Date of Award

1-1-2013

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

English Language and Literatures

First Advisor

Byron Hawk

Abstract

As new media is changing the way individuals communicate, efforts have already been made within universities to, once again, construct new literacy standards in the digital age, producing the appearance of a literacy crisis. I argue that rather than producing another literacy crisis, the fundamental reversal of the power structure concerning who dominates standard literacy places greater expectations on composition scholars and practitioners--rather than students--ultimately providing the conditions of possibility for using power productively to imagine a new pedagogy of rhetorical dexterity that reverses the role of expectations from standards to invention. Such a pedagogy offers rhetoric and composition a way of theorizing literacy instruction in a way that embraces the richness of alternative literacies, which I argue invites scholars to revalue marginalized discourses. Ultimately, this makes room for pedagogies that use, understand, and accept the reversal of power, making this appearance of new literacy no longer a crisis.

Rights

© 2013, Erin Michelle Cromer

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