Language, Culture, Identity and Citizenship in College Classrooms and Communities examines what takes place in writing classrooms beyond academic analytical and argumentative writing to include forms that engage students in navigating the civic, political, social and cultural spheres they inhabit. It presents a conceptual framework for imagining how writing instructors can institute campus-wide initiatives, such as Writing Across Communities, that attempt to connect the classroom and the campus to the students' various communities of belonging, especially students who have been historically underserved. This framework reflects an emerging perspective-writing across difference-that challenges the argument that the best writing instructors can do is develop the skills and knowledge students need to make a successful transition from their home discourses to academic discourses. Instead, the value inherent in the full repertoire of linguistic, cultural and semiotic resources students use in their varied communities of belonging needs to be acknowledged and students need to be encouraged to call on these to the fullest extent possible in the course of learning what they are being taught in the writing classroom. Pedagogically, this book provides educators with the rhetorical, discursive and literacy tools needed to implement this approach.

Language, Culture, Identity and Citizenship in College Classrooms and Communities examines what takes place in writing classrooms beyond academic analytical and argumentative writing to include forms that engage students in navigating the civic, political, social and cultural spheres they inhabit. It presents a conceptual framework for imagining how writing instructors can institute campus-wide initiatives, such as Writing Across Communities, that attempt to connect the classroom and the campus to the students' various communities of belonging, especially students who have been historically underserved. This framework reflects an emerging perspective-writing across difference-that challenges the argument that the best writing instructors can do is develop the skills and knowledge students need to make a successful transition from their home discourses to academic discourses. Instead, the value inherent in the full repertoire of linguistic, cultural and semiotic resources students use in their varied communities of belonging needs to be acknowledged and students need to be encouraged to call on these to the fullest extent possible in the course of learning what they are being taught in the writing classroom. Pedagogically, this book provides educators with the rhetorical, discursive and literacy tools needed to implement this approach.

Beginning as a grassroots organizer in the 1950s, Vicente Ximenes was at the forefront of the movement for Mexican American civil rights through three presidential administrations, joining Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society and later emerging as one of the highest-ranking appointees in Johnson's administration. One of the most influential government representatives of Mexican American issues in recent history, Ximenes succeeded largely because he could adapt his rhetoric for different audiences in his speeches and writings. In Vicente Ximenes, LBJ's Great Society, and Mexican American Civil Rights Rhetoric, Michelle Hall Kells elucidates Ximenes's achievement through a rhetorical history of his career as an activist. Kells draws on Ximenes's extensive archive of speeches, reports, articles, and oral interviews to present the activist's rhetorical history and begins each chapter with an excerpt from the collection that showcases Ximenes's ability to negotiate multiple public spheres. Exploring Ximenes's legacy against the backdrop of the Cold War era, Kells's analyses illustrate how Ximenes effectively agitated for open, inclusive, and pluralist democracy at regional and national levels. After a discussion of Ximenes's early life, the author focuses on his career as an activist, examining Ximenes's leadership in several key civil rights events, including the historic 1967 White House cabinet committee hearings on Mexican American Affairs, and highlighting his role in advancing Mexican Americans and Latinos from social marginalization to greater representation in national politics. Kells concludes by reflecting on the later years of Ximenes's life and his contributions to the post-World War II civil rights movement. Vicente Ximenes, LBJ's Great Society, and Mexican American Civil Rights Rhetoric shows us a remarkable man who dedicated the majority of his life to public service, using rhetoric to mobilize activists for change at the grassroots level as well as at the highest levels of government to secure civil rights advances for his fellow Mexican Americans.

When teachers are familiar with what adults and children bring with them into the classroom, they are far better prepared to develop appropriate curricula and pedagogical techniques. Close to Home is a unique portrayal and analysis of the language, literacy, and cultural resources of a social network of Mexicano adults living in a rural community in Mexico and Chicago's inner city. By exploring the ways in which this group's experiences as immigrants have affected their communicative practices, the author provides a basis for understanding how researchers, policy makers, and educators can provide these adults and their children with a relevant education that effectively embraces their schooling and lived experience. After establishing a historical and sociocultural context for the author's analysis, this rich ethnographic study presents a variety of oral and written sample texts, including tape recordings of everyday oral language use, personal letters, and autobiographical writing.