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Macro-Rhetoric: Framing Labor Distribution in Client- and Partner-Based Composition

Head, Samuel L
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595272915985507

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, English.
Composition scholars and writing instructors have mobilized developments in theories about audience, rhetorical labor, and the rhetorical situation to help students examine and interact with exigences outside the classroom. Pedagogies such as service-learning, client-based teaching, and community-engaged writing situate students with(in) communities, clients, and/or partners for the purpose of immersing them in "real-world" rhetorical contexts. Although collaborating across rhetorical situations that expand beyond the classroom can create educational opportunities and meaningful projects, such an undertaking comes at a cost. Successfully understanding, managing, and delegating labor within client- and partner-based composition pedagogy can be a challenge to coordinate effectively. Misunderstanding complexity in client- and partner-based composition courses can result in unsatisfactory or unfulfilling outputs, unethical authority imbalances, and marginalized course participants and partners. Addressing these challenges depends on localized and inductively derived frameworks to navigate this labor distribution well. From my case study of a partner-based digital composition course, I posit two frameworks for comprehending and executing ethical and successful client- and partner-based composition courses: a "macro-rhetoric" model to understand and strategize rhetorical labor, and an authority|collaboration matrix to negotiate distributing that rhetorical labor. I developed these frameworks inductively using institutional ethnographic strategies to gather data and grounded theory to analyze it. Macro-rhetoric emerges from this study as a localized theory that explains the complex interaction of components in a rhetorical situation. In essence, a macro-rhetoric model of labor in client- and partner-based composition courses encourages participants to explicitly think about and strategize their partnership as a networking endeavor. Thus, macro-rhetors in a client- and partner-based composition course recognize and leverage the networked nature of their stakeholders and audiences, material constraints, and rhetorical outcomes for the partnership. Strategically, participants may identify who and what are in their networks, link what they can, and recruit where they cannot. Through recruitment, reenvisioning of a project's scope, and renegotiating the labor involved, stakeholders can align their rhetorical vision for a project and successfully manage labor and expectations. Such an approach can help stakeholers develop a sense of what constraints are operating within a partnership and what opportunities there may be as well. These networks of collaborating stakeholders do not operate outside the pressures of institutions and authority. In fact, part of the challenges described by service-learning scholars is in the authority imbalances between university and community partnerships. Thus my second framework provides a space for understanding and navigating some of the primary issues involved in collaboration and authority. A construct I call the authority|collaboration matrix identifies how project leaders may explicitly establish expectations regarding (1) who is involved in inventing a project's scope and details and (2) how much that work will be collaborative or isolated across different stakeholders. Together, macro-rhetoric and the authority|collaboration matrix account for the "what" of labor distribution in client- and partner-based composition courses as well as to specify the "how" of that labor distribution. Within a writing partnership, both can be used as leadership guides and tools, helping map the interactions and labor occurring within a course partnership, and direct successful and ethical rhetorical labor.
Christa Teston (Committee Chair)
Jonathan Buehl (Committee Member)
Beverly Moss (Committee Member)
221 p.
Composition; Rhetoric; Technical Communication
rhetoric; composition; service-learning; partnerships; community-engaged pedagogy; pedagogy; professional writing; technical writing; audience; collaboration; authority;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Head, S. L. (2020). Macro-Rhetoric: Framing Labor Distribution in Client- and Partner-Based Composition [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595272915985507

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Head, Samuel. Macro-Rhetoric: Framing Labor Distribution in Client- and Partner-Based Composition. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595272915985507.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Head, Samuel. "Macro-Rhetoric: Framing Labor Distribution in Client- and Partner-Based Composition." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595272915985507

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1595272915985507
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