By Susan Wells

 We have a desire and urge to turn toward the public  But there is difficulty in identifying exactly what, where or who this public is  “Local civic spaces” as we currently imagine them are imaginary leftovers from our understanding of the Greek agora  Which is why composition frequently overlooks public writing – we recognize a need, but we don’t know how to fill it.

 Public sphere: “discursive domain where private individuals, without the authority of state office, debate the general conduct of social and political business, holding official bodies accountable at the bar of reason”  Public discourse is “a complex array of discursive practices, including forms of writing, speech, and media performance, historically situated and contested.”

 “Public” topics are frequently targeted to addressed audiences, which effectively means no audience.  Likewise, no audience and writing in a vacuum means there is little concern for exigence  Wells argues that we must construct public audiences, in part because our public sphere is “attenuated, fragmented, and colonized”

 It is difficult! Even Clinton struggled to construct a public audience in his health care speeches in the ‘90s.  A “representative citizen” is a common trope for including the public in a debate like the one over health care. How do we see this happening now?  “Representative citizen” tropes work on a few different levels: Citizens see/hear themselves in official debate Prevent the “silent majority” problem Serve as persuasive examples for identification and illustration Define limits/terms of discourse (politeness, etc.) Frames public discourse as inclusive

 Wells shows that Clinton’s attempts to construct a cohesive public audience for health care reform didn’t work, much like composition classes’ attempts to construct public audiences don’t work either. Wells examines some possible alternatives:  Cultural studies: student writers “explore their situatedness as writers and the politics of literacy” Doesn’t work because it doesn’t actually attend to a public audience or how a writer can attend to that audience “Cultural studies has made invaluable contributions to political pedagogy, but it does not answer the question of how students can speak in their own skins to a broad audience, with some hope of effectiveness.”

 Prison visiting room: “allows communication between inside and out. It represents the prisoner’s participation in both worlds. [It’s] not a free space, let alone a safe house, but a space in which boundaries are put in play for both prisoner and guest”  Doesn’t work because public writing isn’t face- to-face, and writing doesn’t always abide by the same rules that conversation or verbal discussion do

 No more solitary writer alone in his room  Collaboration between writers and readers to “coordinate plans, to come to agreement, to ‘make up the concert’”  One requirement: an “agreement to undertake reciprocal action, based on shared problems and possible solutions”  No longer about making discussion easier but about valuing the difficulty of discussion and finding ways of moving from discussion to action

ReadersActionTexts  Treat classroom as a public space  Analyze public discourse  Write for public spaces  Look for ways that students’ disciplines intervene in the public arena