Reading Response 18

Summary:

In the article "Autism and Rhetoric" by Paul Heilker and Melanie Yergeau, they attempt to explain that autism is a rhetoric. They say that it is "a way of being in the world through language, a rhetoric we may not have encountered or recognized frequently in the past nor value highly in academic contexts, but a rhetoric, nonetheless. They also talk about rhetorical listening and silence and how it is a practice of changing how we hear something so we can respond correctly to other people's discourse communities.

Synthesis:

This article can relate to Malinowitz's article because in Malinowitz's article he talks about how people respond to the discourse community of the gay, lesbian, and bisexuals. This is the same as Heilker and Yergeau's article because they talk about the same things but just in the context of the Autism discourse community.

Opinion:

I liked this article because it talked about how people define what autism is and how people should talk about it and listen to it. I thought that it brought up some interesting points when it talked about rhetorical listening. I also liked how it used real life stories to make the article easier to understand and relatable.