The rhetorical emergency kit: Engaging ethically with end the silence and protest rhetoric on a campus in crisis

Abstract

This article offers a theoretically based solution to faculty hesitation to engage in difficult dialogs on a campus in crisis. Using the constructs of Ratcliffe’s language of rhetorical listening through the lens of Freire’s interactive educational framework from the stance of second-wave whiteness studies, this paper argues that instructors can engage in ethical discourse in situations of campus crisis such as vandalism, campus hate crime, instances of micro-aggressions, national tragedy, or other traumatic events. Drawing on a history of social justice in the classroom, the importance of listening, the necessity of reflection on whiteness, the self, and social inequity and immersive forms of social justice this article explores the theoretical constructs of rhetorical listening as a framework to create a safe space for students to voice their concerns in moments of unexpected upheaval. Beginning with unpacking conscious identity and dis-identity and illustrating how consciousness can allow for eavesdropping and lead to an exploration of accountability logic, this article illustrates an applicable method to assist students to understand and draw strength from social interdependency. Accepting that the classroom is a public space, and that the campus is a microcosm struggling with the civil liberties issues of our country, this article hopes to offer a practical rhetorical emergency kit for high school and college instructors to use across disciplines to support student voice and student listening and create safe classroom space in moments of crisis.

Keywords:

• social justice
• rhetoric
• difficult dialogs
• protest
• second-wave whiteness studies

Notes

1 It is a concern that in reducing Ratcliffe’s theories to more accessible terminologies, her ideas about listening and the societal implications of accepting this discourse form might be over-simplified. However, my ultimate goal is to make her work immediately accessible to instructors across disciplines and to offer a narrow practical application in the classroom. As she intends her work to be used with students and coursework in mind, I hope I’ve maintained the intent of her work if not the depth of her theoretical inquiry.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katherine Field-Rothschild

Kath Field-Rothschild is Associate Professor of English Composition, Adjunct, at St. Mary's College of California and a doctoral candidate at IUP in Composition and Applied Linguistics and . Her research focuses on information literacy, cross-discipline transfer, and social justice. She is the author of several articles on information literacy and is working on a multi-discipline study of transfer into STEM courses.