Reading Response 11 Feb 2010: Rhetorical Pedagogy

Interestingly, I was familiar with the concepts in today's reading. During a Rhetorical theory course, I read and re-read Aristotle, Booth, Perlman, Burke, and others. For me, the most striking statement in William A. Covino's "Rhetorical Pedagogy" was the reference to race, class, and gender (49). As a womanist, I am always aware of the implications of triad of race, class, and gender. Covino states, "As Berlin notes, 'Cultural studies argues that the division between the cultivated poetic and the mundane rhetorical or popular is based on class, race, and gender bias and is the result of particular groups forwarding their own interests as universal values.'" After reading the statement, I immediately ordered Rhetorics, Poetics, and Culture: Refiguring English Studies and Cultural Studies in the English Classroom as well as Olson's Race, Rhetoric, and the Postcolonial.

Taking a womanist perspective in my thesis, I had explored literary texts and had not contemplated pedagogy. From the reading, I suppose I realized that inspiration could come from peculiar places. In the future, I want to explore the implications of race, class, and gender in literary texts and culture, and I want my students to have the skills to question universalist canons and standpoints.