Education and Language Education: The Contemporary Challenge. Teacher’s
College Press, 1991).
Stotsky
argues for the central role of English courses in developing “the growth of .
. . civic sensibilities and [the] ability to understand and take part
responsibly in public affairs. . . .” She
identifies the following “values, ideals, and beliefs” as central to
defining “our civic character and civic identity:
independent thinking, honesty, fairness, a willingness to seek out and consider all points of view on issues, an obligation for public service, a tolerance of different points of view, a sense of responsibility for one’s own learning and behavior, a commitment to the principles and procedures that make self-government in a free society possible, an appreciation for an intellectually demanding liberal education, a respect for moral and civic law, a willingness to seek common ground in discussions of controversial issues, a view of people as unique individuals of equal moral worth rather than as representative members of variously defined and privileged groups, and a regard for all human beings as sharing a common humanity and capable of engaging together in rational discourse. (Xviii)
A
related term bears mentioning here--”America’s civil religion,” the phrase
used by Conor Cruise O’Brien in his inquiry into Thomas Jefferson’s place in
the future pantheon of American heroes. The
idea underlying O’Brien’s heady term is that as a people we somehow adhere,
consciously or otherwise, to a shifting set of guiding principles speaking to
the issue of what it means to be citizens of a
(putatively) democratic nation.
APPROACHES
Rhetoric
and speech teachers claim the civic ethic as a birthright, reaching back to
classical philosophers and rhetoricians. As
Lisa Ede observes, Plato said that to discuss rhetoric was “nothing less [than
to discuss] how a man should live” (in Connecting
Civic Education and Language Education: The Contemporary Challenge. Teacher’s
College Press, 1991). According to
models advocated by rhetoricians from Aristotle to Wayne Booth, rhetoric has
“embrace[d] the human, the situational.”
A speaker (or writer) who meets the demands of Aristotle’s three-part
formula--logos (logical appeal), pathos (emotional appeal), and ethos
(personal appeal) has knowledge, understands the audience, and conveys
credibility.
A
problem as Ede notes, citing Michael Halloran (1975), is that unlike the
classical community (as it has been viewed, ideally), “In our own post-modern
culture, speakers and listeners, writers and readers inhabit not a single,
homogeneous communal world, but many worlds”
And those worlds are often in competition with each other.
In a survey of letters to editors of daily newspapers, Ede rarely found a
writer who considered the beliefs, values, or background of the audience.
One
way to proceed might be to teach a version of Aristotle’s three-part formula.
Wayne Booth several years ago translated it into a useful tool for
evaluating arguments (see William Irmscher, Teaching Expository Writing).
When a speaker or writer fails in the area of logos, he or she may
lack knowledge, show off his or her knowledge (taking what Booth calls the
“pedant’s stance”), or distort facts; when a writer runs afoul of pathos,
he or she tries to manipulate the audience (Booth calls this the
“advertiser’s stance); when botching ethos, and losing ethical
appeal, a writer loses the audience’s trust, through slanted language or
overemphasis of self (the “entertainer’s” stance).
Further,
as many instructors do, one might work with the principles of informal logic. Students would learn deduction and induction (and/or other
logical methods); they would learn to spot logical fallacies.
They would examine newspaper editorials, op-ed pieces, and letters to the
editor--even political speeches, advertisements, and the like; they would
compare and contrast, work out their own viewpoints on issues, etc.
They would, in essence learn rhetorical analysis (including examination
of unvoiced assumptions, historical and rhetorical context, intended audience,
etc.).
Through
such processes, students would become more adept at recognizing lies and
half-truths; they would be better able to navigate what passes for public
discourse; they would learn and practice how to conduct civil, productive
discussions with others, how to defend their ideas, how to appreciate what’s
valid in the ideas of others, how to think more broadly and deeply, and how to
take part in civil society. (A
problem here is that many composition instructors do use such approaches only to
find that people can learn all about informal logic and spotting fallacies, yet
continue to commit fallacies. Teaching
rhetoric, without also studying cognitive development, may do little to improve
the status quo. See Joanne Kurfiss,
Critical Thinking: An Introduction [1998].)
Stotsky’s
collection contains a number of additional approaches worth considering:
·
research
papers focused on issues important to local community;
·
examination
of key documents—the founding documents along with subsequent documents that
have played an important role in the civic life of the country;
·
study of
literary works exploring civic issues and/or stressing civic virtues;
·
in-services
improving civil literacy of instructors.
The first is no doubt an approach already practiced in many settings.
In college composition courses such research assignments can be enhanced
by linking them to issues within a student’s major field or study, or any
field in which a student is contemplating a major, a minor, or a career.
The
second might meet with some resistance in a writing course.
It might well be met with visions of boredom by many, so careful
planning, with a clear rationale and a series of creative activities and
assignments would be imperative. The
third approach is used in many high school English courses already and no doubt
has some merits. However, it’s
difficult to see the approach gaining much ground in college, where it would
likely be viewed as reductionist, tendentious, and the like.
Still, it may have some advantages if purportedly uplifting works were
accompanied by others raising challenging questions leading to open, candid
inquiry. Former Poet Laureate
Robert Pinsky presents intriguing examples and a compelling case in “Poetry
and American Memory,” The Atlantic
Monthly,
October 1999: 60-70.
LINKAGE
TO OTHER TYPES OF ‘LITERACY’?
Literacy
has had a number of adjectives attached to it.
“Functional” is one, and problems with functional literacy may indeed
pose problems for civic literacy. Studies
claim that up to 47% of adult Americans are unable to read a bus schedule (maybe
at least part of the problem is with the schedules?).
Sandra Stotsky writes that most young adults cannot read key historical
documents on their own--they lack the needed high-level high-school reading
skills. Here is an issue worthy of
more attention than it’s been given, but it is not the primary focus here.
More
at issue is the relationship of civic literacy to “cultural” literacy, a
term usually associated with E.D. Hirsch, and “critical” literacy, usually
linked with Paolo Freire and his followers.
Hirsch has been roundly condemned and ridiculed, and there’s little
need to pile on more. In some cases
his critics have been unfair, distorting his ideas through selective quotation
and the like. (See two essays in Stotsky’s collection—“Teaching Academic
Writing as Moral and Civic Thinking,” by Stotsky; and “The Uses of Argument
in Civic Education,” by Richard A. Katula, for persuasive concrete examples of
how Hirsch’s critics have distorted his work.)
Hirsch’s
basic claim--that people need knowledge in order to form ideas--seems innocuous
enough. Where he goes wrong, as
many have noted, is in his list: first,
in its initial monocultural profile; second, in holding that casual acquaintance
with names, events, and so forth could be sufficient for informed thinking and
discussion (although here critics tend to oversimplify and caricature Hirsch’s
ideas); and third, as Neil Postman has said, commenting on Hirsch’s efforts to
assuage his critics by expanding the list, in compiling a list at all.
There’s just too much information—he is likely to wind up, as Postman
says, simply referring people to the encyclopedia.
He is also open to criticism from many for endorsing a “transmission”
theory of education, essentially the “banking” model debunked by Freire.
If Hirsch’s more strident critics could drop what seems a knee-jerk
reaction to his proposals, they would find more substance and good will in his
work than they would like to recognize—and very likely some fertile common
ground.
Apropos
of Hirsch’s cultural literacy theory, one might mention the recent work of
Earl Shorris (also relevant to Mike Rose’s concerns noted below).
Shorris has devoted considerable energy to giving poor and poorly
educated persons access to the traditional “great” works of Western letters.
See http://valencia.cc.fl.us/clemente/bioshorris.htm;
New American Blues: A Journey Through Poverty to Democracy. Norton, 1997; Riches
for the Poor: The Clemente Course in the Humanities. Norton, 2000; “On the
Uses of a Liberal Education: As a Weapon in the Hands of the Restless Poor.”
Harper’s September 1997:
50-59.)
Critical Literacy
is defined by Ira Shor, author of Empowering
Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change (1992), as
Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath
surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements,
traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep
meaning, root causes, social contexts, ideology, and personal consequences of
any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject
matter, policy, mass media, or discourse.
Shor’s
definition is one that most universities could live with.
The implications of Freire’s critique and methods go much further.
The philosophy has been enumerated in numerous books by Freire, Shor,
Stanley Aronowitz, Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux, and others.
Teachers who embrace the critique and the method should be aware of these
implications. More to the point
here, perhaps, is the issue of whether a critical literacy approach would
necessarily rule out a civic literacy approach.
If taken to its logical ends, the critical approach might yield at least
these problems: 1) the doctrines of the “American Civil Religion” would be
seen as bourgeois ideology, pure and simple--a set of myths designed to let the
business of America be business and to fog the vision of the various competing
classes; 2) if critical literacy were to hold sway, it would necessarily bring
down the wrath and weight of the dominant class (bourgeois hypocrisy would be
exposed; doctrines of civility would collapse; civil discussion would be
impossible). History suggests the
likelihood of these results (Iran, Guatemala, et al.).
Critical literacy as formulated by Freire would seem to be incompatible
with the ideals of civic literacy as envisioned by Stotsky and various
rhetoricians.
Still,
there may be ways to integrate the good intentions of Hirsch’s program with
elements of critical literacy as defined by Shor--a definition that seems not
all that far from the kind of informal logic practices advocated by Stotsky and
others. A substantial dialogue
between radical and traditional pedagogues—a situation in which these parties
would actually talk to and with each other—seems little more than a pipe
dream; yet if we are to move beyond a callow, high-school civics vision of civic
literacy, one that would embody the intellectual depth that should
be realized at the college level, such a dialogue is a primary requirement.
PROBLEMS
Polarization
A large stumbling block in trying to develop an approach to civic literacy is the polarization that has gripped the academic community--seen, for example, in the attacks on Hirsch on the one hand, and the attacks on multicultural approaches from D’Souza and others. It’s not possible to examine this problem here (although it’s worth pausing to note Russell Jacoby’s point that the issue gains little notice outside the upper echelons of the academy). More salient is how shifting demographics and world-views call into question which elements might actually make up an American “civil religion,” to use O’Brien’s term. In discussing Jefferson’s place in the future pantheon, in light of the historical Jefferson’s racial views and actions, O’Brien writes that the Declaration of Independence will survive, but
There can be no room for a cult of Thomas Jefferson in the civil religion of an
effectively
multiracial America--that is, an America in which nonwhite Americans have a
significant and
increasing say. Once the facts are
known, Jefferson is of necessity abhorrent to people who would
not be
in America at all if he could have had his way.
Those
people don’t need Jefferson. But
they do need the Declaration.
(see
O’Brien, Conor Cruise. “Thomas
Jefferson: Radical and Racist.” The
Atlantic Monthly October 1996: 53-74.)
In
contrast, Sandra Stotsky polarizes from another angle in her apparently
tone-deaf critique of what she sees as education on cultural diversity.
She asserts that diversity practiced in public schools maintains that
“all girls thing and learn in one way, all boys in another or that all black
students think and learn in one way, all Asians in another, all white students
in yet another.” The critique of
today’s putative status quo is accompanied by a halcyon image of the days of
yore, when “our teachers didn’t subject us to endless lessons on tolerance
and on how to be respectful of each other’s ‘culture.’
They simply modeled tolerance for us and dealt, briefly, with problematic
incidents whenever they arose in school. We were thus able to spend most of our school time on
academic matters.” Textbooks
today, Stotsky says, give no space to the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, John
Glenn, or Marie Curie. Instead,
they fritter away the time with readings that contain words in foreign languages
(ujima, ensalada, dojo) or on “frequent conversations about
intellectually barren topics that draw on intellectually limited
vocabularies,” conversations concerning students’ “ethnic cultures and
daily lives,” and the like. Stotsky’s argument here may contain a grain of truth, but
it is lost in the reductionist thinking. Like
some of her targets on the other side of the pole, she is preaching to the choir
and reducing possibilities for productive discourse. (See “Multicultural
Illiteracy,” in The School Administrator. May 1999.
Reprinted in Kaleidoscope: Readings in Education, 9TH
edition. Edited by Kevin Ryan and
James M. Cooper. Hougton Mifflin 2001.)
Demographics
Those
of us who have worked at UC for any length of time have seen the demographic
changes. Some figures: In the United States, the Asian American
population is projected to grow from 8 million in 1992 to 16 million by 2009,
and to 24 million by 2024. Latinos
will make up 40% of population growth over next 60 yrs; by 2013, Latinos will
comprise the largest national minority. The
African Americans population is expected to double in 50 years.
It’s
clear that the ancestral background of the population will change.
Do Enlightenment values have a place in this mix?
What appeal will the remnants of 19c American civil religion hold?
Perhaps more than some of us might believe.
Neil Postman points out that, as cynical as many Americans may be about
United States politics, people around the world still take our founding
principles seriously--witness students in Tiananmen Square.
Postman notes, too, that “American dissent and protest during the
Vietnam War may be the only case in history where public opinion forced a
government to change its foreign policy.”
He adds, “Americans may forget, but others do not, that Americans
invented the idea of public education for all citizens and have never abandoned
it. And . . . immigrants still come
. . . in hopes of finding relief from one kind of deprivation or another” (Technopoly,
183).
Lack
of consensus
For
whatever reason, we face a breakdown in a consensus on civic values, so the
process of defining what they are takes prominence.
The problem posed by Stotsky is echoed by Jim Cummins and Dennis Sayers
in Brave New Schools: Challenging Cultural Illiteracy through Global
Learning Networks (1995, 1997):
Teachers are expected to embody and model the values of the wider society.
But what are
teachers to do when the values
of the wider society are violently contested in the streets and in
the media;
when the moral consensus that gave at least the appearance of coherence to our
societies
lies fractured all around us? Should
teachers continue to transmit officially approved information
and skills as if they were
neutral reflections of objective reality, or should they help students
to analyze
issues critically from a variety of perspectives?
Will it strengthen or weaken the fabric of
nationhood to alert students to
perspectives on history and current realities that may be at
variance with
dominant views? (4)
Economics,
Technology, Professionalism
The
fiscal crisis in education (in all but the more affluent school districts) is
ongoing, worse in recessions, but there all the time.
Declining budgets at the college level raise the specter of increased
class size or course loads. Computer
classrooms and e-mail have obvious benefits but may also distance teachers from
students and students from each other. On-line
courses are already in place in several institutions.
The “face time,” the group give-and-take essential to learning since
the time of the ancients lies at risk. Worth
noting is Mike Rose’s observation in Lives on the Boundary that the
kind of education underprivileged students need is precisely the kind students
in prestigious colleges had been receiving all along--and by this he means
concentrated, extended, close reading and discussion in groups (essentially the
Socratic method). Educational
psychologists and child development specialists, taking a cue from Vygotsky,
have long argued the integral nature of small-scale social discourse to the
building of knowledge and thinking skills.
How possible is such education on a computer terminal (or in a large
lecture hall), even under the best of circumstances?
Our
embrace of the computer classroom (not to mention on-line teaching) has some
pretty serious ramifications that in day-to-day pace we may choose to overlook.
Consider Neil Postman’s remarks in Technopoly:
In
introducing the . . . computer to the classroom, we shall be breaking a
four-hundred-year-old truce between the gregariousness and openness fostered by
orality and the introspection and isolation fostered by the printed word.
Orality stresses group learning, cooperation, and a sense of social
responsibility. . . . Print
stresses individualized learning, competition, and personal autonomy. . . . Will
the widespread use of computers in the classroom defeat once and for all the
claims of communal speech? Will the
computer raise egocentrism to the status of a virtue?” (17)
Another
concern, too weighty to allow more than mention here, lies in the prospect of a
society driven more and more thoroughly by computer technology.
Most of us are familiar with fears that this technology will wipe out the
relatively small vestiges of privacy and anonymity we may still enjoy (HMOs will
know our medical concerns; government will know our political interests, our
reading habits; etc.). It is likely
that few if any facts or factoids concerning any of us will escape
documentation. Even more chilling,
perhaps, are developments in nanotechnology and predictions by prominent
executives and scientists in the computer industry that humanity may find itself
subjugated or eliminated by its own creations in the form of artificial
intelligence. (See Bill Joy, “Why
the future doesn't need us: Our most powerful 21st-century
technologies--robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech--are threatening to
make humans an endangered species. Wired
April 2000). Joy’s essay sparked some lively discourse that may be found
by typing his name in the search box on the wired.com site. One example is
Declan McCullagh’s “Kurzweil: Rooting for the Machine”
(http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,39967,00.html).
Pressures
to “professionalize” writing courses, to offer specialized courses for
technical and business writing, and so forth--these raise questions as well.
Along with the enervation of general education and core curriculum
requirements, economic pressures and technological changes could exacerbate a
trend toward a “professionalism” too narrowly conceived--one too
instrumental, utilitarian, pragmatic--one that, in short, fails to prepare
students for citizenship in an increasingly fragmented society.
The
move toward “professionalism,” the near-worship of technology, and the
eviscerated lip-service to liberal studies at the university level--these are
like aches and pains we have grown to tolerate, offering only occasional
complaints. Moreover, most of us
have witnessed the increasing economic pressure on students to get the degree,
get out, and put the degree to work paying back their debts.
The cliché of education as commodity takes on ever-more-institutional
status. Signs of economic (and to a lesser extent technological)
pressures on education were clear in the recent New Yorker article on the University of Phoenix (Oct. 20 & 27,
1997), by James Traub. The
University of Phoenix is a shadow of what, historically, most of us have
conceived a university to be. Its
orientation is strictly business--getting the degree and getting out, usually in
much less time than traditionally required.
Class discussions, the author tells us, are lively but pragmatically
oriented. There is little if any
time for talk about civil religion or civic literacy here.
As Traub notes, John Sperling, the founder of the University of Phoenix,
realized early on that “adults put very little stock in academic opinion.”
Here, as a footnote, the William Perry studies at Harvard (see Forms
of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years, 1971) and
those by Mary Belenky and other psychologists (see Women’s Ways of Knowing,
1986) seem germane. The
attitudes of the Phoenix students seem to conform to Perry’s first stage, the
absolutist “either/or” epistemology; if so, this sad fact but underscores
the need for critical literacy that is not and cannot be met in the
pragmatically oriented degree mill.
Curiously,
founder John Sperling holds degrees in history from Reed and Berkeley, and a
doctorate from Cambridge. But he
harbors no nostalgia for the traditional university.
“Microsoft,” he notes, is a much more powerful force shaping the
world than Harvard or Yale or Princeton. So
if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” In
terms that Freire would certainly recognize, he says that “[h]igher education
is one of the most inefficient mechanisms for the transfer of knowledge that
have ever been invented.” The
adults at Phoenix want a simple education, not choices, and, as mentioned,
they don’t value academic opinion.
The school conceives of education as a product.
Starting with the needs of the consumer, it develops its programs to fit.
The
article contains some disturbing facts and figures.
Enrollment at the University of Phoenix has increased from 3,000 to
40,000 in 10 years. During that ten
years, 200 traditional colleges closed up shop.
There are currently some 3700 colleges and universities in the U.S., most
market-driven, serving 14 million students, some two-thirds of the annual high
school graduates. One-half of these
students are in community colleges, with no residential facilities and often no
campus.
At
present, only one sixth of all college students fit the traditional (or
stereotypical) mold, living on campus and so forth.
Of most of the rest, according to researcher Arthur Levine, president of
Teachers College at Columbia University, “they [want] the kind of relationship
with a college that they [have] with their bank, their supermarket, and their
gas company.” “Terrific
service, quality control.” They
want “stripped-down classes. They
don’t want to buy anything they’re not using.”
According
to Department of Education statistics, in 1991,
7300 degrees were granted in philosophy and religion; 12,000 in foreign
languages; 250,000 in business. The
typical traditional education grows increasingly marginal.
Arthur Levine says that within several generations most residential
universities and research universities will disappear.
As
James Traub points out, Russell Jacoby (Dogmatic
Wisdom, 1994) is probably on to something when he asserts that the real
issue in American education has very little to do with the canon debates that
absorb so much energy; instead, it has much to do with the emphasis on, and the
apparently inexorable trend toward, narrow practicality—a trend that
university administrations by and large seem to accept without much resistance
or even debate.
Developments
in Genetics
Still
another stumbling block, and perhaps the largest of all in the long run, arises
from developments in genetic research, cloning, and the like.
Notwithstanding cautionary notes sounded by ethicists and political
leaders, it is likely that research and experimentation in genetics will raise
issues and problems directed right at the heart of civil philosophy.
What will thoroughgoing genetic knowledge and control mean for
traditional values of personal freedom and privacy?
What will it mean to be human once the human genetic code undergoes
tinkering and/or inter-species splicing? What
are the implications for a democratic civil philosophy if and when human beings
are custom-crafted in laboratories? What
are the implications when the wealthy are able to contract for designer-children
or extended life-spans? The bright
side here is that these issues sketch out a complex intersection of ethics,
civics, and science, and so provide plenty of territory for expanding civic
literacy in scientific writing. (Gattica,
one of the better Hollywood films of recent years, rivets one’s attention on
these phenomena and issues; it should stimulate productive discussion along with
fruitful research topics at both secondary and post-secondary levels.)
WHAT
SHOULD BE
It
would be folly to struggle against computers, e-mail, or the
“professionalization” of education. And
to say just what a citizen’s responsibilities in civil society might be is too
large a burden to take up here. But
a modest beginning might note that a professional’s responsibility should
entail the ability to interpret developments in a given field within the context
of a historical continuum, to understand and articulate how one’s actions as a
professional may connect with the past and the future of civil society.
More specifically, civic literacy would entail an understanding of how
everything that happens in the worlds of commerce, law, medicine, or agronomy
affects, and is affected by, the health of our civic institutions.
What
English Composition teachers can do to promote civic literacy remains a problem.
There are the obstacles just enumerated. There are time constraints.
There are the very constituencies served--classes made up of students
from a variety of background, where even those from similar backgrounds have
widely variant stores of knowledge. Clearly,
the composition class cannot hope to fill the gaps left by years of neglect, by
a culture of neglect. Teachers
can apply the tried and true methods mentioned earlier--the staples of
rhetorical analysis and informal logic. With respect to content, one can envision workable reading
lists incorporating texts that would reflect the evolving civil religion of an
evolving America, as envisioned by O’Brien.
Of course, such courses might face accusations of “political
correctness,” whether founded or not. Teachers
could introduce the topic of civic literacy (and civil “religion” or
philosophy) for discussion and research. They
could insist that research essays consider the implications of their conclusions
for the society at large, and in its particulars.
And to prepare for such essays, they could take pains to make sure that
students regularly contemplate the implications of their thinking and their
actions—as well as those of others--within their various communities (social,
political, economic, intellectual, etc.).
Questions
(for us) to begin discussion:
1.
Is there an American “civil religion” (whether we like it or not,
recognize it or not)? (If so, how is it acquired, how has it changed in your
lifetime, and how do you see it changing now?)
2.
Can there be civil discussion between people whose interests clash so
mightily as many seem to do in our society, and in our world?
Can areas of agreement be found between these apparently conflicting
interests? Where should the discussion begin? Can conflict itself serve as a focal point?
3.
Should English composition courses take at least some responsibility for
developing civic literacy and civic discourse?
4.
Could there be a coherent composition curriculum incorporating civic
literacy? If so, what might it look
like?
5.
In trying to promote civil and critical discussion of core issues, is
technology a barrier or a boon? Both or neither?
