User:Kennedysundberg/sandbox

The Bell Jar

Is everything neutral?
For the most part, I thought this article was neutral. It stated the hard facts of digital literacy, informing the reader on the topic. There were a few sentences that I thought seemed a little argumentative. Specifically, when it talked about teachers needing to be competent with digital literacy in order to teach students the art of it. While I agree with this point, it could be argued by others. There were a few other opinions scattered into the article. For example, in the opening paragraph, why did the author chose to include the specific website Medium? I think the author could have removed bias by not using this example. Under the section "21st Century Skills," the opening sentence could come across as bias. It states, "Digital literacy requires certain skill sets that are interdisciplinary in nature." To make this statement more neutral, the author could start off the statement with, "Scholars argue digital literacy..." and then cite some scholars who believe that. There are some other sentences in the article like "These tools and techniques are most effectively taught to students when the teacher is fully digitally literate as well" that would be strengthened by links to sources to keep them neutral. The author(s) did have neutral statements and overall I thought this was a neutral article with only a couple biased statements prevalent throughout.

Is everything in the article related to the topic?
I believe this question depends on how broad the topic of digital literacy should go. If the author were to just talk strictly on digital literacy, then he or she would have gone way off topic. However, I believe the topics of its applications and how it is used in pedagogy and social media strengthen the topic in a way that a paper encyclopedia wouldn't. I will say that the section on the digital divide distracted me from the definition of digital literacy. While this is an important topic and I agree with the matter, I don't know if it was necessary for the article. I found it to be a side tangent on the matter and also very biased. It was widely debated on the topic page as well and could honestly have its own section (which it does). I think that the digital divide and its following sections are so politically loaded it is difficult to write about it and remain neutral and on topic. I did like the ending point of Global Impact. I thought it was a nice way to finish the article, reminding the reader why we should care about digital literacy.

Underrepresented or Overrepresented viewpoints?
When I read this article, I noticed it seemed to be very in favor of digital literacy. It did not speak of too many downsides of digital literacy, other than creating the digital divide and the implications of that. An overrepresented viewpoint is one in favor of digital literacy (despite wikipedia's rule of neutrality). The article could have been organized differently to represent other viewpoints. I think it could have a "in favor of digital literacy section" and "not in favor" section, with neutral tone and a lot of sources to keep it unbiased. From that the author could have put things like the digital divide in the "not in favor" section and other underrepresented viewpoints. This would have dealt with representation of viewpoints, neutrality, and also keeping everything in the article related to the topic.

Check Citations
The first citation does not work actually, which is a bit comical because I feel that linked would be the most checked. There is also a section in the Talk page dedicated to broken links. This article is headed with the warning that some of the links do not follow Wikipedia's guidelines and additional citations require verification. This article, while at first glance seems to have a decent amount of sources, actually needs a lot of work on citations. Enough for it to deserve a warning at its header, which says a lot about the article. On a positive note though, there are a wide variety of sources both from internet sources and from books and scholarly articles.

Are facts backed up by reliable, neutral sources?
This evaluation plays into the checking citation section. As I stated earlier, if you read the article you can see there are multiple sources that back up claims and facts. However, there is a warning at the top of the page that advises the reader to watch out for citations that require verification and that some of the links do not follow Wikipedia's guidelines. While some of the facts are backed up by reliable sources, not all of them are. In terms of neutral sources, because Wikipedia actually put a warning out about the sources violating their terms, which are based off neutrality, I would say that the neutrality of the sources is in question.

Out of date information? Missing information?
A lot of the sources were from the last 10 years. Digital literacy is a young field so the information used is not out of date. According to the talk page, there is missing information and references were put in the talk page that could be added to the article. I think more sources could be added that give an unbiased take on digital literacy.

Check Talk Page
The talk page is fairly critical of this article, which is understandable given the warnings. Immediately people have a problem with the title and there is a really long discussion about the opening paragraph. They believe it is too long, redundant, too many links, and doesn't correctly identify digital literacy (that it is confused with information literacy). People offer revisions and some of them were accepted! My favorite comment on the talk page is under the title "English" and the entire comment says, "Are there any good sources out there, or are thay all written in educator-speak?" by user -Wtshymanski. It gave me a laugh because I think I understand what the user is saying but it comes across as comical. People agree the article is disorganized and lack credible sources. There is also some editing errors people note and the talk page is filled with revisions that people have suggested. The talk page is filled with a lot of important revisions that should be used to clean up the article.

Rating? Part of the WikiProjects?
The article is apart of four WikiProjects. It is in the Education and Computation WikiProjects as well as the Linguistic/Applied Linguistic Wikiproject and Internet Wikiproject. In three out of the four it is given a C in rating and it does not have a rating in the Internet Wikiproject.

How is the meaning of digital literacy different than how we discussed it in class?
This article's definition of digital literacy is different than the discussion we have in class because it is very stagnant. Wikipedia limits the authors in a way that requires them to be unbiased and give straight definitions. In class we have vivid discussions on digital literacy, allowing us to ponder the implications, requirements, and other important aspects of digital literacy. However we bring our biases into these discussions, which is not necessarily a bad thing. This article though can only share an unbiased definition of digital literacy (or attempt and fail to do so). Another thing I noticed about this article was that it talked about digital literacy in a social media sense. In class we have focused mostly on the pedagogical implications of digital literacy so to read about digital literacy being used for social media skills was a different viewpoint. I do not think this is a bad article by any means, but writing is all about the process rather than the product and this article in particular needs a lot of different viewpoints to help it reach its full potential.

= Adding to an Article =

Mental Health as a Theme in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Esther Greenwood, the main character in The Bell Jar, describes her life as being suffocated by a bell jar. Analysis of the phrase "bell jar" shows it represents "Esther's mental suffocation by the unavoidable settling of depression upon her psyche." Throughout the novel, Esther talks of this bell jar suffocating her and recognizes moments of clarity when the bell jar is lifted. These moments correlate to her mental state and the effect of her depression. Scholars argue about the nature of Esther's "bell jar" and what it can stand for. Some say it is a retaliation against suburban lifestyle, others believe it represents the standards set for a woman's life. However, when considering the nature of Sylvia Plath's own life and death and the parallels between The Bell Jar and her life, it is hard to ignore the theme of mental illness.

Psychiatrist Aaron Beck studied Esther’s mental illness and notes two causes of depression evident in her life. The first is formed from early traumatic experiences, her father's death when she was 9 years old. It is evident how affected she is by this loss when she wonders, "I thought how strange it had never occurred to me before that I was only purely happy until I was nine years old." The second cause of her depression is from her perfectionist ideologies. Esther is a woman of many achievements- college, internships, and perfect grades. It is this success that puts the unattainable goals into her head and when she doesn't achieve them her mental health suffers. Esther laments, "The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it." It is these two aspects of Esther's depression that make it difficult to ignore the theme of mental health in The Bell Jar.

Esther Greenwood has an obvious mental break- that being her suicide attempt which dictates the later half of the novel. However, Esther’s entire life shows warning signs that cause this depressive downfall. The novel begins with her negative thoughts surrounding all her past and current life decisions. It is this mindset mixed with the childhood trauma and perfectionist attitude that causes her descent that leads her to attempt suicide. It is this detailed account given by Plath though Esther that makes the theme of mental health resonate with readers of The Bell Jar.

An important thing to note is the implications of mental health in The Bell Jar. This novel gives an account of the treatment of mental health in the 50s. Plath speaks through Esther’s narrative to describe her experience of her mental health treatment, or lack thereof, and the implications of that. The Bell Jar acted as a warning sign for the improvement of mental health treatment, especially for women. Just as this novel gives way to feminist discourse and challenges the way of life for women in the 50s, it also gives a case study of a woman struggling with mental health and how recognizing that is just as important as the treatment.

= Feminist Rhetoric = Feminist rhetoric is the study of recognizing and representing women’s voices in the history, present, and future of rhetoric and writing studies-- focusing on expanding the rhetorical canon outside of the elite, white male narrative and including the discourse of marginalized groups. Itf is a fairly new study that works to bring the narrative of all demographics of women into the pedagogy of rhetoric. Feminist rhetoric emerged in the 1980s with three main goals to bring women and their stories into the history of rhetoric, combine issues of feminism and rhetoric, and to bring feminist perspectives into rhetorical criticism. These goals have been continued by scholars with publications of numerous amounts of research and the formation of the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition. One of the main ideas of feminist rhetoric is to change research methods to widen the scope of what is considered legitimate work, worthy of being archived and included in the rhetorical canon.

Feminist rhetoric works to expand the narrative of rhetoric on a more global aspect outside of the United States. Another main idea is to recognize varying levels of privilege, such as gender, race, and status, and how that affects the ability for different narratives to be heard. Feminist rhetoric also faces challenges, like most fields of study-- these include expanding the feminist rhetorical canon outside the white female narrative. Applications of feminist rhetoric give way to approaching epistemology from a feminist rhetorical viewpoint, and how applying these ideas gives way to accepting marginalized groups in the narrative. The implications of feminist rhetoric have influenced the pedagogy of writing studies in the 30 years it has been around and continues to impact the field of rhetoric and writing studies.

History
Feminist rhetoric emerged from the notion that rhetoric, and literacy in general, was dominated by the elite, white males of the world. Looking at the canon of rhetoric, it is composed of white males such as Bacon, Aristotle, Erasmus, etc. Historically there are very few women involved in the discourse of rhetoric. This is why feminist rhetoric emerged. Starting in the 1980s, feminist rhetoric scholars recognized the world of rhetoric was overthrown with patriarchal values. Scholars began making three moves to write feminist rhetoric into history. First, they started to bring women and their stories into the history of rhetoric itself. Second, scholars wove together feminist issues and theories of rhetoric. Third, feminist rhetoricians wrote feminist perspectives into rhetorical criticism. When this change came about, scholars got their inspiration from feminist scholarship outside of writing studies but eventually began writing scholarship from the site of rhetoric and composition. Meaning that feminist rhetoric became its own study, rather than taking feminist writings and adding them to the field of rhetoric.

Following the initial movement of feminist rhetoric, the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition was formed in 1988. This is a coalition that “fosters inquiry in the histories, theories, and pedagogies of rhetoric and composition.” It is composed of teachers and scholars dedicated to promoting the intersectionality of communication and collaboration within feminist rhetoric and research methods. Ultimately it combines rhetoric and feminist studies. It was started by scholars such as Winifred Horner, Jan Swearingen, Nan Johnson, Marjone Curry Woods, and Kathleen Welch. It has been continued Andrea Lunsford, Jackie Royster, Cheryl Glenn, Shirley Logan, and other contemporary feminist writing scholars. 1996 brought the publication of Peitho, the coalition’s newspaper, published by Susan Jarratt. The past three decades, scholars have been working to add to the canon of rhetoric and writing studies. In present day feminist rhetoric, a point of emphasis has been changing research methods and methodologies, especially to include the discourse of marginalized groups.

Creating New Approaches to Research Methods and Methodologies
A big push in feminist rhetoric has been opening up the ideas involved in changing the way research is recognized and constructed. Specifically, women scholars have been fighting to share participants’ voices because they know what it is like to be ignored in academia. Scholars in rhetoric studies have agreed there is a plethora of voices and demographics to draw upon for data necessary for research in the field. It begins with asking questions that have never been asked before, recognizing the wealth of materials, and lack thereof, in archives, and expanding the idea of an archive. In recent years, archives have been deconstructed outside of scholarly articles. Feminist rhetoric strives to develop research methods and methodologies by including  new types of archival research such as- yearbooks, small town newspapers, and community contributing archival websites. Rhetoric and composition pride themselves on being inclusive to all and feminist rhetoric strives to push this notion by including marginalized discourse via new research methods

Allowing for a More Global Narrative
Another main idea in feminist rhetoric is making the point of view more expansive than what lies within the the United States domain of discourse. This is a new area of feminist rhetoric work but already scholars have made strides in international contexts. They ask the question how rhetoric, writing studies, and social change intersects with politics, the economy, religions, cultures, and education. A key term in globalizing the point of view in rhetoric is transnationality. This is defined as the culture of one nation moving through borders to another nation. It is used with the terms cultural hybridity and intertextuality. This idea resonates with intersectionality because feminist rhetoric strives to globalize the point of view beyond the elite, white male dominated canon.

Gender
While this idea may seem to be an obvious issue in a study involved with feminism, the idea of gender has expanded greatly even in the past couple years. Feminist rhetoric works to represent the voices and discourse of genders that go beyond the binary of male and female. Transgender discourse permeates into feminist rhetoric due to the main goals of feminism. Scholars talk about how we must recognize how different genders communicate with each other and how that affects rhetoric.

Race and Ethnicity
Race and ethnicity is an element that has been focused on by several scholars in feminist rhetoric. They have changed research methods to include international races and ethnicities outside the typical rhetoric canon. Feminist rhetoric focuses on how archiving cultural rhetors, such as Chicana women, can create a better understanding of the pedagogy of research methods. An issue that has arisen in feminist rhetoric is the discourse of colored women. Specifically, women of color feel that they have to mask their identity when sharing their voices and opinions because feminism is occasionally only relevant to white women. Feminist rhetoric, recognizing this privilege, works to legitimize the ethnic discourse of women and give it a platform in the academia of rhetoric and writing studies.

Status
Feminist rhetoricians understand status as a combination of all the identities of a person’s life that could either raise her privilege or lower it. This could be race, gender, class, or even geographical location. A goal of feminist rhetoric is to include the literacy of people, specifically women, of all status.

Challenges
One problem that feminist rhetoric, like all rhetoric, runs in to is including all discourses in rhetoric. This means including the narratives of people beyond white men and women. Scholars point out the need of including the voices of the disabled, trans, and queer people in rhetoric. Women of color also feel they have to mask their voice because feminist rhetoric historically has only included white women. However there has been a push to include all voices in rhetoric. What is the best way to do this? It starts with changing research methods, which is discussed earlier in the article. In the past, research has been done solely on white people but expanding the narrative to include people of all discourses would not only further feminist rhetoric but make it valid as well.

Another way to include all voices in feminist rhetoric is to create a feminist rhetorical canon. This is something that has been in the works ever since the idea of feminist rhetoric was created. Scholars have created a startup effect and have been adding to the canon as years past. An important part of the canon is making sure to include the voices of all people. The canon has two goals. One to include the works of previously ignored or unknown feminist rhetors. The second goal is to develop a gendered analysis or approach that includes rhetors who are traditionally excluded from rhetorical canons. When building the canon, scholars run into the challenge of making sure they do not give privilege to one demographic over the other. Some feminist rhetors even argue against the idea of a feminist rhetorical canon in order to avoid this problem.

Some names and works in the feminist rhetorical canon include, but are not limited to:


 * 1) Cheryl Glenn, Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity through the Renaissance.
 * 2) Susan C. Jarratt, Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured
 * 3) Katherine H. Adams, Progressive Politics and the Training of American Persuaders
 * 4) Shirley Wilson Logan, Liberating Languages: Sites of Rhetorical Education in Nineteenth Century Black America
 * 5) Sandra Adickes, The Legacy of a Freedom School
 * 6) Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Man Cannot Speak for Her
 * 7) Jessica Enoch, Refiguring Rhetorical Education: Women Teaching African American, Native American, and Chicano/a Students, 1865-1911
 * 8) Jacqueline Jones Royster, Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change among African American Women
 * 9) Kristine Blair and Pamela Takayoshi, Feminist Cyberspaces: Mapping Gendered Academic Cyberspaces
 * 10) Kathleen Welch, The Contemporary Reception of Classical Rhetoric: Appropriations of Ancient Discourse and Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy

Applications
Rhetors, along with expanding the feminist rhetorical canon, have to work on making feminist rhetoric applicable as well. Scholars talk a lot about the importance of research, whether that be changing research methods or looking further into textual research. Some suggest theorizing, others want to employ critical imagination. Theory as a research method approaches discourse from different communities as a generalized idea that allows people to participate in the world. Theory in this sense empowers people to speak out and be included in the rhetorical canon. Critical imagination is using the silence, or lack of work from feminist rhetors, to extrapolate. It involves understanding that there is more to not only feminist rhetoric, but feminist practice in theory, than what is written down in textbooks or history. Scholars, such as Royster and Kirsch, acknowledge that feminist rhetoric needs to draw from the silence to help set a new precedent for rhetorical practices in the future. A part of critical imagination is knowing that the documentation of rhetoric thus far isn’t the only important rhetoric that should contribute to pedagogy. There is a lot of work by marginalized groups that needs to be archived and contributed to rhetoric in general, which is a main application in feminist rhetorical practices.

Implications
Feminist rhetoric has impacted several aspects of the academia world. A goal of feminist rhetoric is to be viewed as a rhetorical theory of writing as opposed to a social theory. While there has already been a significant impact on the rhetorical canon from feminist writings, there is always room for growth. Ultimately feminist rhetoric seeks to add to the pedagogy of writing. Scholars hope to use their ever-changing research methods and methodologies to intersect with pedagogical methods. If feminist rhetoric can contribute to writing studies and its pedagogy in high school and other levels of academia, the implications of it will continue to grow. As of right now, rhetoric and writing studies is based off the ideas of elite, white males. Including feminist rhetoric in epistemology opens up the field to marginalized groups. This allows the discourse and pedagogy in rhetoric to become inclusive to all.