Access, Voice, and Globalization

Today, my Facebook newsfeed was covered with stories about government-mandated oppression and silencing across the world. At least 94 protestors were killed in Egypt by state security forces. A US woman was deported from Bahrain after writing articles and comments on social media that the Bahraini government decided "incited hatred against the government." 

As I read these headlines, I was also moved by an email I received: a student could not participate in my course because the government of the nation where this student resided blocked access to many sites. The student could not perform unbiased research-- or perform research at all, in some cases-- so the student was forced to withdraw, hoping to take the course again when back in the U.S.

This made me think hard about the globalization that many universities aim to promote. In my online summer course, for example, I have several international students, and they are taking the course from their home country. While I took into consideration time frame issues, language barriers, and the ways that cultural notions of identity might affect their writing, I did not consider permission to access information or speak about that information. I did not consider that freedom of speech is not a right in every country.

I come to education with a very Western view. I believe in democracy. I believe in freedom of speech. I use a more hands-off approach to teaching, rather than an authoritative stance, and I don't mind or discourage students when they have different views from my own. But these instances make me realize the challenges to embracing a globalized society and appreciating diverse cultures. How do I even begin to work within the frame of a culture that considers most of what I stand for is a threat to its way of life? Can I educate those students? How do I respect their culture and still teach in a way that I believe is most ethical? What is ethical? 

For all the complaints I make against the United States of America and its government, I feel very lucky to live here, where I'm allowed to make those complaints and where I am allowed to have a voice despite being a woman. This is highlighted for me when I see headlines like the one I mentioned or hear people speak about their own governments that restrict information access. I know that my voice is shaped by cultural forces, and that a truly free voice is an ideal that likely cannot been reached, but I have been able to develop my voice in ways that would not be possible in more restricted areas of the globe. Is my freedom to develop my voice oppressive to others thought? Is it freedom or oppression if I ask students to buy into the view that unbiased research is important and that authority figures are fallible? Am I expanding their worldview, or am I making it impossible for them to complete their American educations? 

Of course, I am also curious about university policy. I have seen almost every university push for globalization by advertising the number of countries that have sent students to the university, by pushing students to study abroad, and by allowing and promoting the existence of cultural organizations on campus. However, at least an adjunct, I have never seen any policy in regards to international students' abilities to complete work from their home countries. Does the university consider that governments may restrict access or limit free speech when they allow students to take courses online internationally? And how do they expect me, as an instructor, to respond when a student says that he or she is unable to fulfill the requirements of a course because of government restrictions in their home nation? 

In this instance, I can only continue to develop more questions. It is too soon in my thinking process to come up with answers. 

Take the Plunge: Mina Shaughnessy's "Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing"

Last week, I had to read Mina Shaughnessy's 1976 essay "Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing" for our professional development session at the writing center where I work. I've read her book Errors and Expectations (1977), but this was the first time that I had a chance to read any of her shorter works. Though the article is nearly 40 years old, the problems and solutions described by Shaughnessy are still applicable today.

Shaughnessy's main argument in the piece is that educators need to stop considering basic writing "a writing course for young men and women who have many things wrong with them" (291). Instead, she argues that writing instructors need to begin to examine their own teaching and learning processes and the complex and contextual needs of their students. To show how these issues manifest themselves in the university, Shaughnessy outlines a "developmental scale for teachers," complete with four stages. They are:

Guarding the Tower: gate-keeping and denying access to those who seemingly do not belong, a tactic of self-preservation.
Converting the Natives: assuming outsiders can be "tamed" and fashioned after the elite class, though they can never truly be part of the elite.
Sounding the Depths: realizing there is complexity and that students of all kinds have something to contribute.
Diving In: meeting basic writing students head-on, dealing with their complex needs, and breaking the tradition of thinking "what's wrong with them" 

Though the terminology is controversial, as it is steeped in racial and colonialist overtones, the message is clear. It's not "them" who needs to be fixed; it's "us," the educators, who need to reevaluate our methods. We need to be aware of our own practices, be willing to assess the needs of our students, and quit using one-size-fits-all pedagogies. We need to stop thinking these students are broken and realize that they simply need someone to guide them through the things they have not been privileged yet to know. We also need to stop privileging antiquated ideas of "the typical college student," the ones who come from high performing high schools with a middle class enthusiasm for formal education. These are ideas that are still practical and useful in our current educational climate.

Here are some things we can do to help students, especially basic writers, based on Shaughnessy's ideas:

1. See students as people with real problems, passions, and pursuits.
2. Do not think of students as empty vessels or know-nothings who need to be filled with your greater knowledge.
3. Accept that students bring their own knowledge and literacies to the classroom, even if they aren't the "standard."
4. Be willing to learn from students.
5. Remember that at one point, you didn't know either.
6. And... you didn't know what you didn't know until someone made you aware.
7. Don't use "it's not my job" or "they should have learned that in [insert course or grade level here]" as an excuse not to help a student with a task that you have the ability to help them with.
8. Recognize patterns of error and needs rather than worrying about "correctness" (what's correct anyway? whose version of correct?). 
9. Don't just mark errors. Explain your thought process.
10. Offer models of academic inquiry and inquiry processes. Students often need to learn how to ask questions more than they need to learn answers.
11. Do not underestimate your students. 
12. Challenge students to complete meaningful tasks, but also be willing to help them along the way.

Shaughessy ends these essay with these words: "DIVING IN is simply deciding that teaching them [basic writers] to write well is not only suitable but challenging work for those who would be teachers and scholars in a democracy" (297). If we want democracy, we can't have a fixed notion of who can and cannot be educated. We can't say, "oh they'll never make it" or "they're not 'college material,'" or only a small, likely homogeneous, group of students will ever have the opportunity to succeed. If we want to encourage diversity and all of the wonderful things that come from the intersection of different ideas, then we need to take the plunge and dive in.

-------------------------------------

Shaughnessy, Mina. "Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing." College Composition and Communication 27.3 (1976): 234-39. Rpt. Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. 3rd ed. Eds., Victor Villanueva and Kristin L. Arola. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2011. Print.

Race, Language, and Identity in Students' Academic Lives: Lessons from NCTE12

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending my very first National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention (#NCTE12) at the MGM Grand Conference Center in beautiful Las Vegas, NV. There were many interesting and exciting panels to choose from. My program is about an inch and half thick. My favorite panel, however, was "Connecting Lived Experiences and Literacies with Urban High Schools: Lessons for Pedagogy." Here is the program entry:

B.41 CONNECTING LIVED EXPERIENCES AND LITERACIES WITH URBAN HIGH SCHOOLS: LESSONS FOR PEDAGOGY (S)Room 107, Level One
Teachers experience pedagogical struggles while students
interact in academic spaces that challenge their multiple
lived experiences through the narrowing of curricula. In
this session, presenters will critically analyze their educational research contexts,
which often miss rich opportunities to consider students’
multiple identities, positionings, and languages.
Chair: Timothy San Pedro, Arizona State University,
Tempe
Presenters: Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Teachers College,
Columbia University, New York, New York, “Dear Miss:
Building Black and Latino Adolescents’ Racial Literacy
through Letter Writing”
Danny Martinez, University of California, Los Angeles
Limarys Caraballo, Teachers College, Columbia University,
New York, New York, “‘I Don’t Feel Like We Get to
Express Ourselves in There’: Students’ Narratives of
Resistance in a Middle School Classroom”
Discussant: Ramon Martinez, The University of Texas,
Austin

I was excited to attend this panel because I'm interested in bridging lived experiences and academic ones. Despite being suggested for a secondary education audience, the ideas shared by the panelists were important for all educators to hear. At first glance, I thought this panel would address a broad spectrum of traumas or issues students faced and how they were incorporated into the classroom. Instead, the panel focused on issues of race in interesting ways.

A Brief Recap of the Presentations

Danny Martinez was first up. He talked about the ways that Standard English still dominates the classroom and how, despite NCTE's "Students' Right to Their Own Language," evidence shows that students have not yet received a true right to their own language. Martinez did this by observing and recording classroom discussions and interviews with students. He noted that the teachers often subtly corrected students' uses of Black English during conversation by revoicing their ideas into Standard English. He also referred to the term repair, which suggests that the use of Black English is using "broken" language.

In her presentation, Limarys Caraballo discussed problematic privileging of "neutral" space in ELA, which actually translates into making white middle class language the norm in the classroom. Caraballo demonstrated ways in which students of color attempted to carve out sites of resistance through writing. Through ethnographic study and interviews, she showed that students of color often feel that their voices are not valued in the classroom, an idea that carried through the following presentations. My favorite part of this presentation was when Caraballo displayed an excerpt from a students' piece of writing that displayed resistance to an assignment. The assignment called for use of vocabulary words in a freewrite, and the student wrote something to the effect of: "It's not really a freewrite if you tell us what words to use." I saw that as an astute observation.

Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz presented the findings of a project she works on with non-traditional high school students. At the beginning of the session, she spoke about letters from students and said that we must have the strength not only to receive letters of praise but letters that admonish us if we are to be good educators. Her presentation focused on a "Dear Teacher" letter assignment that asked the young men in her nontraditional high school to address their experiences with race. I quite literally teared up as she read excerpts from the works. The young men had so much to say and quite articulately, and it was evident that they had not had many places, if any, to articulate those thoughts before within the academy. Their letters made it clear that students of color experience racism in education. In the letters, one learns that these students are marked as problem students, which has the potential to mark them as hypervisible or invisible in a classroom space; held to a lower standard, which lowers their motivation; and that they want a space to talk about these issues. How would things change if we opened up these spaces, if we considered these questions and criticisms?

The last presenter was Tim San Pedro. San Pedro spoke about his ethnographic study of a high school that stands 2 miles from a Native American reservation in Arizona. In keeping with the conference theme of "Dream.Connect.Ignite.," San Pedro started the session by asking "Whose dreams are being recognized? Whose connections are being made?" Throughout his talk, San Pedro traced the experiences of two students in particular, a white student and a Native American student. These students were both in a Native American Literature class (the only course of its kind in Arizona, due to recent legislation banning ethnic studies) and an American History course. It was particularly relevant for this conference because NCTE moved the 2012 conference from Arizona to Nevada in protest of that legislation. What San Pedro found is that both students were influenced directly by the juxtaposition of the two courses. The Native American student felt that she found her voice and that her experiences were validated by the Native American Literature course. They even gave her a way to respond to the American History course that she believed was unnecessary, being that it told history from a corrupt perspective. The Caucasian student, who was the only Caucasian student in the Native American Literature class, felt that her views were challenged by the class. She began to see American History as complex and perhaps not completely true. What San Pedro also noted was the neither student felt comfortable speaking in the course that did not validate their views. They felt silenced. It was important for these students feel some sort of authority or mastery before they felt able to speak, even when they had ideas. He referred to these places of felt-authority as environmental safety zones and internal safety zones, building off Bahktin's zone of contact theories and noted that typical education offers more safety zones for Caucasian students than students of color.

To close out the panel, the discussant, Ramon Martinez, ended by asking the big question: "What if?" He challenged us to think about the possibility of living in a world where we allowed students to speak in their own language, where we allowed students to express their struggles with race, and where we didn't view students of color in the classroom as "problems to be fixed." For many, I have a feeling it was a future not easily imagined.

Afterthoughts

I admit that I often circumvent race issues in my classroom. As a white woman, I feel unable to speak back to them genuinely, as I am in a privileged position with little experience being subjected to racism. With the exception of some clips that talk about race for purposes of rhetorical analysis (Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit," for example), I rarely bring race to the table as a topic of discussion. It's a conversation I am not comfortable having. I also have a fear of coming across as the "white savior" and belittling the experiences of others if I do. As a result, while I certainly would never squash a race conversation that my students wanted to have, I let these things happen organically, rather than creating a space for them. I constantly wonder if this is what I should be doing.

I have had students write about race on more than one occasion. For example, during my first year of teaching, one of my students wrote about his experiences as a young Black man for a Writing as Activism project. It was a privilege to be able to read it. He helped me to understand what it meant to be a target of racism without having others be overtly racist. The space is there for students to do work like this, but I do not push it on them. When they choose to take that space, however, I give students an outlet for doing something about the negative experiences that they have had with race rather than simply allowing them to express their frustration, which I believe is important.

Finally, Danny Martinez and Limarys Caraballo in particular got me wondering about my own language practices in the classroom. Do I revoice? Do I close of the space for students' right to their own language? Do I shut down sites of resistance? As a first year writing instructor, I know that I often teach SWE. On the other hand, I wonder if revoicing, at least in my case, is really a corrective device, or if it is my way of paraphrasing students, using my own language. It's complex. 

This panel, which I admit I might not have attended if it was marked with "race" in the title, has pushed me to think about these issues again.

Questions for Consideration

• Who gets heard in a classroom and in the larger context of education reform discussion?
• Should one/how should one make a space for discussions about race in a writing classroom?
• Is it possible to allow students to have the right to their own language in a college writing classroom, or any classroom really? If so, how?
• How do you feel about legislation that calls for the end of ethnic studies, naming it as anti-American and racist?
• Does the scholarship on racial minorities as underachievers because of socioeconomic factors lead to underachievement?
• Have you had experiences with racism in education? If so, how did you negotiate them?

See Something? Do Something.

I return to my post about the Aurora shooting because some new information has recently come forth. From the beginning, law enforcement said that they believed the attack was premeditated, and last week, Fox News published that law enforcement found a massive notebook that had been mailed to a university psychiatrist on July 12, days before the attack. In other words, had it been delivered and had someone taken it seriously, the attack might have been prevented.

This leads me back to some of the things I have been thinking about over the past two years:

1. How do we judge if someone is simply being creative with a dark edge, or sincerely needs help? 
2. How do we deal with traumatic/confessional writing?  
3. Who gets heard in a world covered with writing?  
4. Why do we make students write about the "purely academic" and separate themselves from the real world? 

These questions immediately lead me back to Chris Anson's short piece, "What's Writing Got to Do With Campus Terrorism?" Essentially, the piece is a dialogue between two characters, Nothing and Everything. Nothing believes that writing has nothing to do with campus terrorism. Writing isn't a marker for crime or suicidal intentions. It's simply an outlet for imagination, and we cannot tell from what someone writes whether he or she is mentally unstable. Everything, of course, takes the opposite side, believing that writing is responsible for and a marker of terrorist behavior. Most of us find ourselves caught in the crosshairs, not fully believing either side of the argument. The dialogue doesn't offer answers. It simply brings the conflict to light.


Richard E. Miller, perhaps, comes closest to unpacking these questions in his book, Writing at the End of the World. As I mention in an earlier post, Miller explains that writing is everywhere these days. Everyone can write and publish, but no one quite knows what to do with that writing. He rips into the idea that writing (and reading) is cathartic or transformative. He uses Ted Kaczynzki, the Unabomber, as evidence for this claim. Much like Holmes, Kaczynzki wrote and publicized his violent plot ahead of time. Neither piece of writing was able to stall the horrible events that would take place after the writing was done and sent.

We can also look at the recent media attention given to the teen suicides caused (in some way) by bullying incidents. Many of those teens-- Phoebe Prince and Tyler Clementi, for example-- were writing. But nobody was listening. And even if they happened to hear, Americans are trained to "mind our own business" and "not get involved." It doesn't seem like anyone really knew what to do, or knows what to do, with writing that reflects trauma. If it's literature, we enjoy it.


I've spoken about all of these things before, but I am still trying to come up with answers.

"See something; do something"

I've begun to draw  few conclusions. I'm sure they don't apply in every case, but I have noticed some patterns. People, typically, do not just leave written records in private corners when they're in distress. They push them out into public places-- letters to friends, statuses on Facebook, editorials, blogs, graffiti, tweets, etc. I don't want to become an advocate for the "see something, say something" policy that surrounds our culture's obsession with preventing terrorism, but I do suggest a similar remedy: "see something, do something." 


If you notice that someone is constantly left out, reach out to them. It takes a bit of effort, but being willing to listen to another human being can sometimes make all the difference. 


As to traumatic, confessional, and/or disturbing writing, if someone's writing seems to reflect mental disturbance, you can talk to them about their craft, rather than assuming something is wrong or nothing is wrong. Through those conversations, you can assess the situation. 


I'm not saying we should be nosy and pry into people's private lives, and I'm certainly not saying to continue pushing people to speak when they have clearly chosen to remain silent, but I do think that we need to be willing to have more conversations, even if they are uncomfortable at first. In our worst moments, many of us just need someone to acknowledge our struggles, to say that we are worth a few moments of their time, which is probably the most precious gift one can give. Those few moments can be the difference between healing and breaking.


Furthermore, I think mentorships are incredibly important. This is a role educators can play. We all need someone to look up to, someone who is genuinely interested in our well-being. Many of us who consider ourselves successful, or at least on the path that we want to be on, have mentors to thank-- coaches, family friends, teachers, neighbors, older siblings or cousins, etc. How many of us pay it forward, though? 


Specifically, for those of us in our 20s, I think we have a powerful position. We really can make changes in our world. We are about to be the generation of leaders, those taking over companies and political positions, but at the same time, we are close to our youth. We are not parental-looking figures yet, so teens look up to us as the cool adults. We have a responsibility to pause and take the time to interact with them. For instance, if a fellow 13-year-old was to scold another 13-year-old for a mean Facebook comment, the end result would probably be that the other scolder would end up bullied, as well. Few 13-year-olds would attempt to bully a 21-year-old, however. Likely, instead, they would instead see their actions as immature (which bullying is). Rarely, however, do 20-somethings step in. We think, "hey, they're just kids" or "they've got parents to deal with this" and move on with our busy lives.

We clearly cannot read everything in a world covered with writing, but we can at least read more carefully.

Connected Living 

I think what I mean to say, more broadly, is that we need to stop "minding our own business." It's not really only our business anyway. We do not live in a vacuum. Our actions affect others, and their actions affect us, as we are all part of one larger ecosystem, whether that be a family, a local community, or humanity as a whole global system. We could all put forth a little more effort to remember that we are living in a networked community, even in this hyper-individualistic society.


It's true that most of us are not psychologists, psychiatrist, social workers, or trained counselors. We shouldn't try to fix problems that are beyond us, but we can still help people find help or simply want to find help. Sometimes, people need to feel like they deserve help before they will even bother to seek it. 


Honestly, I still haven't really answered my questions, and I'm sure they will continue to bother me and drive my studies. There seems to be something inherently wrong when we live in a world where people have access to more public writing than ever before, but crimes and other tragic incidents that result from feelings of isolation and desperation still take place. Clearly, the approach that we have been taking isn't working. Something needs to change. I think starting small and remembering that we are all connected is a step in the right direction.

Fishing for Answers: Stanley Fish's Save the World on Your Own Time

About a week ago, I picked up Stanley Fish's Save the World on Your Own Time. A colleague mentioned it during a conversation at faculty orientation, and I was instantly intrigued. Fish argues that teachers who try to do anything but teach-- which he defines as providing new discipline-relevant material and demonstrating practical methods of analysis and evaluation-- are doing their students and academia in general a disservice. His argument also extends to administrators and universities in general. And he doesn't sugar coat it. He has a wry, sarcastic, and very direct style to his writing; some might even call it aggressive (he does).

As a teacher, I was interested in his distinction between "academicizing" and indoctrinating, especially after hearing a fellow classmate's heated objections to a teacher who was offering extra credit to students who chose to join Occupy Wall Street. To me, that was simply unacceptable. I also remembered the 2008 election and my teacher's obvious Obama support. It made me uncomfortable. I felt like I was the only person in all of academia who would even considering the arguments of the Republican candidate. Finally, I worry that my belief that writing is a social transaction and tool for social change gets in the way of teaching students how to write effectively (Fish  would probably say that it does... sometimes). For all these reasons and more, I had to read and would recommend this book to all faculty and administration.

Sometimes, Fish's argument is difficult to stomach. I truly believe that part of my job is to help make the world a better place. While I may not always succeed, I can help students see things from new perspectives, ones that enable them to make better decisions, and I can teach them to use writing for purposes that are not merely academic. As a professor-- yes, even as an adjunct-- I hold a position of power. My students are mostly traditional freshman. Since they are trying to get a grasp on what it means to be a college student, they look to me for an example and for guidance. I believe that my age contributes to this even more. I am not much older than many of my students, and so, in some respects, they can place themselves in my position, a young academic. I try to show them that I use my brain and my academic interests to function as a real person in society. Aside from being an academic role model, though, I believe I need to be a moral one. The classroom is solid space for me to advocate positive change in the world, as well, which I why I love teaching writing so much.

Fish would say this is a no-no. He argues that we can go change the world on our own time, and that is perfectly acceptable, but when we bring politics into the classroom, we leave a space for outsiders to label universities as places where students are being indoctrinated with liberal ideologies or viewed as production lines for corporations. He also says that academic work is "useless," and that's ok. We should not be producing laboring bodies for capitalist reasons or tell students that their study should have a purpose in the world outside academic (that's the value of academic freedom). We should simply teach students to explore for the sake of knowledge and skill attainment. I don't necessarily disagree with him, either.

Where I do think Fish misses the mark is when he says that we shouldn't aim to teach students to respect all cultures or practice pluralism. He says that the university is not a democracy, and we should not teach democratically. Yet, my understanding of respect and his may be different. I believe that students should be taught to respect all cultures, meaning that they don't attack people because of they hold different ideologies. When you respect something, it does not mean that you agree with it. I respect my religion, for instance, but it doesn't mean that I don't question it or debate what practices I want to uphold. Respect doesn't mean that students should be forced to accept all ideologies, but that they should respect the people that hold them. Fish doesn't think diplomacy is getting us anywhere, however, so he'd probably still disagree with me on this point, although, he does make a distinction between name calling and debating a point with evidence.

Throughout the entire text, I found myself resistant to Fish. I wanted to disagree with him at every turn. The margins of my book are covered in sarcastic quips to match those made by Fish. In the end, though, it seems that perhaps I'm somewhat in line with Fish's theories of pedagogy. And I really hate to admit that. For instance, as Fish does, I believe that my students deserve an open forum to consider theories, not that all theories are right, but that they need to learn for themselves how to evaluate and analyze them. I don't believe I have a right to say, "I think that war is wrong" or "We should promote marriage rights for gays." I bring in controversial texts such as Palin's argument that her aggressive campaign language had nothing to do with the Tuscon shooting, not for the purpose of making my classroom agree or disagree with Palin, but to consider freedom of speech rights, how political rhetoric works in the public sphere, and whether or not she constructs an effective argument. I also believe that it's true that I cannot directly affect the way that my students use the information that I give them. At the end of the day, though my class may be transformative, it is not intrinsic to the material. I may still have "bad eggs" who will use the information for harm rather than good, and there is not much that I can do about it outside of teaching and being engaged in the education of my students.

I even see Fish and I standing on common ground when it comes to my Writing as Activism assignment, which is perhaps a politically charged one. It directly advocates activism, which Fish recommends against. He writes, "Once you start.... engaging your students in discussions designed to produce action in the world, you are surely doing something, but it is not academic, even if you give it that name" (169). However, my students' projects reflect their own interests, and throughout, I encourage them to do rhetorical analysis, to evaluate the ethos/pathos/logos of their debates (this part is new for me), and to consider their rhetorical purposes. There is a learning value far greater than simple political activism. I believe it is two fold. It shows students that there is a purpose for writing beyond writing essays that will never leave the academic safety bubble (although I'm not sure Fish would like that idea very much). I wouldn't teach it if I thought that the only value was an activist one. I know, however, that they are learning a great deal about writing through their projects.

In the final paragraph of his book, Fish cautions, "Beware, that is, of doing something for a reward external to its own economy" (178). This is really what I take away from Fish's argument and what I think all teachers can adopt. Regardless of how much we hope to do do, we shouldn't be teaching our own political views at the expense of our students' education. We can blend the political with the academic, but we should not advocate only the former.

Even if you whole-heartedly disagree with Fish, I think that this is one of those texts that every teacher should pick up.

A Glimpse into the Private Life of a Student

For several months now, I've been slowly working through an archive of First Year Writing students' portfolios. Though I'm reading them through a lens that looks for classifications of public versus private writing spaces, I saw something today that sparked my interest much more. I was reading a student's essay on dorm living that was written for a colleague's class when I came across a description of a student that I recognized, one of my own.

It was a strange moment for me. I only had the girl in class for a few weeks, but she was very unique. She had a creative approach to writing and a great sense of voice. I knew it would be a pleasure to read her papers and to push her to improve her writing throughout the semester, but I never got the chance. Eventually, she just stopped showing up.

What I learned from this other students' paper was a bit about the girl's lifestyle. It made it seems as if she were a recluse, someone who never stayed in the dorms unless it were completely necessary. She spent all of her time trying to do things away from campus. You could tell the roommate was intrigued by her, but also felt sorry for her, as I began to. It didn't seem like my student enjoyed being at the university.

This short description made me think back to our classroom interactions. I knew that the student was unfamiliar with many of the tasks I was asking her to do; she expressed her discomfort. She wasn't a shy girl, but I didn't see her really interact with her peers in the classroom. I assumed that she had just dropped the class, but it sounds like, from this paper, that eventually she left the university. I can't help, but wonder if I added to her anxiety by forcing her outside of her comfort zone even in her academic work or if there was something I could have done to prevent her from isolating herself. Should I have reached out to her? Should I have stopped her to talk after class? Should I have written her an email? I will never know.

It is scenarios like this one that make me wonder how involved we should be in students' lives. If I knew that she was experiencing this disconnect from her peers, I probably would have meddled. I would have tried to show her how much the college social experience has to offer her or to point her in the direction of peers with whom she could feel more at-home. On the other hand, perhaps this meddling is not a good thing. Maybe, the student really did need to leave the university. Maybe it wasn't the right place for her. Again, I'll never know.

I'd love to know how others deal with this. As teachers, how far do you delve into students' lives, outside of the classroom? And for students, how much involvement do you want teachers to take?

The Dangers of Thinking in Five Paragraphs

If your writing strategy is absurdly demonstrated as a
cheeseburger, then it's probably absurd.

The other night, I sat on Twitter talking to colleagues about the Five Paragraph Essay (which, yes, I do hate). The argument was about purpose and whether it was useful. I argued that the Five Paragraph Essay is like playing Hot Cross Buns; sure, you're making music, but it's only three notes, neither deep nor complex. The argument I got back was something along the lines of  "15-year-olds don't have much to say anyway." According to this colleague, their thoughts are simply not deep or complex (I am happy to say that my Twitter colleague eventually rethought this statement).

I think this idea is at the core of some of our very real problems in education. We believe our students, simply because they are novices, have nothing to say. As a result, we fail to challenge them. Even worse, we fail to listen to them.

Expediently Killing a Generation: An Intellectual Holocaust

The goal of the Five Paragraph Essay is to expediently teach students how to write essays and expediently score high marks on standardized tests. The little Marxist in me wants to scream at the word "expedient." If we read the work of Stephen B. Katz, "The Ethic of Expediency: Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust" (in College English), my reasons become immediately obvious.In this particular piece, Katz rhetorically analyses a memo from Nazi leaders that addresses how to more efficiently transport and execute the "undesirables" (Jews and other prisoners). How does this have anything to do with the Five Paragraph Essay you ask? Let's continue.

Katz writes:

let's do a brief rhetorical analysis of this memo from the standpoint of technical communication, argumentation, and style. By any formal criteria in technical communication, it is an almost perfect document. It begins with what, in recent composition theories and technical writing practices, is known as the problem or "purpose statement." 

This Nazi memo sounds like the perfect academic paper. A clear thesis, a solid argument-- every teacher's dream. Katz continues on:

Indeed, in this memo one can find many of the topoi first defined by Aristotle in the Rhetoric II xxiii. 1397a6-xxiv. 1402a29) that are used to investigate any situation or problem and provide the material for enthymemic arguments. For example, in the first section the writer uses the common topic of relationship: cause/effect arguments, in conjunction with the topic of comparison (difference) and the topic of circumstance (the impossible), are used to investigate the problem of maximizing the use of space, to refute the manufacturer's claims that the problem is one of overloading, and to conclude in an enthymeme that a reduction in the load space is necessary. Just further supports his conclusion by cause/effect arguments embedded in the topic of contraries....Finally, Just argues by cause/ effect and contraries to refute the manufacturer's claim that reducing the load space would overload the front axle by arguing from precedent (example)... Thus, in a series of enthymemes that make use of the topoi, Just investigates and proves his case for a reduction in load space.

Great! Just the Nazi has figured out how to persuade his audience, using the tools of our favorite Ancient Western Philosopher, Aristotle!

Katz also writes:

Based on the ethic of expediency, rhetoric for Hitler was pure technique, designed not to encourage debate, but rather to indoctrinate: "all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan"; the reason, Hitler adds, is that "As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain, the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and the end entirely cancelled out" (47). Even in these abbreviated quotations we see not only a greater (political'?) distrust of the masses than we find in Aristotle (Rhetoric I. ii 1357a5), but also it greater "technical" preoccupation with the end to be achieved, both of which tend to work against free discussion, true deliberation.

And isn't that the purpose of those darn Five Paragraphs Essays--"pure technique"? We don't ask our students, at least not at the beginning levels, to construct essays that ask them to think deeply. We just want them to learn the technique, learn the form, see how to provide three examples to back up any argument regardless of how ridiculous or unethical it may be. They are supposed to come up with a claim that they can already prove rather than learning about it as they research and write. An evaluator is able to expediently grade these essays, checking off the boxes that make it "good" writing. Even if they deeply disagree with the message being presented, there is no place for debate; it either meets the criteria of the form, or it does not. 

It is thus easy to understand why Katz argues:

In the gruesome light of the holocaust, then, we should question whether expediency should be the primary ethical standard in deliberative discourse, including scientific and technical communication, and whether, based on Cicero's advocacy of a rhetoric grounded in a knowledge of everything and Quintilian's definition of the orator as "a good 'man' skilled in speaking," we can and should teach the whole panoply of ethics in deliberative discourse in our rhetoric and writing courses. 

Hannah Arendt, who also writes about the ways in which the Nazis used rhetoric to accomplish their ends, says,

“To think with an enlarged mentality means that one trains one’s imagination to go visiting.” 

Yet, in assigning a Five Paragraph Essay, we barely give the student's imagination a place to search within the self, let alone go visiting other perspectives and ways of thought. Furthermore, it certainly doesn't encourage empathy or creative thinking. I would argue that it barely encourages that money term in education, critical thinking, if it does at all. We kill their quest for deeper knowledge before it even begins.

Keep in mind that these are some of the most emotionally intense and unsettling years of their lives. Being a teenager is not easy, though we nostalgically like to remember it as being so.

So basically, we create a bunch of drones running around who can now effectively "prove" anything in five paragraphs by giving three examples (because it's easier to deal with). Super! Because they are novices, we do not make them more deeply examine their ideas. We do not encourage their curiosities or ask them to use their expertise. We don't push them to make new conclusions, but simply say "restate your introduction." We don't tell them to include examples that contradict your own without trying to undo them for the sake of being correct. We tell them, "show how there are loopholes in the other's argument." Easy, expedient essays-- that is the goal. 

Pick your target. Aim. Fire. Pleasure in writing and desire to think: dead.

Dying to Be Heard (in more than Five Paragraphs)

Intellectual curiosity isn't the only thing suffering. Students are physically suffering because of this arrogant belief that students have nothing important to say. 

A year ago, Tyler Clementi took his life because no one would take his feelings seriously. He was blogging and writing online, as was Phoebe Prince, a 16 year old girl who committed suicide due to bullying. She was also writing essays for class that were about topics such as cutting and suicide. No one consider them to be anything but the twisted fascination of a teenager. Sadly, despite the media uproar and the memorials across campuses nationwide, other young adults continued to take their lives. 

Most recently in the media, Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14 year old from Amherst, NY, took his own life after years of bullying finally took their toll. Jamey had been reaching out all along. He wrote on his Facebook page:

"I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens.... What do I have to do so people will listen to me?

It is clear that Jamey was trying to reach out, to find support, to find someone (other than his parents) who would listen and take him seriously, especially online. In her article for ABC News, Susan Donaldson James writes, 

"Jamey's school counselors had advised him not to go on social media sites to talk about his sexuality, according to the Buffalo News."

In other words, though they meant to shelter him from harm, they basically told him to shut up. They invalidated his claims, made it sound like no one wanted to listen to him whine about his sexuality and the bullying that was being inflicted upon him. It was Jamey's fault for talking and exposing his differences, not those bullies for being ignorant and heartless.

In addition to blogging and using Facebook, Jamey participated in the It Gets Better campaign by making a YouTube video. On one hand, I openly support the campaign. I believe that things do get better. As a victim of childhood bullying myself, I know that, while it took time, I grew into my own skin and became someone of whom I am proud; I could ignore their words.

On the other hand, this seems to reflect part of that "kids don't know what they're talking about" mentality, the same one that says that they only need to write from a formula because that's all they are capable of doing. Maybe it does get better, but at the moment that pain is fresh and real, and having someone tell you to put it off makes you feel just as isolated and alone. Instead, we should be asking these kids to analyze the things that are happening to them, just as we should be asking them to analyze the things they are writing about.

We don't ask them to do that, however. We think reflection and analysis are tasks that are too complicated for mere teenagers. So what do they do? They rebel. They shout. They lash out against us. They lash out against each other. They do anything to get a significant reaction, to feel like what they are saying is important. Or they shut up and write/think what we want, and learn to resent it. Which sounds like a good option to you?

Taking Lives, Saving Lives

My point is this: if we continue to do things for sake expediency, we will see learning fail, and, furthermore, we will see our culture fail. The five paragraph essay, among other "educational" practices, strips students of their voices and their ideas; it marginalizes them. Expedient educations will create more students who feel dejected and unattached, who think school is a burden that is disconnected from real life, who don't know how to interact positively with one another, who feel unable to be themselves. The message is: fit this mold and be rewarded, or fight the current and be held down.

We lose much by applying methods simply because they are easier to evaluate or easier to teach, without giving regard to the quality of that learning process. Instead of teaching students tricks to write, we should be giving them tools to think. Instead of telling them how to prove a point, we should be teaching them to examine their claims and the claims of others. Instead of avoiding technology because it's hard to learn, we should be modeling better uses of it.

Finally, we should stop ignoring our students simply because they are young. We don't know everything either, and we cannot live outside our own realities. We have to stop trivializing their feelings simply because they are not as experienced, and when they are experienced, we must not tell them that they are novices.

Th1rteen R3asons Why

Th1rteen R3asons Why by Jay Asher was recommended to me by a student in the early part of the semester, and I only now got a chance to read it. The story revolves around a high school junior named Clay Jensen, who mysteriously receives voice recordings of Hannah Baker, a classmate who committed suicide. It most likely falls into the YALit category, but I wouldn't let that deter you from reading it. This is a powerful story. It would make a great addition to a high school syllabus, especially in 9th or 10th grade.

I don't want this to be a book review, though. That's not really why comPOSITION exists. Instead, I want to talk about this book's take on education and writing, especially education about writing.

For Hannah, like real life student Phoebe Prince, writing became an outlet to address the confusion she was experiencing in her life. Hannah particularly took to writing poetry. It should also be noted that she made fun of the self-indulgent "miserable poets" in her poetry class. Outside of class, she shared with a classmate what she considers to be her real poetry. At first, she found this experience freeing and thought it might be her ticket to finding comfort, but eventually, writing was not enough. It wasn't enough because her words became twisted by others, just as her reputation does.

This became especially true when classmates tried to interpret a poem they did not know she wrote. The professor refereed to the assignment as akin to interpreting a "dead poet." As the students tried their hand at revealing the hidden meaning of the piece, Hannah became more and more upset with their inability to understand her meaning-- which, underneath it all, was clearly a cry for help. This moment only further severed the ties between her peers and herself.

Eventually, the only way Hannah believed she could express herself was through her 7 tapes. She would be the "dead poet," with the power of her name left behind, but this time, her meaning would not be hidden by imagery and meter.

If one looks back, though, the problem for Hannah was not that she was not allowed to express herself, but that she felt that her voice was never heard or that her messages were contorted. As a writing teacher, this is a major concern of mine, especially when I either congratulate a student for using voice well or tell them that I can't really hear "their voice." Am I hearing them correctly? Am I helping them to express themselves? And even if I am, so what? What do I want those words to do? Do they have an effect if they stop at me? These are questions to which I have no answers.

Speaking more towards education as whole, Hannah also talked about her favorite class, Peer Communications. This is a class that encourages students to talk about the real issues they are facing in their lives, including topics like abortion, drug abuse, and, eventually, suicide. The teacher promotes positive reinforcement between peers, as well, which is something that almost never happens in classes that rely on tests and grades to separate the strong from the weak. Hannah noted that despite her suicide she believes that Peer Communications class should continue. She also talked about how the class must be defended every year against those who believe it is a waste of time because it does not teach the "hard facts." Several of the teachers of those "hard fact" classes, Hannah said, resent the Peer Communications class because it is "fluff" and, more likely, because they are jealous that students are so engaged. Hmm... reflection of real life much?

For me, Hannah's trials speak directly to what is going on today with our youth. So many of them feel unheard, especially at school, the place that is supposed to be preparing them for the real world. School often fails to be a microcosm of the real world, to prepare students to be socially responsible citizens, and to deal with the things that are really happening in the lives of students. I think many times, when in front of a classroom, we forget that we are not supposed to fill empty vessels, but to help our future generation create progress. We worry about "correctness" rather than building imaginations and problem-solving skills. Furthermore, little is done to deal with the subtle ways that students-- and even adults-- tear one another down. The competitive nature of the classroom translates into social lives.

The last note-- and possibly the most important one-- that I want to make is that Hannah doesn't want to "move on" from her experiences, which is the advice she is given. She doesn't want to just get over her traumas, but she does want to own them and live. Yet, no one is able to help her take ownership of the things that have happened in her life because they are all too focused on reputations and expectations. Agency is really the matter at hand here. Like Hannah, many students feel trapped and unable to act. They want agency, but they are confined to a set of rules, social practices, and fears of being outcasts. As a teacher, I'm still wondering-- as I did in my earlier post about the recent teen suicides and writing-- how we can give students this agency, or anyone really.  How can we make sure others do not share their traumas only to have them thrown back in their faces? And what does it take to move a someone to use a trauma rather than to repress it?

The scariest thing for me... Hannah's final tape goes to her English teacher.

Trauma. Writing. Agency. Education. Microcosm. Expectations. Social Responsibility. Those are the key words of this book.



For a sampling of the novel, as well as clips of Hannah's voice recordings, you can visit: http://www.thirteenreasonswhy.com/. Bonus: This book is an easy read. I finished it in a few hours.

ABC's What Would You Do? and Social Justice

ABC's What Would You Do? is really difficult to watch. For one, you want to jump into the television and do something. You sit there judging people, saying "How could they say that?" or "Why didn't they tell off the store employee for being a jerk?" or "How could they possibly buy their goods there?" You want to scream at the by-standers who do nothing. You are disgusted by bigots, or maybe freak yourself out a bit when you realize that their arguments are logical or even compelling.

Once the actionless by-standers are interviewed, however, you are forced to see yourself, which is, perhaps, the most difficult thing about watching this show. Many of those who remain bystanders (though perhaps not in this clip) weren't sure it was their place to "get involved." While we all would like to believe that we would step in and do something in the face of social injustice, possible child abuse, fraud, etc., in reality, many of us would just surrender to the fear of being turned into a victim or outcast ourselves. Would you step in against a gang of kids threatening to beat up a gay peer on the boardwalk? Would you stop a Muslim father from dragging his daughter out a restaurant by the arm? Would you hinder a drunken parent from driving their kid to a soccer game? Against the ideas of "minding your own business" or "not getting involved," it is often difficult to do the right thing. "Not getting involved" is often the "American" thing to do. We are pluralist, so we have to let others live their lives as they want to, even if we believe that way to be wrong. We let injustice go by everyday for those very same reasons that are meant to promote justice and liberty.

Sadly, injustice often must escalate to extremes (as it does in the video about teens harassing a gay peer), before others will step in. This undercover camera program shows what goes on during an average day-- though there is an obvious bias in favor of those who are tolerant of other ways of living and those who get involved. I think it's a wonderful show, not only because it promotes tolerance, but because it reminds us that when we see injustice, no matter how small, we should be willing to get involved. We shouldn't have to let it escalate to real physical harm or illegal discriminatory acts before we take a stand. A psychologist who appears on the episode about antisemitism (I can no longer remember her name) states that once one person speaks up, often that is enough for others to join the cause. It only takes ONE person to make a difference.

As my own students begin to work on their Writing as Activism projects, I think that this is a sentiment that they would find encouraging. Though I see that they are not convinced that their projects can make any difference, I think the idea that their voice could inspire others to speak up would help them to find purpose and confidence. As a student myself, I know that is what I am taking away from this series. Maybe the world isn't what I want it to be right now, and maybe I see problems in the future, but I know that I have the potential to create positive changes, if only by being the first voice.

An Ethics Question: Student Writing in the Public Arena

The Pedagogical Practice

I truly believe that, as an educator, I have a responsibility to break down the barrier that students believe exists between school and the "real world." I believe that educational settings should be microcosms of the world at large, a place where diversity exists, views clash, and there is the possibility for collaboration. In my particular case, most of the students who step into my writing classroom will never be English majors, and I don't want them to feel that writing is only something that is performed for an English teacher.

I believe that breaking down this barrier not only enables students to see writing/learning as a social transaction/process, but hopefully removes some of the pressure that keeps students from writing, which I feel is especially derived from writing to the test. I also think it gives purpose to their writing, makes them more aware of the role they wish to play and the audience they wish to address in their writing, and removes the idea that student work is only practice and never of any real value to the community (social or scholarly).

With that belief in mind, I assigned several "real world" writing activities this semester. They include:

• posting to public blogs (not class moderated)
• posting drafts of their essays to Blackboard so that all of the classmates' can read one another's work
• submitting essays to NPR's This I Believe archive
• doing an activist writing project (some of these will be in the form of blogs, photojournals, letters to senators, newspaper editorials, etc.)
• using Wallwisher
• submitting to our class's gallery of writing at NCTE's National Gallery of Writing Gallery (Writing from the Core)
• encouraging them to submit their work to literary journals

The Ethics Question

Though, I believe I am doing something good by blurring the boundaries between the safety net of school and the contact zone of the world outside our classroom, I also see questions of ethics coming into play. 

Some of my students do panic when they learn that their writing will be viewed by others outside of the safe house of classroom. They fear judgment of their writing and of their beliefs. I also worry that somebody who is merely out to rage against others (especially in blog comments) will attack one of my students and leave them feeling shut down, shattering the confidence that I have been working hard to build all semester. I want to encourage growth, not stifle it. 

So, I am left wondering:

• How ethical is this teaching practice? 
• Is it wrong to force my students to write for public audiences? 
• Am I doing them more harm than good by removing the safety net? 
• Should my students be allowed the option to write for my eyes only?

Furthermore, specifically in regards to the Writing as Activism project:

• Is it a good thing to ask students to write to create change?
• What if I my students aim to support a cause through writing and harm the cause instead by writing poorly or not putting any effort into their projects/reasearch?
• Is it unethical to ask students to expose their beliefs and let those beliefs be judged and criticized by people who may not agree with them?
• Are there other, greater risks involved in doing this sort of assignment of which I am unaware?

Composition and Accountability: Addressing the Side-Effects of Bullying

Composition, as a subject, seems powerful, though somewhat benign to many of us. What I mean by that is that we recognize writing's power to help students become self-aware and to help spark change, but we don't see how what we teach in our classrooms can also be hateful, hurtful, or ignorant.

I am sparked to speak of this because of Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ), who took his life on September 22, just last week. Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, and a female student, Molly Wei, taped two of Clementi's sexual encouters and broadcast them via the internet, exposing Clementi as a homosexual. Ashamed and troubled, Tyler jumped from the George Washington Bridge. Sadly, Clementi's story is horrific, but not entirely unique. Kids are bullied everyday, and many teenage suicides are linked to histories of being bullied. 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of Massachusetts comes to mind here. Harassed, especially online, by two boys she had dated and a group of girls dubbed "mean girls," Phoebe took her life. Asher Brown, only 13, came home and shot himself after being tortured at school. In the last incident before his death, happening only the day before, his mother recalls Asher telling her that the kids knocked him down the stairs and then kicked his books around.

Why does this become a Composition classroom issue, aside from the obvious response that we should have "Anti-Bullying Policies" in our classroom? Most of these kids were writing. Tyler Clementi kept a blog, which, according to ABC News, stated that he believed his roommate was spying on him, but also about that authorities couldn't stop it from happening. Phoebe was clearly writing on social networking sites, but she was also recording her pain in school essays. She wrote a book report on a book about cutting and expressed empathy for cutters. She also wrote about her desire to wash away the pain she felt with music.

This calls much of what we teach into question. Firstly, should we be asking students to write to the test, to prepare five paragraph essays about the exploits of the Iliad, if they are experiencing real and difficult things that they clearly have a desire and a need to write about? Should we give them the outlet to both speak to their traumas and to explore them instead? Secondly, if we do allow writing from trauma, what do we do to help them rise above these traumatic events? I don't want to use the term cope because I don't want students to think that they must "deal" with their trauma and get over it. If I'm going to make them write about trauma, I want them to somehow wrestle with these demons and own them. These kids show that expression isn't enough; they still killed themselves, though they had an outlet for ranting. They need empowerment, agency, action, and/or guidance.

Furthermore, if we recognize the effects of bullying or personal struggles in students' writing, we cannot ignore it. It is the feeling of isolation that, more than anything, leads a person to doubt themselves. We cannot allow our students to continue feeling that way if we read their calls for help.

I would also say, though, that this points to a need for addressing multiple literacies. Perhaps before the advent of email and social networking sites, it was not necessary to teach students how to write for many different audiences or mediums (video, internet, podcast, etc.). In their world, however, the multiple literacies/venues/audiences/mediums/etc. are a reality. If we aren't teaching students better ways to use these technologies to compose and communicate, then aren't we at fault as Composition "experts"? If they don't know that they can use writing to perfect a letter to congress to help prevent anti-gay legislation, that they can use writing to create content for a website supporting Muslim Americans, that they can use writing to compose lyrics to a song about racism in their community that they can post to iTunes, that they can use writing to create captions for a photojournal of the oil spill in the Gulf on Facebook, that they can use writing to script a podcast about their frustrations with bullies at their school, how can they be expected to use these outlets for anything more than peer-against-peer combat or overexposure of their personal lives?


Note: Most of the event-specific information I have in regards to the suicides of Tyler Clementi, Phoebe Prince, and Asher Brown is from ABC News, though I cross-checked these same stories across multiple sources. They have an incredible collection of video collection about these recent, horrific suicides. Ellen Degeneris also speaks about these tragedies, which she calls no longer a tragedy but a "crisis" (Click her name to see the video).