Feminist Online Writing Courses
Civic Rhetoric, Community Action, and Student Success

Letizia Guglielmo

Analysis: Community and Civic Action

From the beginning, I framed the course interactions under the umbrella of community within the the virtual classroom and acknowledged our ability to write to shape and to change this online community. I wanted students to understand that civic rhetoric becomes important to the online course because course success depends on the participation of all who are enrolled, and writing—the central focus of the course—is essential to fostering that success.

The course WebCT site included this introduction to Our Online Community:

Listen

Because a primary facet of this study involved feminist, decentered approaches to the design and delivery of the course, my goal was to enact this kind of teaching without specifically calling attention to it or specifically naming it feminist. Without discussing the term formally, in the first survey at the start of the semester, I asked respondents to define Decentered Teaching and to explain their level of comfort with this approach.

Six of the respondents indicated that they were not sure or did not understand the term, and seven associated it in some way with online learning specifically:

• “I have never heard the term before but by dissecting I would think it means a teaching institution that has no walls”
• “Well I think it is on-line [sic] teaching, the teacher never really interacts with the students physically. I do not have a problem with this as far as English [sic] classes go.”
• “To me, Decentered Teaching means that we do not interact face-to-face with our teachers but through messages and emails. So far, I'm pretty comfortable.”
• “Decentered teaching means another opportunity [sic] to learn what a student does not have time for at the college campus. I'm very comfortable with this style of teaching because it makes my life easier.”

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