Confronting Toxic Rhetoric : Writing Teachers? Experiences of Rupture, Resistance, and Resilience

Confronting Toxic Rhetoric contributes to the extant scholarship on toxic rhetoric, specifically the negative and extreme political discourse surrounding the Trump years of campaigning, rallying, tweeting, holding office, and the ongoing culture war in the US (Duffy, 2020). Toxic rhetoric challenged the foundational purposes of teaching writing and rhetoric, such as ethical argumentation and critical thinking. Teachers’ narratives, case studies, and reflections bring to light the ruptures, resistance, and resilience of teaching amid the extreme polarization of partisan politics, distrust of science, and increased hate speech, among other issues associated with toxic rhetoric.

Readers will learn from teachers who were challenged to cope with toxic rhetoric, using both rhetorical and extra-disciplinary lenses. Their experiences present a vulnerable yet resolved expression of coping, activism, and belief in the future of rhetoric and democracy.

"Toxic rhetoric is the proverbial fly in the soup of our political and public discourse, poisoning our politics, and by extension, our classrooms. Confronting Toxic Rhetoric takes up the arduous task of treating the contamination in our classrooms while encouraging us to advance the work of decontamination in our broader rhetorical ecosystems."

―Ryan Skinnell, Editor of Faking the News: What Rhetoric Can Teach Us About Donald J. Trump

Jamie White-Farnham is Professor in the Writing Program and Director of Teaching, Learning and Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Her research on feminist and material rhetorics, women’s health rhetorics, and antiracist rhetorics can be found in College English, Rhetoric Review, Computers & Compositions, among others. She is the co-editor of Writing Program Architecture and Women’s Health Advocacy: Rhetorical Ingenuity for the 21st Century and co-author of Patients Making Meaning: Theorizing Sources of Information and Forms of Support in Women’s Health (2023).

Cathryn Molloy is Professor of Writing Studies in the University of Delaware’s Department of English. She is co-editor of the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine journal as well as co-editor of the books Strategic Interventions in Mental Health Rhetoric, and Women’s Health Advocacy: Rhetorical Ingenuity for the 21st Century. She is the author of Rhetorical Ethos in Health and Medicine: Patient Credibility, Stigma, and Misdiagnosis (2020) and co-author of Patients Making Meaning: Theorizing Sources of Information and Forms of Support in Women’s Health (2023).

Bryna Siegel Finer is Professor of English and Director of Undergraduate Writing Programs at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is associate editor of the Rhetoric of Health & Medicine journal as well as co-editor of the Writing Spaces book series. Her research focuses primarily on women’s health rhetorics and writing program administration and has been published in Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, Rhetoric Review, Teaching English in the Two Year College, Journal of Writing Assessment, and elsewhere. She is the co-editor of Writing Program Architecture and Women’s Health Advocacy: Rhetorical Ingenuity for the 21st Century, and co-author of Patients Making Meaning: Theorizing Sources of Information and Forms of Support in Women’s Health.