This document discusses using online social media platforms like Facebook to foster community literacy practices and local public discourse as outlined by scholars Long, Flower, Jenkins, Rheingold, and Dean. It poses questions about whether online spaces can empower ordinary citizens and help realize pedagogical practices like those Long describes. It also considers tensions between Warner's notions of publics and counterpublics and Long's view of local publics, and implications of involving students in service-learning and civic engagement courses.

1. Long, Flower, Community
Literacy, and . . . Facebook?
Leigh Gruwell and Morgan Leckie
February 24, 2011
ENG760

2. ✤ “how [do] ordinary people find ‘visibility, voice, and impact against
the powerful interests that seek to deny visibility, voice, and
impact?” (Long 171)

3. Let’s Play!
- Use one of Long’s guiding metaphors, which position local publics as:
- an impromptu street theater
- a cultural womb/garden
- a link/a gate along a fenceline
- a community-organizing effort/
community think tank
- a shadow system
- Read the following
Facebook discussion
through your metaphor,
while using Long’s heuristic
(at right).

4. Groups...how well do we know you?
✤ Example: Impromptu street theater
✤ Leigh/Morgan: shadow system
✤ Andy/Channon: link/gate
✤ Amir/Kevis: womb/garden
✤ Lance/Mandy: think tank
How can we consider online social networking communities-- and perhaps online
communication at large-- as a “space for ordinary people to go public”? Does it “strive to
communicate ‘accentuate’...the agency, capacity and ability of ordinary people”(4)?

14. - In a community like ours, how can we realize some of the pedagogical
practices Long lists in Chapter 9 using online communication?
- Is it useful to think about the ideas of Jenkins, Rheingold, Dean, and others
alongside theories of community literacy practices and local publics?

15. Let’s Talk!
✤ Is there any tension between Warner’s notion of publics and counterpublics and Long’s
characterization of local publics? Do you think she appropriates Warner’s work fairly?
(Long 72, 73, 66, 142, 146, 191, 199)
✤ Flower urges compositionists not to imagine their public as national, but to reach out to
local communities. How does this change our conceptions of the public intellectual?
✤ What are the ethical implications of involving students in service-learning courses?
How might you deal with student resistance to engaging in explicitly political
processes? Is it a good idea to expect civic engagement in a required course like first
year composition, or should it be saved for upper-level courses? For example the title of
ENG 111 is College Composition, not Community Composition. Can we teach both
academic writing and community writing at the same time?