Information, Identity, and Ideology

This article examines the role of critical reading in a racial literacy-focused composition curriculum. The author draws on student-produced data to demonstrate how the racial literacy curriculum prepares students to explore the situatedness of language, how individual positionalities influence the construction and interpretation of text, and how sociocultural ideologies are represented and disseminated through seemingly innocuous or objective reporting. Broadly, this article offers strategies for teaching critical reading to help teachers of writing improve students’ rhetorical awareness and engage them more fully as participants in a textually mediated society.

Beyond Grammar: Tracking Perceptions of Quality in Student E-mail

This research explores a presumed link between today’s use of digital media and an ever-increasing lack of rhetorical awareness in students. Specifically, the study pilots a method for measuring rhetorical awareness through students’ e-mail transactions with faculty in technical writing service courses, questioning whether rhetorical awareness has decreased in the preceding 10 years. The findings indicate that students might be more rhetorically aware today than they were 10 years ago, but levels remain below expectations.