Something I have noticed and found to be increasingly fascinating this semester would have to be how my students are engaging with the contemporary rhetorics that are occurring in their everyday lives. I’m currently teaching ENG 103 and in my courses, I will give specific restrictions on papers for topics, but generally try to have students choose their own specific scope to help maintain their interest.
Currently, we are starting an argumentative paper in which they must examine a policy that is in place (or one that is not in place but needs to exist) and create an argument around that policy (should it be revised, stay the same? why? etc.). I have been fascinated at how many students have chosen to address things related to either COVID-19 or the upcoming election. This has been surprising to me, in that I figured the last thing students would want to choose to engage with would be more of the chaos around them. The last time I taught this assignment, there were a few political arguments, but many were about sports and campus related things. This shift in topic choice for my students has made me reevaluate how students write and understand rhetoric.
This shift in the amount of students who are engaging with current issues and the rhetoric surrounding them also had me thinking just show much we use writing as a way to process the world around us and the various issues that we face in day-to-day life. Writing in all forms provides a different outlet in which we can process our thoughts and feelings on things like a global pandemic and an upcoming election in a time of political unrest. We write to share, to feel, and to make our way through the madness that often surrounds us. Writing provides us with a voice, especially in times where we feel unseen and unheard.
It's no secret that this semester has been and continues to be hard--academically, mentally, and just in general a rough time. I'm not saying that for my students writing about these topics will suddenly solve all their problems, but if it provides them with a small way to cope and process their feelings, why not give them that space?
Your post reminded me of this NYT article I read today, "Student Voting Surges Despite Efforts to Suppress It." They have every reason to be jaded, apathetic, nihilistic, and yet... young people care. After everything we've seen recently from ye olde conservatives, it's heartening.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/us/student-voting-surge.html