This article delineates a study which examines both the historical basis of Hmong literacy develo... more This article delineates a study which examines both the historical basis of Hmong literacy development (in the years before they left Laos) as well as the more recent history (since 1975) of a Hmong group that settled in northern Wisconsin. The article discusses the development and functions of literacy in the United States, particularly as experienced by an ethnic minority. The article focuses on the different uses of writing among the Hmong in Wisconsin, how literacy practices are shaped by the majority discourse, and the ways in which writers appropriate the majority discourse and use it for their own purposes. (NKA)
To write is to make choices, and to teach writing is to teach rationales for making such choices.... more To write is to make choices, and to teach writing is to teach rationales for making such choices. We tend to think of these choices, those of us who write and teach writing, as belonging to certain categories, or domains, such as the rhetorical, the linguistic, or the aesthetic.1 These are not airtight compartments, independent of one another, but mutually informing, each having a part in the development of a given text. For example, the writer makes rhetorical decisions about topic, evidence, and organization in response to the constraints and opportunities of particular audiences, purposes, and occasions. The writer's linguistic choices, which are also rhetorical, may involve the degree of formality or informality in the text, or what sociolinguists call the linguistic register (Fairclough, 70). The aesthetic choices of the writer, both linguistic and rhetorical in their own right, may call for decisions about sentence variation or word choice, with one word selected over anot...
Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 2011
Of the many scientific and medical discourses that purport to explain, analyze, demystify, or eve... more Of the many scientific and medical discourses that purport to explain, analyze, demystify, or even cure autism, few have been as influential in recent decades as the Theory of Mind (ToM) account, which holds that autistic people are incapable of intuiting the intentions and emotions of others and are therefore "mindblind", or live with "mindblindness," a condition that separates them from other human beings. ToM is regarded by its more ardent advocates as the primary deficit in autism and the key to understanding autistic cognition and behaviors. The article considers the rhetoric of ToM. The authors argue that despite its foundations in the language of cognitive psychology, it is a discourse of affect and values, or a rhetoric of scientific sadness in which autistic people are mourned even as they are ostensibly explained.
This article examines the uses of oral testimony in writing about literacy in historical context,... more This article examines the uses of oral testimony in writing about literacy in historical context, especially about the literacy traditions of populations “hidden from history”-immigrants, refugees, and undocumented persons-who are entering U.S. schools and workplaces, and whose literacy histories may be unknown or lost. Drawing on testimonies collected from Laotian Hmong refugees, I offer the following propositions: First, that oral testimonies provide information about literacy that may be unavailable in documentary records. Second, that oral testimonies may reveal deeply held values and attitudes about literacy that cannot be derived from the documentary evidence. Third, that oral testimonies disclose the full range of human experience, rational and emotional, and that this may lead to new understandings of literacy. Finally, that oral histories invite collaboration between researcher and informant in writing new histories of literacy-though not always in ways commonly assumed.
This article suggests that literacy development in immigrant, refugee, and other historically mar... more This article suggests that literacy development in immigrant, refugee, and other historically marginalized communities can be understood as a response to rhetorical struggles in contexts of civic life. To illustrate this "rhetorical conception of literacy:' the article examines a collection of anti-immigrant letters published in a Midwestern newspaper between 1985 and 1995 and the responses to these by a group of Southeast Asian Hmong refugee writers. The essay explores the relationships of content, form, language, and audience in the two sets of letters to show how the anti-immigrant rhetoric became the basis for new forms of public writing in the Hmong community.
While histories of Hmong literacy development in Laos have focused on the role of village schools... more While histories of Hmong literacy development in Laos have focused on the role of village schools, the arrival of missionary Christianity, and the development of various Hmong religious alphabets, one site for Hmong literacy development has been consistently overlooked: L'Armee Clandestine, or the Hmong "Secret Army." This article examines literacy development in the Hmong military, looking at the writings of Hmong military scribes. The article discusses how 1) literacy skills taught in other contexts, such as Laotian public schools, were further developed in the Hmong military, 2) a selected number of Hmong men were introduced through military service to English language and literacy, and 3) military scribes might appropriate literacy to address personal needs and aspirations.
Book review-Literacy, Economy, and Power: Writing and Research after Literacy in American Lives, ... more Book review-Literacy, Economy, and Power: Writing and Research after Literacy in American Lives, edited by John duffy, Julie nelson christoph, eli Goldblatt, nelson Graff, rebecca s. nowacek and Bryan trabold thomas p. miller-university of arizona Learning to read and write has taken place amid convulsive changes in economic and social life, educational expectations and communication technologies. This has been a time when the meaning of what it is to be literate has seemed to shift with nearly every new generation.-Deborah Brandt, Literacy in American Lives s ince the 1980s, Deborah Brandt's work has helped shape the interactions between composition and "New Literacy Studies" (NLS). NLS defines literacy not as an independent variable but as a varied set of social practices that need to be examined against their cultural, political and institutional contexts, often with ethnographic methods that can provide "thick descriptions" of literacy in action. This ethnographic framework has been adopted widely in studies of translingual literacies and the rhetorical dynamics of global political economies and locally situated collective action. Converging trends in studies of literacy, composition, and rhetoric led to the founding of Literacy in Composition Studies in 2013. LiCS was created to examine "the implications of Literacy Studies research, theory, and practice for Composition Studies, " and it has featured leading contributors whose work has helped bridge literacy and composition studies. Several of those contributors are included in Literacy, Economy, and Power: Writing and Research after Literacy in American Lives, which examines the broader impact of Brandt's work on converging trends in composition and literacy studies. Those convergences are clearly apparent in the varied concerns of the contributors to the volume, including
After Plato: Rhetoric, Ethics, and the Teaching of Writing, 2020
The standpoint we are proposing in this chapter is therefore a confluence
of three lines of work:... more The standpoint we are proposing in this chapter is therefore a confluence of three lines of work: the growing understanding of fairness, validity, and reliability as both categories of evidence and ethical frameworks (Kelly-Riley and Whithaus 2016); an ecological view of human cognition as applied to writing (White, Elliot, and Peckham 2015); and a sociocognitive view of assessment as an expression of contextualized, purposive arguments (Mislevy 2018). Significantly, our model thus resonates with that of David Slomp’s (2016) framework for using consequential validity evidence in evaluating each step in writing assessment design. These lines of work inform the structure of our chapter and the model proposed in it. We first turn to an integrative perspective in which a defined view of psychometrics (identified as sociocognitive) is used to design a construct-driven approach to writing (identified as nomothetic). We then combine the desire to use situative perspectives with efforts to describe the span of the writing construct. We conclude with a summary of four ethical principles that are implicit in our model that, taken together, call for enhanced attention to construct validity and the integrative framework that is provided by evidence of fairness. In emphasizing this integrative approach, we believe researchers can structurally design assessments that, in context and use, are ethical in nature. With the reservation that conceptual models are limited in terms of their applications—as are all human endeavors intending to structure opportunities—we hold that ours bakes a certain kind of ethical perspective (identified with fairness) into the assessment itself.
The first-year writing course provides a model for constructive, fact-based public discourse and ... more The first-year writing course provides a model for constructive, fact-based public discourse and stands as a model of principled resistance in an era of “fake news” and "alternative facts."
In the ethics of virtue, teachers of college writing are offered a vocabulary that might move st... more In the ethics of virtue, teachers of college writing are offered a vocabulary that might move students and teachers beyond the corrosive rhetoric of our polarized cultural moment toward more productive and more generous ways of reasoning and writing.
We tend to think of writing as an activity that involves communicating information, or making an ... more We tend to think of writing as an activity that involves communicating information, or making an argument, or expressing a creative impulse. Writing is indeed all those things. But writing is equally an activity that involves ethical choices that arise from the relationship of writer and reader.
This article delineates a study which examines both the historical basis of Hmong literacy develo... more This article delineates a study which examines both the historical basis of Hmong literacy development (in the years before they left Laos) as well as the more recent history (since 1975) of a Hmong group that settled in northern Wisconsin. The article discusses the development and functions of literacy in the United States, particularly as experienced by an ethnic minority. The article focuses on the different uses of writing among the Hmong in Wisconsin, how literacy practices are shaped by the majority discourse, and the ways in which writers appropriate the majority discourse and use it for their own purposes. (NKA)
To write is to make choices, and to teach writing is to teach rationales for making such choices.... more To write is to make choices, and to teach writing is to teach rationales for making such choices. We tend to think of these choices, those of us who write and teach writing, as belonging to certain categories, or domains, such as the rhetorical, the linguistic, or the aesthetic.1 These are not airtight compartments, independent of one another, but mutually informing, each having a part in the development of a given text. For example, the writer makes rhetorical decisions about topic, evidence, and organization in response to the constraints and opportunities of particular audiences, purposes, and occasions. The writer's linguistic choices, which are also rhetorical, may involve the degree of formality or informality in the text, or what sociolinguists call the linguistic register (Fairclough, 70). The aesthetic choices of the writer, both linguistic and rhetorical in their own right, may call for decisions about sentence variation or word choice, with one word selected over anot...
Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 2011
Of the many scientific and medical discourses that purport to explain, analyze, demystify, or eve... more Of the many scientific and medical discourses that purport to explain, analyze, demystify, or even cure autism, few have been as influential in recent decades as the Theory of Mind (ToM) account, which holds that autistic people are incapable of intuiting the intentions and emotions of others and are therefore "mindblind", or live with "mindblindness," a condition that separates them from other human beings. ToM is regarded by its more ardent advocates as the primary deficit in autism and the key to understanding autistic cognition and behaviors. The article considers the rhetoric of ToM. The authors argue that despite its foundations in the language of cognitive psychology, it is a discourse of affect and values, or a rhetoric of scientific sadness in which autistic people are mourned even as they are ostensibly explained.
This article examines the uses of oral testimony in writing about literacy in historical context,... more This article examines the uses of oral testimony in writing about literacy in historical context, especially about the literacy traditions of populations “hidden from history”-immigrants, refugees, and undocumented persons-who are entering U.S. schools and workplaces, and whose literacy histories may be unknown or lost. Drawing on testimonies collected from Laotian Hmong refugees, I offer the following propositions: First, that oral testimonies provide information about literacy that may be unavailable in documentary records. Second, that oral testimonies may reveal deeply held values and attitudes about literacy that cannot be derived from the documentary evidence. Third, that oral testimonies disclose the full range of human experience, rational and emotional, and that this may lead to new understandings of literacy. Finally, that oral histories invite collaboration between researcher and informant in writing new histories of literacy-though not always in ways commonly assumed.
This article suggests that literacy development in immigrant, refugee, and other historically mar... more This article suggests that literacy development in immigrant, refugee, and other historically marginalized communities can be understood as a response to rhetorical struggles in contexts of civic life. To illustrate this "rhetorical conception of literacy:' the article examines a collection of anti-immigrant letters published in a Midwestern newspaper between 1985 and 1995 and the responses to these by a group of Southeast Asian Hmong refugee writers. The essay explores the relationships of content, form, language, and audience in the two sets of letters to show how the anti-immigrant rhetoric became the basis for new forms of public writing in the Hmong community.
While histories of Hmong literacy development in Laos have focused on the role of village schools... more While histories of Hmong literacy development in Laos have focused on the role of village schools, the arrival of missionary Christianity, and the development of various Hmong religious alphabets, one site for Hmong literacy development has been consistently overlooked: L'Armee Clandestine, or the Hmong "Secret Army." This article examines literacy development in the Hmong military, looking at the writings of Hmong military scribes. The article discusses how 1) literacy skills taught in other contexts, such as Laotian public schools, were further developed in the Hmong military, 2) a selected number of Hmong men were introduced through military service to English language and literacy, and 3) military scribes might appropriate literacy to address personal needs and aspirations.
Book review-Literacy, Economy, and Power: Writing and Research after Literacy in American Lives, ... more Book review-Literacy, Economy, and Power: Writing and Research after Literacy in American Lives, edited by John duffy, Julie nelson christoph, eli Goldblatt, nelson Graff, rebecca s. nowacek and Bryan trabold thomas p. miller-university of arizona Learning to read and write has taken place amid convulsive changes in economic and social life, educational expectations and communication technologies. This has been a time when the meaning of what it is to be literate has seemed to shift with nearly every new generation.-Deborah Brandt, Literacy in American Lives s ince the 1980s, Deborah Brandt's work has helped shape the interactions between composition and "New Literacy Studies" (NLS). NLS defines literacy not as an independent variable but as a varied set of social practices that need to be examined against their cultural, political and institutional contexts, often with ethnographic methods that can provide "thick descriptions" of literacy in action. This ethnographic framework has been adopted widely in studies of translingual literacies and the rhetorical dynamics of global political economies and locally situated collective action. Converging trends in studies of literacy, composition, and rhetoric led to the founding of Literacy in Composition Studies in 2013. LiCS was created to examine "the implications of Literacy Studies research, theory, and practice for Composition Studies, " and it has featured leading contributors whose work has helped bridge literacy and composition studies. Several of those contributors are included in Literacy, Economy, and Power: Writing and Research after Literacy in American Lives, which examines the broader impact of Brandt's work on converging trends in composition and literacy studies. Those convergences are clearly apparent in the varied concerns of the contributors to the volume, including
After Plato: Rhetoric, Ethics, and the Teaching of Writing, 2020
The standpoint we are proposing in this chapter is therefore a confluence
of three lines of work:... more The standpoint we are proposing in this chapter is therefore a confluence of three lines of work: the growing understanding of fairness, validity, and reliability as both categories of evidence and ethical frameworks (Kelly-Riley and Whithaus 2016); an ecological view of human cognition as applied to writing (White, Elliot, and Peckham 2015); and a sociocognitive view of assessment as an expression of contextualized, purposive arguments (Mislevy 2018). Significantly, our model thus resonates with that of David Slomp’s (2016) framework for using consequential validity evidence in evaluating each step in writing assessment design. These lines of work inform the structure of our chapter and the model proposed in it. We first turn to an integrative perspective in which a defined view of psychometrics (identified as sociocognitive) is used to design a construct-driven approach to writing (identified as nomothetic). We then combine the desire to use situative perspectives with efforts to describe the span of the writing construct. We conclude with a summary of four ethical principles that are implicit in our model that, taken together, call for enhanced attention to construct validity and the integrative framework that is provided by evidence of fairness. In emphasizing this integrative approach, we believe researchers can structurally design assessments that, in context and use, are ethical in nature. With the reservation that conceptual models are limited in terms of their applications—as are all human endeavors intending to structure opportunities—we hold that ours bakes a certain kind of ethical perspective (identified with fairness) into the assessment itself.
The first-year writing course provides a model for constructive, fact-based public discourse and ... more The first-year writing course provides a model for constructive, fact-based public discourse and stands as a model of principled resistance in an era of “fake news” and "alternative facts."
In the ethics of virtue, teachers of college writing are offered a vocabulary that might move st... more In the ethics of virtue, teachers of college writing are offered a vocabulary that might move students and teachers beyond the corrosive rhetoric of our polarized cultural moment toward more productive and more generous ways of reasoning and writing.
We tend to think of writing as an activity that involves communicating information, or making an ... more We tend to think of writing as an activity that involves communicating information, or making an argument, or expressing a creative impulse. Writing is indeed all those things. But writing is equally an activity that involves ethical choices that arise from the relationship of writer and reader.
The Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies (JLCDS) focuses on cultural and especially ... more The Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies (JLCDS) focuses on cultural and especially literary representations of disability. Containing a wide variety of textual analyses that are informed by disability theory and, by extension, experiences of disability, it is essential reading for scholars whose work concentrates on the portrayal of disability in literature. More broadly, it is instrumental in the interdisciplinarity of literary studies, cultural studies, and disability studies.
Uploads
Papers by John Duffy
of three lines of work: the growing understanding of fairness, validity,
and reliability as both categories of evidence and ethical frameworks
(Kelly-Riley and Whithaus 2016); an ecological view of human cognition
as applied to writing (White, Elliot, and Peckham 2015); and a sociocognitive view of assessment as an expression of contextualized, purposive arguments (Mislevy 2018). Significantly, our model thus resonates with that of David Slomp’s (2016) framework for using consequential validity evidence in evaluating each step in writing assessment design. These lines of work inform the structure of our chapter and the model proposed in it. We first turn to an integrative perspective in which a defined view of psychometrics (identified as sociocognitive) is used to design a construct-driven approach to writing (identified as nomothetic). We then combine the desire to use situative perspectives with efforts to describe the span of the writing construct. We conclude with a summary of four ethical principles that are implicit in our model that, taken together, call for enhanced attention to construct validity and the integrative framework that is provided by evidence of fairness. In emphasizing this integrative approach, we believe researchers can structurally design assessments that, in context and use, are ethical in nature. With the reservation that conceptual models are limited in terms of their applications—as are all human endeavors intending to structure opportunities—we hold that ours bakes a certain kind of ethical perspective (identified with fairness) into the assessment itself.
of three lines of work: the growing understanding of fairness, validity,
and reliability as both categories of evidence and ethical frameworks
(Kelly-Riley and Whithaus 2016); an ecological view of human cognition
as applied to writing (White, Elliot, and Peckham 2015); and a sociocognitive view of assessment as an expression of contextualized, purposive arguments (Mislevy 2018). Significantly, our model thus resonates with that of David Slomp’s (2016) framework for using consequential validity evidence in evaluating each step in writing assessment design. These lines of work inform the structure of our chapter and the model proposed in it. We first turn to an integrative perspective in which a defined view of psychometrics (identified as sociocognitive) is used to design a construct-driven approach to writing (identified as nomothetic). We then combine the desire to use situative perspectives with efforts to describe the span of the writing construct. We conclude with a summary of four ethical principles that are implicit in our model that, taken together, call for enhanced attention to construct validity and the integrative framework that is provided by evidence of fairness. In emphasizing this integrative approach, we believe researchers can structurally design assessments that, in context and use, are ethical in nature. With the reservation that conceptual models are limited in terms of their applications—as are all human endeavors intending to structure opportunities—we hold that ours bakes a certain kind of ethical perspective (identified with fairness) into the assessment itself.