What inspired Un-Rapunzeling?
Tara: It was that I have very close friends and family members that have learning disabilities and I've seen them struggle firsthand with just regular comprehension access to one version of things wasn't cutting it for them so I know that through this project someone who has those issues might be able to understand what we're trying to present better because we're presenting it in so many different forms.
Paul: It's just feelings of shame that I still feel when I don't get uh text or understand it um based on you know the academic arguments uh and the ways that it's written you know a lot of the references that are being made have these connotations and these underlying meanings and what people are saying it always you know felt like you know there's a problem with me uh for not getting it and i think a lot of times the problem is also uh on the author on you know larger gatekeepers like rhet/comp journals uh in helping authors and the reader understand things by presenting them different ways it was just you know that idea again related to shame that after grad school I would have a better grasp on understanding things in our field.
What’s the biggest takeaway?
Paul: The biggest takeaway for un-Rapunzeling probably has to do with just reinforcing the idea of different access types another big takeaway of un-Rapunzeling is the anti-privilege undercurrent you know get rid of that that privilege status of a certain type of text and the text right just has to be one, one way.
Tara: The difference between equality and equity. The easiest way to understand it is through the visual aid that we have in the infographic um it totally makes sense when it's written out on paper but with the visual something for me especially kind of just clicked like it just made sense.
What would ya like to change?
Tara: I think rhetorical equity pokes holes in what we already have and shows where there's room for improvement in terms of anti-classism, anti-racism anti-ableism, all of these other things. I think that there's definitely room to move forward.
Paul: I'm not sure about you Tara but if I could change one thing about this text it would be to emphasize more the anti-privilege anti-racist anti-classes anti-sexist sort of anti-social class prejudice. Rhetorical equity really emphasizes another change that I want to make would have it you know be more to have more types of rhetorical equity. Now I know that you know you can't do it all right it would be you know impossible to design like you know hundreds of texts necessarily you know for something like this. But you know I wish I wish I could have done more uh besides you know the infographic this video and um and the rap tale.
What’s the future for rhetorical equity?
Paul: : I'm not sure what other things we could have done um but just you know adding to them collaboration uh with people of various you know knowledges and skills uh backgrounds and design and rhetoric uh and modes of different forms of communication I think they're gonna come together and you'll have you know some people acting more like you know directors or uh conductors uh bringing together uh these you know various people to create rhetorically equitable uh projects you know networks where you know sort of like a LinkedIn kind of thing for rhet/comp uh writers and rhet/comp scholars where you can you know kind of plug in what you're good at and what you can do with regards to design linguistic multimodal communication and then try to find other people uh that have may be varied uh more varied sorts of you know disciplinary expertises and come together but I think the future holds like looking at equity from you know different angles perhaps like how can you make equity rhetorical equity work with authors.
Tara: I think one of the things I would like to see done within academia and all of these journals is more of a systematic norm than just the outlier or papers that are about equity being the only ones enforcing it or paving the way for it. I think if other keepers that are not on this subject start doing it other people will follow the lead and I also think that in academia there's just there's so much creativity that people have and they don't necessarily always utilize it to the best of their ability because they're trying to fit this standard.
What are you bingeing?
Tara: Yeah, I've actually just been finishing up the TV show Smallville it's on Hulu right now and it's ten seasons I've been watching it for almost six months now so I'm finally ready to be done with 10 seasons and see Clark Kent finally become Superman. I watch Community a lot when I’m not having a great day it always just finds a way to pick me up um I always try to be watching at least one form of Scooby-doo. Currently I'm re-watching uh Mystery Incorporated. It's the best one in my opinion.
Paul: I used to binge Broadchurch and The Crown caught up on all those. But I will not be watching anything like that for a while because this guy right here has learned to appreciate screens and tv and he laughs and he cries at what's happening to the characters. Uh. It’s really cool but what we've done now is we're starting to binge PBS and uh the main show is Molly of Denali. I'm pretty nostalgic for it as you can see I'm from Alaska. I guess you can't see it but I'm wearing some representation uh and I love watching the show just because of nostalgia you know it shows me a lot of the scenery and some of the things that I experienced when i was going to Alaska. Also I really like uh how the story is taught from the point of view of Molly who's an Alaska Native and it's really cool that you know this voice and this presentation of Alaska that usually isn't heard is being presented.