(Re)Writing Local Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Histories: Negotiating Shared Meaning in Public Rhetoric Partnerships

This article describes a series of community-based research projects, (Re)Writing Local Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Histories, done in partnership with the local African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Jewish communities. The author argues that these projects are one substantive response to the ongoing, growing demand that English studies teacher-scholars and students participate in purposeful, impactful public work. These projects position students as rhetorical citizen historians who produce original historical and rhetorical knowledge and promote democracy through conscious, deliberate rhetorical historical work. But these partnerships also raise complex issues of unequal, fluid, and shifting discourses among community partners, students, and faculty and, consequently, inform ways to enact publicly shared meaning in community literacy partnerships.