The two major reports of the Holmes Group--"Tomorrow's Teachers" and "Tomorrow's Schools"--contain sharply contrasting rhetorics: the rhetoric of democratic values and scientistic rhetoric. Critical analysis of the reports suggests that the contrast highlights the contradictory tendencies embedded in the reform movement. (IAH)

Analyzes 18 articles selected as representative explanations of the whole-language position. Finds three themes that frame the thought and activities of the movement: general definitions, learning and teaching, and reading and reading instruction. Analyzes the articles using deconstruction to find their implicit assumptions, revealing underlying…

Responds to an article in the same journal on the rhetoric of whole language. Challenges issues of representation, motives involved, and the small unrepresentative sample involved. Discusses the rhetoric of camouflage. (SR)

Responds to an article in the same journal on the rhetoric of whole language. Shows how the authors of that article fail to do what they set out to do from their own perspective. Discusses choice of sources, treating the language seriously, and language without substance. Shows how those authors judge whole language not by its own principles but…

Responds to three articles (in the same journal) which responded to an article by these authors on the rhetoric of whole language. Discusses the nature of professional discourse. (SR)

Reports on ways in which an undergraduate English course can be structured to invite wide-ranging forms of response. Describes how this was done through an expository reading and writing course based on rhetorical modes and noncanonical texts. Claims that student satisfaction and achievement were excellent. (HB)

Contributes to scholarship on the role of discursive rhetoric for providing a context for visual messages. Analyzes how the American print media, in the summer of 1963, contextualized M. Browne's photographs of a Vietnamese Buddhist monk's self-immolation in two competing frames of either religious oppression or a war for freedom against the…

Contributes to rhetorical scholarship by exploring the rhetorical implications of presidential travel spectacles. Finds that travel spectacles enable administrations to marginalize verbal eloquence, visually simplify complex political issues, narratively interpret presidential agendas, synoptically reify presidential personae, and construct or…

Parents want validation of the quality of education their children are receiving, but education is complex, non-linear, and to a great extent unquantifiable. This article discusses two current trends that are said to be indicative of educational quality: standardized tests and school rankings. This author argues that while standardized tests may…

Using a method of topical rhetorical analysis, inspired by K. Burke, to discuss the Ebonics debate, this article demonstrates that conversations about education, particularly writing instruction, have adopted a market rhetoric that limits teachers' agency. However, reappropriation of this market rhetoric can help writing teachers to imagine and…

In her very influential book, "The Point of Words" (1988), Ellen Winner presents strong evidence that children younger than six can understand and use metaphors, but not irony. Winner, however, fails to consider "philosophical story irony" in her research. This sort of irony is a little like dramatic irony. We have a case of such irony whenever…

This article presents an excerpt of a declaration from the United States Department of Education's "Strategic Plan: 2002-2007." The declaration signifies in no uncertain terms that the battle waged by critics of alternative research methods continues, and is likely to intensify. The denigration of research methods which decline to adhere…

The South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE) is a credential and formal qualification within the Australian Qualifications Framework. A recent review of the SACE outlined a number of recommendations for significant changes to this certificate. These recommendations were the result of a process that began with the review panel…

Greater reflexivity concerning the ways of discussing pedagogy could improve the way educators conceptualize their roles. Close attention to metaphors about education sounds a note of caution about the transfer of language from one discursive realm (business) to another (education). The transference of the "total quality management"…

Focusing on the federal government's efforts to educate the public to the dangers of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), a study examined "America Responds to AIDS" public service announcements (PSA's) through a traditional rhetorical analysis (PSA characters, plot, pace, tone, and message design). Forty-four English-language…