Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Part 1: The View from Middle America -- 1. Marginality as the New Orthodoxy -- 2. My Teaching Story -- 3. Critical Thinking for Political Literacy -- Part 2: The Excesses of Postmodern Pluralism -- 4. What Ever Happened to Critical Thinking? -- 5. Degrees of Separation from Academic Discourse -- 6. Down with "Clear, Logical Prose"? Ceding Reason to Conservatives -- 7. Bartholomae and Petrosky's Depoliticized Ways of Reading -- 8. Acting Locally, Thinking Locally: The Shrinking of the Public Sphere -- 9. The Resistance to National Standards: Common Core State Standards as the Perfect Storm -- Part 3: Psychological and Sociological Perspectives: Agenda for a Revival -- 10. Why Does All This Still Matter? -- 11. Orality, Literacy, and Political Consciousness -- 12. Sociolinguistics, Political Socialization, and Mass Culture -- 13. Shifting Critical Perspectives on Language and Class -- Conclusion: Theorizing the Lower Middle Class, and Pedagogy of Those Who Support the Oppressor -- Epilogue: A Core Curriculum for Civic Literacy -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- Author Biography -- Praise for Political Literacy in Composition and Rhetoric -- Back Cover.