Lieu 1 Diane Lieu Professor Leslie Wolcott ENC 3331 28 November 2012

A Personal Take on Rhetorical Citizenship Throughout the course of my Rhetoric and Civic Engagement class, I struggled with what rhetoric is. And what isn't rhetoric? How are rhetoric and civic engagement interlinked? And if they are, should they be? Because outside of the textbook, and in the context of our ever evolving world, rhetoric defined as simply the art of persuasion isn't enough. And it is also because of that ever evolving world that it is important for us to evaluate the role of rhetoric in civic engagement and on our shared social fabric. In the next few pages of this paper, I will attempt to provide my own definitions on the subject and give insight on how I reached those definitions as a result of who I am.

1. Defining Rhetorical So what is rhetoric? As a starting point, I present rhetoricians Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's and Susan Schultz Huxman's definition: "rhetoric is the study of what is persuasive. The issues with which it is concerned are social truths, addressed to others, justified by reasons that reflect cultural values. Rhetoric is a humanistic study that examines all the symbolic means by which influence occurs" (Campbell 5). First off, this definition pigeonholes rhetoric to social truths. While I agree that social truths are a very important aspect that rhetoric plays a role in, I think rhetoric extends to all use of

Lieu 2 language as Sam Leith points out, "you have been using rhetoric yourself, all your life" (Leith 7). However I do think Campbell's and Huxman's idea that rhetoric requires reflection of "cultural values" to be spot on. As evidence is required to support arguments, cultural values serve as excellent support for persuasion because as members of the same social fabric, we are all affected by the same cultural values. Finally, I agree that rhetoric encompasses all forms of communication, not just written or spoken language; for example, a photo can be used to persuade. But as photographs and other visual depictions are focused on cues such as design and composition rather than the manipulation and delivery of words, I will restrict my definition to written and spoken language. (Because I am presenting my ideas on this subject as a writer, my scope of exploring rhetoric well is limited to language.) Rhetorical is related to the use of language to influence others and reflects an understanding of cultural context.

2. Defining Citizenship My original concept of citizenship is belonging to a country. But with statistics from the 2011 Florida Civic Health Index I reevaluated what it means to be a citizen. The index states that "Florida's Millennials have one of the lowest rates (ranked 48th in the nation) of participating in any type of civic, community, school, sports or religious group" (Knuckley 2). Along with that, the data constantly and glaringly points out that Florida's participation in any activity related to social connectedness or civic

Lieu 3 engagement is ranked at the bottom. The tone of the index was that Floridians were failing as citizens. It also emphasized the shifting demographics of Florida to "young, non-white" (Knuckley 3). Knuckley and Collie are making the argument that our political landscape is important to how we partake in citizenship. After looking through the index, that message resonated with me. The level of citizenship a person has is connected to the person's level of participation in our social fabric i.e. group activities and involvement with defining our nation's politics.

3. Integrating Rhetorical and Citizenship A direct combination of the two definitions I reached would say rhetorical citizenship is the use of language, with the application of an understanding of cultural context, to influence the social fabric we are a part of. Weve determined that rhetoric and civic engagement are interlinked, but to revisit one of the questions I posed in the introduction, should they be? Or to what extent should they be? As a student of a class called Rhetoric and Civic Engagement, Im clearly biased but still I will push for my position on this. We all influence the social fabric. But to really impact the social fabric requires a lot of civic engagement. Hands-on civic engagement is great but with utilizing rhetoric, it is possible to spread your ideas for the social fabric and mobilize others to carry it out. And in reality, the partnership between rhetoric and civic engagement is always existent. To participate in civic engagement, you are communicating a message through your actions that you want others to be receptive to. And in using rhetoric, you are influencing the social fabric with your words. So attempts to separate the two would be fruitless.

Lieu 4 4. Introspection of my Influences The definition I produced reflects my own experiences on the subject of rhetoric and civic engagement so it makes complete sense to me. However, for each person, there is probably another definition that resonates more with them. I would like to discuss my own participation in rhetorical citizenship to better explain how I reached the definitions I provided. I work as a secretary for the UNICEF campus initiative at UCF and so I spend a lot of time crafting messages for the public, ranging from flyers to reminder e-mails for general body meetings. I often find myself conflicted with how I represent UNICEF and with how I others with perceive my message. For example, in the first version of that flyer, I clashed with my president and vice president over "creative differences." They wanted to exchange the Events section for "COME BE A PART OF UNICEF AND BEGIN TO MAKE A GLOBAL DIFFERENCE!" But what does global difference even mean? It sounded like empty words to me. And would I be okay with myself to communicate what UNICEF does with empty rhetoric? In the end, I compromised. Because I felt it wasn't my decision to make over the president and vice president. But I'm still not okay with putting that message out there. (And that was a few months ago.)

Lieu 5 That argument reaffirms that my participation as secretary for the UNICEF campus initiative is rhetorical citizenship. I am attempting to influence our social fabric by promoting UNICEF to UCF students and assisting UNICEF's work in my own minuscule way. And I am doing that by crafting written language with a consideration of my audience. But what really makes it rhetorical citizenship I think, is the fact that it's surprisingly not passive. It's not just writing e-mails and creating flyers. It's the "creative differences" moments and the bi-weekly officers meeting where we discuss how to better reach out to students. We constantly rethink our "game plan." How can we improve at gaining members, at fundraising, at advocating children's issues? Which amazingly can all boil down to how can we improve at rhetorical citizenship? So I would like to amend my definition of rhetorical citizenship slightly: well done rhetorical citizenship is the critically thought out and continually re-thought out use of language, with the application of an understanding of cultural context, to influence the social fabric we are a part of.

Lieu 6 Works Cited Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs, Susan Schultz Huxman. The Rhetorical Act: Thinking, Speaking, and Writing Critically. 3rd ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2003. Print. Knuckley, Jonathan, Tim Collie. 2011 Florida Civic Health Index: The Next Generation. Washington: GPO, 2011. Print. Leith, Sam. Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric From Aristotle To Obama. New York: Basic Books, 2011. Print.