In this study, we explore discussions of literature in a high school English Language Arts (ELA) classroom, examining how students read rhetorically. Reading rhetorically considers the ethical effects of narrative content as it is mediated through character dialogue and action, narrator discourse, and the author's organization: a narrative as a…

It is often taken for granted that teaching self-regulated learning pedagogy supports student empowerment and individual human agency. As a result, researchers are almost exclusively focused on improving self-regulated learning pedagogical interventions. There is little consideration of the ethical and ideological implications of such instruction.…

We are at a particularly difficult historical juncture marked by uncertainty, contingency and change. Zygmunt Bauman characterises the present time as "liquid modernity" (2000, 2008, 2011b) because of the fluidity and instability that we live with. Our identities and our relations to the world are changing radically. There is an urgent need for…

The English teaching profession, spurred on by media and federal politics, has tended to construct aesthetic reading and political reading within a dichotomous conceptual framework (Morgan, 1997; Devine, 2004; Donnelly, 2007). The article argues that this need not be so, and that the two apparently opposed modes of reading can be performed not…

When scholars write about their research in writing programs' archives, they often face the ethical question of whether to name the administrators who were involved in documents. The author identifies and provides examples of three basic orientations to this issue, which he calls overt-historical, covert-qualitative, and hybrid-institutional.…

Although, by the time of her death, Louise Rosenblatt was highly respected in the fields of composition and reading theory, she did not enjoy the same status among literary theorists. In this article, the author argues that Rosenblatt should be taken seriously as a literary theorist. The author shares her views on Rosenblatt's "Literature as…

Focuses on the paradoxical role played by exclusion in any attempt to create an inclusive space. Explores the nature of inclusion/exclusion dynamic in English Studies in general and more specifically in classrooms that use critical theory to address the need for social change. Concludes that the principle of exclusion is entangled with efforts at…

Examines the possibility of negotiating ethical issues productively in the postmodern classroom. Reviews Iris Marion Young's refutation of distributive ethics and Young's alternative system based on group difference. Describes recent work on classroom ethics relying on distributive language. Suggests ways of extending this work in light of Young's…

Claims that the field of rhetoric and composition is currently embroiled in a debate regarding the question of politics in the English classroom. Outlines the current debate and provides analysis. Makes suggestions for teaching rhetorical values by discussing the historical tradition of rhetoric and ethics. (HB)