Poster #3 - Military Heroes, Missionaries, and Performers: A Rhetorical Analysis of Urban Teachers in Media

• In Event: 25.087 - MTCC Poster Session Four
  In Poster Session: 25.087-2 - Teachers' Lives and Lived Experiences Poster Session

Abstract

Within the past thirty years, teachers have been increasingly “under fire” via bureaucratic policies and popular opinion. With the growing availability of digital information, popular texts (widely accepted school policies, popular news articles, videos, and the like) have had a strong influence on the construction of social rhetoric depicting urban schools and urban teachers. As such, urban teachers have been characterized in a variety of ways, creating mismatches between the definitions of and expectations for urban educators. Using rhetorical analysis, this paper works to recognize where certain characterizations of teachers (and teaching) has been adopted—empowering teachers to choose to the rhetoric they use, while bringing awareness to the public about who teachers really are and what they really do.

Author

• Kobi K. Nelson, University of Colorado - Denver