Fernanda Williams ENC 3331 05/28/2012

Rhetorical Citizenship Experiences It is fitting that I will have to use writing, which is one form of rhetoric, to try to describe all the meanings of this broad word. Rhetoric is the art of communication, and I can only summarize what the word means as it carries so much significance. In the widest sense of the word, rhetoric can be how we choose to communicate, by spoken words, written words, gestures, looks, drawings or anything else that will convey a message. The better your rhetorical skills are, the more clearly you are able to pass your message to others, persuade or inform somebody. As the great Roman orator Cicero said, rhetoric helps us to resolve issues in many departments, from political and religious issues to any other social issue that may arise (Crowley and Hawhee 1). We use rhetoric for everything in our daily lives, and we employ rhetoric not only when we are the orators but also when we are the listeners. In order for us to carry on a conversation and digest what the other person is saying, or even gather arguments to refute a speech, we must listen carefully. We must try to process the information that is being passed to us with an open mind, and without any reservations, so the conversation can be fluid and everybody can get their point across, even if at the end we decide to agree to disagree. The other terms to discuss are being a citizen and being civically engaged. Despite what many people think, being a citizen involves much more than achieving a legal status. Legal citizens have rights and duties, but being able to say that you are

civically engaged, and that you do represent a citizen in every meaning that the word carries, takes much more work than just saying you belong somewhere. Being a citizen starts with small actions that could include treating our country, neighborhood and public spaces as we would our own home, keeping the streets clean, not damaging public property, volunteering our time, and being open to listen to others and provide instruction when necessary. Acting as a citizen is being aware of our surroundings, and to what is happening in our community and in our country as a whole. It is actively participating in improving society by teaching ethics and moral values to others through our actions, and is helping others to succeed so together we can build a better future. (Wan) Now looking at how the words rhetoric and citizenship fit together is the most interesting part. In order for you to be a citizen you must be an active participant in life events, instead of being a passive person that doesnt respond to the issues that happen around you. And in order for you to participate, you must express yourself in some kind of way and that is when we find that rhetoric allows us to express ourselves and help us resolve the issues that we may encounter along the way. For example if we disagree with a bill that is being voted on, and we would like to try to bring awareness to this issue, we need to be able to find a way to let people know about it. Whether we do it by spreading the word online, protesting on the streets, distributing flyers, using our social media networks, writing a letter to our officials, or a letter to a newspaper to try to publish our concern, or just talking to our friends about it, all of those methods will require us to use some form of rhetoric, and since we are using it to achieve something in our society, that becomes a form of rhetorical citizenship. Moving on to recognizing the people or institutions that shaped my life in many ways, and especially helped me to develop my sense of rhetorical citizenship, I would

like to select two very important influences in my life: my mother as a part of my family, and my catholic high school as part of my general education. Our parents are usually our first link to the world; they are the ones that teach us our manners and how to differentiate right from wrong. In my case my mother was the one that educated me as a citizen since I lived with her after my parents got divorced. I think the best-summarized idea of a rhetorical citizen is to be a person who uses words, actions and every possible mean to be an active participant in their community, and be a model for others, and that is what my mother was for me. We all admire our mothers and it seems very clich to choose your mother as a sponsor, but mine has truly influenced the development of my personality, my character, my morals and my sense of ethics more than any other person has. To start out I come from a family where politics runs in our blood. My grandfather Zizinho was the mayor of Guidoval, which is the city my mom was born in, and after he passed away my uncle tried to follow his footsteps as well. Guidoval is a very small city, so being a mayor there meant to really get involved in the community and be a hands-on mayor. We are allowed to start voting in Brazil when we turn sixteen, so ever since I turned that age I have helped my family to promote my uncles campaigns in Guidoval. We would go to the rural areas and try to uncover peoples needs, and listen to what people had to say so we could help my uncle to figure out what he intended to do if he was elected. My mother was the one that insisted I register to vote as soon as I turned sixteen. She explained that the only way we can achieve change is by expressing our opinion and that voting was the best form of doing that. I have exercised my right to vote from

the moment I was allowed to, and having pre-election debates with friends, and trying to express our points of views has always been a great way to act as a rhetorical citizen. My mother passed all she learned from her father onto me and she has always taught me to stand up not only for myself, but for any cause I found fit. She also taught me how to use rhetoric to comfort people, excite them, and in a more literal sense, she inspired me to actually use rhetoric to exercise my citizenship as she showed me very early in life the importance of volunteering. She was a partner at a local facility called Casa de Apoio that housed ill people in my neighborhood from the time I was eight years old, until I was about seventeen and the house closed its doors. My mom spent a lot of her time at Casa de Apoio and every time she could, she would take me with her. I grew up around that house and as I got older I got more and more involved in assisting the people there. We helped them by driving to hospitals, cooking, but most importantly we helped them with our words, and those are still some of my most treasured memories to date. Keeping peoples spirits up when they're down can be crucial in helping them heal, and that is the rawest form of rhetorical citizenship that I can remember experiencing. If it wasnt for my mother and her incentives I dont know if I would have had these experiences and became so involved in volunteering as I did. The next sponsor in my life is not a person, but an institution. I studied at Colegio Arnaldo that is a catholic school in Brazil, from the time I started pre-school, at 5 years old, to when I graduated high school at 17. Being a catholic school we had religion classes, and in those classes we were always participating in catholic campaigns such as the fraternity campaign that happens every year and some other seasonal programs.

We would be lectured in class about what the issue was, and the teacher would open discussions to prompt us to come up with ideas for how to help; once the idea was chosen we would propose a plan to execute it. That taught me how to present my thoughts in a more clean and linear form, and how to persuade people to agree with my ideas as well. We needed to use rhetoric to come up with a plan and also used it to execute the plan. In one of the campaigns that we called the Food Olympic Challenge we divided the classes in groups, and the group that collected the most food for donation at the end of one month would win the expert trophy. In my group we decided that we would take turns going from house to house to ask for donations. We sold raffle tickets to gather money to buy food, and we affixed letters that we made in key points around the neighborhood that directed people to a donation drop box in case we hadnt reach them yet. We used rhetoric for a greater good and helped to improve our community as we gathered a huge amount of food and personal hygiene supplies to distribute amongst the poor. That was just one of the examples of events that were available to us in my high school, and it was through participating in those events and helping to create them that I got most of the formal training that improved my rhetoric and my citizenship all at once. Being a rhetorical citizen is participating actively in something that strives to achieve a greater good for society in some form. I believe my school and my mother not only gave me the tools to do that, but also taught me how to use those tools that shaped me into being a better citizen.

Works Cited Crowley, Sharon and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 4th ed. New York: Pearson, 2009. Herrick, James A. The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction. 4th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2009. Wan, Amy J. In the Name of Citizenship: The Writing Classroom and the Promise of Citizenship. College English 74.1 (2011): 28-49