Healthy Change or Decline: You Decide

For this post I've considered "Forum: Is There a Decline in literacy?" as sustainable public discourse according to its form (Winterowd, "Dispositio")
This article is a debate on whether literacy has declined. J.T. Ledbetter takes the view that literacy has declined while Harvey Daniels argues that "Breast beating expostulations about the imminent collapse of our Mother Tongue are as common a part of world history as are wars, and almost as regular" (pg 17)
This debate is organized as classical oration but without reprehensio. That is,the structure of the debate is exordium, narratio, confirmatio and peroratio.
Ledbetter argues that literacy has declined and blames the educational system. He relates that "I've had teachers tell me they could do a good job with just about any reading program if only they would be left alone with the program for a few years..." (pg 16) Ledbetter also notes a decline in familiarity with literature. Rather than being exposed to good literature students have "instead been bombarded with insipid, inane educational expertise designed to chart and define rather than stimulate and ennoble" (pg18).
Daniels, on the other hand, finds justification to take the current literary crisis lightly. He concentrates on a historical approach and shows a recurring pattern of concern for literacy. "But our response to the contemporary language crisis should be based on the understanding that what some people like to call degeneration is almost certainly change, a process which is an inevitable and healthy element of any living language" (pg 20)
The debate as a whole functions as sustainable public discourse in that rather than settling the issue it brings it into a public sphere to provoke thought and further the debate. This was published in The English Journal and so one would expect the readers to have their own opinions and respond. In that respect the article seeks to polarize its audience.

Works cited

Ledbetter, J.T., and Harvey (Smokey) Daniels. "Forum: Is There a Decline in Literacy?" The English Journal 65.5 (Sep1976): 16-20

Winterowd, W. Ross. "Dispositio: The Concept of Form in Discourse." College Composition and Communication 22.1 (Feb 1971): 39-45

An issue I would like to persue in my historical-causal analysis is that while cell phones and social networking have made it possible to communicate instantly and constantly with our "friends", it has also contributed to the decline in the quality of personal interactions. The new technology intrudes itself on face to face interactions and has spawned a new etiquette.
In considering genre selection, the classical oration pattern comes to mind as possibly effective in exploring this issue. To be maximally effective the genre needs to be persuasive that a new etiquette does in fact exist among the younger generation. Furthermore, that younger generation is the people to be to be convinced.