Responsible Pedagogy

In recent decades, public higher education has faced perpetual crises. As states slash investment in postsecondary education and for-profit entities seek to supplant public colleges and universities, these public institutions have tried to compete by maximizing efficiency, namely, by downplaying and outsourcing the labor of teachers.

Responsible Pedagogy makes a fresh case for the importance and value of public higher education and the work of teaching. In making this case, Eric Detweiler surveys the history of rhetoric and writing in postsecondary education, looking in particular at the teacher-student relationship. He finds that from the Socratic method to medieval exercises, from MOOCs to remote, asynchronous learning, the balance of authority and agency in the classroom is often precarious. But the problem goes deeper. Underlying both authority and agency is the value of mastery, which the teacher is to impart to the student. It is this emphasis on mastery, Detweiler argues, that distorts the proper relation between the student and teacher, a relationship in which they are responsible for and vulnerable to each other.

Drawing on contemporary ethics, rhetorical theory, and critiques of practices in the online classroom, Detweiler develops a pedagogy of responsibility and shows how it can be applied in writing and communication curricula, assignments, and teacher-student interactions. Rehabilitating the proper role of the teacher, Responsible Pedagogy calls into question our newfound trust in educational technology and points the way to a better, more effective pedagogy.

“Responsible Pedagogy contributes to interdisciplinary conversations in rhetorical studies and the wider humanities through its methodological interventions as well as its advocacy for necessary changes in teaching practice in writing studies, communication studies, and other fields across the humanities and allied social sciences.”—Rosa A. Eberly, author of Citizen Critics: Literary Public Spheres

Eric Detweiler is Associate Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University, where he also directs the Public Writing and Rhetoric program. He runs the podcast Rhetoricity.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Interrupting Socrates

2. An Exercise in Rhetorical Unmastery

3. Online Education, the Limits of Agency, and the Dream of Education Without Responsibility

4. Peer Networks, the Limits of Symmetry, and the Possibilities of Responsible Education

5. From Thesis Statements to Hedge Mazes

Epilogue: On the First Day of Class

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Download a PDF sample chapter here: Introduction

Communication Studies

           History of Communication

           Rhetorical Studies

Education

Rhetoric