Phyllis Mentzell Ryder is associate professor of writing at the George Washington University.

Rhetorics for Community Action is uniquely positioned in the untapped intellectual space between public-writing theory and service learning pedagogy. It is the only book I know of that offers such a cogent and detailed analysis of nonprofit community organizations—and their acts of public writing—as sites of rhetorical and ideological struggle. The many connections between community and classroom in this book are seamless and utterly essential. Rhetorics for Community Action keeps at its core a desire to make the many 'publics' in which Phyllis Mentzell Ryder and her students work better places. It is that clear but quiet sense of justice—along with its theoretical sharpness—that makes this book vital for anyone involved in public rhetoric, public writing or service learning. I think anyone contemplating a service-learning connection in a writing course should be required to read it.

• Chapter 1 DedicationChapter 2 AcknowledgmentsChapter 3 Table of ContentsChapter 4 List of FiguresChapter 5 Chapter 1: IntroductionChapter 6 Chapter 2: Publics Worth StudyingChapter 7 Chapter 3: Public Writing with Community OrganizationsChapter 8 Chapter 4: The Public of Traditional Media: Circulating Deliberative ConversationsChapter 9 Chapter 5: Counterpublics: Beyond Deliberative ConversationChapter 10 Chapter 6: Circulating Counterpublic RhetoricChapter 11 Chapter 7: Publics 2.0: Public Formation through Social NetworkingChapter 12 Chapter 8: Teaching Public Writing in Academic SettingsChapter 13 Appendix 1: Some Practical GuidelinesChapter 14 Appendix 2: Sample Writing AssignmentsChapter 15 Appendix 3: Sample Community Partner ProfilesChapter 16 References

Phyllis Mentzell Ryder is associate professor of writing at the George Washington University.

Rhetorics for Community Action is uniquely positioned in the untapped intellectual space between public-writing theory and service learning pedagogy. It is the only book I know of that offers such a cogent and detailed analysis of nonprofit community organizations—and their acts of public writing—as sites of rhetorical and ideological struggle. The many connections between community and classroom in this book are seamless and utterly essential. Rhetorics for Community Action keeps at its core a desire to make the many 'publics' in which Phyllis Mentzell Ryder and her students work better places. It is that clear but quiet sense of justice—along with its theoretical sharpness—that makes this book vital for anyone involved in public rhetoric, public writing or service learning. I think anyone contemplating a service-learning connection in a writing course should be required to read it.

• Chapter 1 DedicationChapter 2 AcknowledgmentsChapter 3 Table of ContentsChapter 4 List of FiguresChapter 5 Chapter 1: IntroductionChapter 6 Chapter 2: Publics Worth StudyingChapter 7 Chapter 3: Public Writing with Community OrganizationsChapter 8 Chapter 4: The Public of Traditional Media: Circulating Deliberative ConversationsChapter 9 Chapter 5: Counterpublics: Beyond Deliberative ConversationChapter 10 Chapter 6: Circulating Counterpublic RhetoricChapter 11 Chapter 7: Publics 2.0: Public Formation through Social NetworkingChapter 12 Chapter 8: Teaching Public Writing in Academic SettingsChapter 13 Appendix 1: Some Practical GuidelinesChapter 14 Appendix 2: Sample Writing AssignmentsChapter 15 Appendix 3: Sample Community Partner ProfilesChapter 16 References