Date of Award

August 2024

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

English

First Advisor

Maria Novotny

Committee Members

Rachel Bloom-Pojar, Derek Handley

Abstract

Sex education in Wisconsin, which the state refers to as Human Growth and Development (HGD) instruction, has long been a topic of great controversy amongst community members, school board members, parents, educators, and students. This Master’s project leans into this discomfort by exploring the public rhetoric that takes place over Wisconsin’s HGD curriculum as outlined under Wisconsin state Statute 118.019 in two school districts: Madison Metropolitan and Wauwatosa. This project uses archival school board meeting footage to analyze the embodied rhetoric of students while discussing their district’s HGD curriculum in school board meetings and analyzes students’ embodied rhetoric within the larger context of the rhetorical ecology (Edbauer) surrounding the HGD curriculum. In my analysis, I also draw on Reproductive Justice (SisterSong) critiques of choice-based rhetoric and highlight the ways in which Statute 118.019 embeds the concept of “choice”. I argue that students’ embodied rhetoric in school board meetings enacts Reproductive Justice critiques and reframes conversations around HGD curriculum from a focus on individual choices to broader and more sustainable understandings of community care.

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