Explores the cultures, ideologies, traditions, and the material and political conditions that influence the writing and publishing of textbooks.

Explores the cultures, ideologies, traditions, and the material and political conditions that influence the writing and publishing of textbooks.

Political Literacy confronts and responds to the question: What is required of the citizens of a democracy to ensure their individual and social rights? Exploring the rhetoric of legal interpretation, this book answers that citizens must be so educated as to have an intellectual awareness of the inherently rhetorical nature of language. Political Literacy explodes the myth that justice is delivered in the measured, seemingly disinterested, written decisions of America's highest courts. Instead, it reveals the political nature of legal opinions and their necessarily ideological perspectives. Using arguments and examples from a variety of ancient and modern writers and thinkers, the book defines political literacy for the first time. Fredric Gale passionately calls for changes in the way the public is educated about the justice system and about the risk of complacency in this crucial area of public life.

The Best of the Independent Rhetoric and Composition Journals 2012 represents the result of a nationwide conversation—beginning with journal editors, but expanding to teachers, scholars and workers across the discipline of Rhetoric and Composition—to select essays that showcase the innovative and transformative work now being published in the field’s independent journals. Representing both print and digital journals in the field, the essays featured here explore issues ranging from classroom practice to writing in global and digital contexts, from writing workshops to community activism. Together, the essays provide readers with a rich understanding of the present and future direction of the field. In addition to the introduction by Julia Voss and Beverly Moss, the anthology features work by the following authors and representing these journals: Jamie White-Farnham (Community Literacy Journal), Noah R. Roderick (Composition Forum), Kate Pantelides and Mariaelena Bartesaghi (Composition Studies), Heidi A. McKee (Computers and Composition), Rex Veeder (Enculturation), Matthew Pavesich (Journal of Basic Writing), Kelly S. Bradbury (The Journal of Teaching Writing), Derek N. Mueller (Kairos), Richard H. Thames (KB Journal), Jeanne Marie Rose (Pedagogy), and Melvette Melvin Davis (Reflections).

In recent years, textbooks have been widely criticized for low standards, lack of imaginativeness, and insensitivity to racial and gender issues. Increasingly, they are cited as another "weak link" in American public education. This book goes beyond the headlines to examine how textbooks are produced, how they are selected, and what pressures are placed on textbook authors and publishers. The book focuses on the relationship of the textbook to the educational system and includes important issues such as the politics of textbook policy, the determinants of textbook content, the role of textbooks in educational reform, and the process of selection at the state level. The authors offer current research on textbook policy including perspectives from those directly involved with textbooks--from several thoughtful analyses by textbook editors and publishers to the views of California's Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The Routledge Handbook of Descriptive Rhetorical Studies and World Languages offers a useful collection of papers that presents rhetorical analysis of the discoursal practice in different cultural settings. Covering issues from America to Europe and Asia, and topics from politics to media, education to science, agriculture to literature, and so on, the handbook describes how language can guide listeners’ interpretations, alter their perceptions and shape their worldviews. This book offers a solid foundation for rhetorical studies to become an essential discipline in arts and humanities, engendering innovative theory and applications in areas such as linguistics, literature, history, cultural studies, political science and sociology. This handbook will be crucial for students and researchers in areas such as literature and linguistics, communication studies, political science and arts and humanities in general. This book will also be useful to social science, education, business, law, science and engineering departments due to its coverage of rhetoric in a multidisciplinary and multilingual context. Chapter 16 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial- No Derivatives 4.0 license.

A project of recovery and reanimation, Lost Texts in Rhetoric and Composition foregrounds a broad range of publications that deserve renewed attention. Contributors to this volume reclaim these lost texts to reenvision the rhetorical tradition itself. Authors discussed include not only twentieth-century American compositionists but also a linguist, a poet, a philosopher, a painter, a Renaissance rhetorician, and a nineteenth-century pioneer of comics; the collection also features some less-studied works by authors who remain well known. These texts will give rise to new conversations about current ideas in rhetoric and composition. This volume contains discussion of the following authors and titles: Judah Messer Leon, The Book of the Honeycomb's Flow, Angel DeCora, Sterling Andrus Leonard, English Composition as a Social Problem, Rodolphe Töpffer, William James, Kenneth Burke, Adrienne Rich, Ann E. Berthoff, John Mohawk, "Western Peoples, Natural Peoples," William Vande Kopple, William Irmscher, Beat Not the Poor Desk, Walter J. Ong, Geneva Smitherman, Thomas Zebroski, Linda Brodkey, Craig S. Womack, Deborah Cameron, James Slevin, Marilyn Sternglass, and William E. Coles, Jr.