As usual, I have been thinking alot about my responsibility as a writing instructor. This semester I have had the opportunity to teach a first year writing course directed at students who fall into a certain set of criteria. Perhaps they did not do well in high school English courses, they may have had a low score on their SATs, or an overall low GPA. So they are enrolled in a composition course that also has a studio component. Our class meets Tuesday and Thursday for the regular hour and a half; in addition, we meet on Mondays in a studio session, with one half of the class meeting from 8-9:15, and the second half meeting from 9:30-10:45. To teach writing in a class of 12 offers a unique opportunity to workshop and have meaningful discussions on student writing. And that is the content of my course - student writing - argument, audience, style, grammar.
But there are many of my colleagues who feel strongly that we are also teaching citizenship or social awareness. I agree to the extent that writing works within a social context as much as teaching at a public university works within a social context. In addition, students who are ELL or NSE speakers must learn this social context as well as learning usage. Do these specific students need to learn to be good citizens? Is FYC the place to learn good citizenry? Or even the place which instills social awareness? Do we discuss social constructs or not?
I remember a Stanley Fish lecture I attended where he was arguing against politics in the classroom. He felt that too many personal politics in the classroom as a result of teachers wanting to save the world by encouraging social awareness/change. I asked him how a writing teacher can avoid talking about politics when using Anzaldua as the text. He replied, "What is Anzaldua doing in a writing classroom?" His mantra was "Do your job. Don't do anyone else's job. Don't let anyone else do your job." In his October 22, 2006, NYT's blog, Fish elaborates: "I am trained and paid to do two things (although, needless to say, I don’t always succeed in my attempts to do them): 1) to introduce students to materials they didn’t know a whole lot about, and 2) to equip them with the skills that will enable them, first, to analyze and evaluate those materials and, second, to perform independent research, should they choose to do so, after the semester is over. That’s it. That’s the job."
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/tip-to-professors-just-do-your-job/
Now, I agree that part of our job is to NOT participate in the perpetration of hegemonic discourse and the proliferation of English as a global dominant language. But when students want to learn to write academic discourse, what is our responsibility? Do we say, I will teach you, but know that this may influence your perception of the value of your native language in some way? I think the answer maybe in teaching rhetorical situations, i.e. your native language or dialect has value somewhere, but here, right in this classroom and perhaps all the other classrooms you enter, academic discourse is valued. But that answer certainly does not address the complex relationship between power, identity, and language. So the controversy continues, and my driving question for the week, after all that, is:
Some writing programs and classrooms encourage FYC students to express/perform in their home language. While this is a refreshing new way to allow students to communicate and create a space for their home language in schools, does this prepare them for the rest of their academic career?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Hi Erica,
Thanks for posting this well-articulated question. I'm struggling with issues of academic discourse in my controversia as well. Right now, I'm thinking about asking students to critique the production and circulation of academic discourse. Where does its power come from and how is it perpetuated? How does academic discourse come to bear on our identities? How can we look at a rhetorical situation and choose a space that gives us agency? This kind of analysis can be extended to a variety of public literacies.
I think Fish is 100% wrong, but I think he's worth considering as far as the load we bear as composition teachers. We CANNOT define ourselves as compositionist only concerned with correctness -- this is why people devalue our discipline. Sometimes, however, I think it's important to think about how much burden we're willing to bear. In addition to teaching people to write, doing my graduate work, maintaining home and social life, being a good person, etc., NOW I have to teach people to be good citizens? And you're only paying me HOW MUCH?
I did not realize how much I disagree with Stanley Fish - not the first time, won't be the last. But isn't helping students reason carefully, pay attention to other points of view, and find a thoughtful position part of what we teach in FYC? And if the way into a topic (academic, formal, discourse) is through one's home language, what is the problem with that? I think helping students understand the full repertoire of languages and use them to develop ideas and help them understand when one works better than another (rhetorical considerations of audience and purpose), we are doing our job. Great question, Erica.
I'd like to add to Faith's discussion of how much burden we are willing to bear. And I think it relates to how much flexibility anyone can tolerate. So here's my contribution; It might be off topic, but I think it's interesting (ha ha):
I've been reading Rosi Bradotti's _Transpositions_ which deals with (among many things) ethics in our relationships with others. It's a pretty heady philosophical treatment, mostly concerned with restructuring the subject in an anti-humanistic fluid field of connectivities... but that's another subject.
ANYHOO... the major point that seems relevant here is that she asserts that the ethical breaking point comes when the individual can no longer endure-- when she says "I can't any longer."
While this may seem off topic, I think it is highly appropriate in this discussion of how we conduct praxis in terms of citizenship, politics, language use etc. I believe that each of us (in discussion with others in our fields) need to ask ourselves what that point is for us-- where we cannot endure as teachers any more. It will be different for each instructor, in terms of how we reproduce academic discourse and the hegemony of such structures, our ability to confront political injustices and teach civic issues, etc. What we must be aware, though, is wherever that point is... wherever we cut off our duties because we just "can't any longer," we have to accept that this is done consciously... as Laura Briggs so succinctly states, "there is no innocent position for academics."
And when we get to that point, we need to be honest with that experience, confront it, and then investigate it with others in our field...on blogs such as this one. :-). But here's my most important point: while these discussions are certain to be heated, we need to work to not judge the ethical breaking point on these issues. That is where the discourse breaks down. I hate to say it because I initially responded negatively to this article, but the Corder "Rhetoric is Love" idea holds in these moments... needing to listen to one another and understand the ethics of endurance. I really appreciate that you, Erica, are providing a forum to practice such love. :-)
Hmmm... I just reread this, and it sounds a bit too abstract. Is this helpful? Or no? I guess I am just distressed by the burn-out rate of really excellent teachers who I don't think feel like they can say "I can't anymore" because they are aware that they will be harshly judged. And I would like to see us confront this harmful practice so that we can retain inspired and caring teachers, regardless of where they draw the line.
Well, let me begin by saying that I'm not a Fish fan and I agree that his argument is flawed in the ways that several commenters have already indicated. However, I do think that we need to be very cautious how we go about teaching citizenship and social awareness. I was watching "Writing Across Borders" with my 393 students last week and was reminded of how American the definition of good citizenship tends to be in our comp classes.
Say, perhaps, you have Chinese students in your classroom. Coming from a communist culture, they have a different interpretive frame when it comes to defining what it means to be a good citizen. And so we create assignments that urge them to challenge and critique cultural institutions . . . something that may run counter to their cultural values. When they struggle to do the cultural critiques we ask of them, is it fair for us to penalize them?
I do think that social awareness should be a part of what we do as comp teachers--we are teaching critical thinking, after all--but I also think we must be reflective in our pedagogical practices, always examining the ways in which race, gender, class, etc. influence how our students might respond to the assignments we formulate.
Denise
I agree with all of these comments, and I'm going to respond to a question that you asked earlier in your post, Erica, rather than exactly the ones you asked at the end: "Do we discuss social constructs or not?"
In order to teach them to avoid fallacies, we have to push students to recognize nuance - which means challenging the binary structure that usually seems to organize and simplify issues and questions - and, in order to help them to be persuasive, we need to discuss the ideological bases for people's values and beliefs and thereby that to which they must appeal in order for their argument(s) to have a remote chance of success. We have to offer examples of what we're trying to expand their perspectives to comprehend, and we have to offer examples of what we're asking them to do. Not discussing social constructs might be just as irresponsible as a fellow teacher once told me not acknowledging our political biases in the classroom might be. We cannot pretend that they don't play a role, and so we shouldn't.
I guess I could've just left it at what I wrote in my previous comment: Openness. :)
Post a Comment