ERIC Number: EJ965583
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 32
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1555-9734
EISSN: N/A
Composing Citizens: Epistemic Work in the Interstices of Comprehensive-Planning Genres
Dryer, Dylan
Community Literacy Journal, v5 n1 p25-56 2010
As cities like "Portstown" comply with statutory mandates to involve citizens in the drafting of their comprehensive plans, community-literacy workers should pay careful attention to the reading and writing opportunities that emerge. This case-study examines how Portstown planners surveyed citizens' experience of their city and illustrates how citizens translated and resisted the assumptions that infused the survey. I argue that in our efforts to understand the coercive properties of institutional documents, we must not efface the epistemic qualities of the work of composition. Recognizing these qualities, I conclude, means seeing more opportunities to intervene strategically in the development and reception of "public" writing opportunities. (Contains 6 endnotes and 9 figures.)
Descriptors: Case Studies, Writing (Composition), Literacy, Urban Population, Community Surveys, Citizen Participation, Urban Planning, Neoliberalism, Discourse Analysis
Community Literacy Journal. Department of Writing, Rhetoric, & Discourse, DePaul University, 802 West Belden Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614. Tel: 906-370-0206; Web site: http://communityliteracy.org/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A