Vocabularies Clashing: "The Fragmented Generation" Describes Itself

Abstract

After reading Scott Seider and Howard Gardner’s essay “The Fragmented Generation” (2009) in a college freshman writing class, students responded by providing their own labels for their generation. This article includes excerpts from their essays. Following these excerpts is the instructor’s theoretical justification for this kind of classroom work. Drawing from Richard Rorty, the author argues the need for students to consider the vocabularies that students use to describe the world around them. By analyzing their vocabularies alongside other vocabularies that coexist and compete with their own, students engage the rhetorical landscape that surrounds and defines them.