Voice

To tell you the truth, I chose the Royster article because the title was catchy. I think that we’ve discussed this issue time and time again in the Rhetoric/Comp classes. I know that those of you who have taken Sherman’s class have had the debate about ‘voice’ vs. form, audience, purpose, etc., and I know that we haven’t spoken about this in our class. I know through my own writing that audience often overpowers my writing, then comes form, content, and voice. I am not sure if the last three are in that order or if they are mashed into one process…who knows? I also know when the first voice I hear is not my own, but I know that if the paper is good and will get me an A…I know that is what I want and I don’t care about my voice.

Now onto the article…

Royster’s article reminds me of Pratt’s article, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” where Pratt discusses that the “safe houses” are the classrooms where our students become a community, discuss, and are free to discuss their own ideas. Pratt states:

The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas of community that underlie much of the thinking about language, communication, and culture that gets done in the academy… The fact that no one was safe made all of us involved in the course appreciate the importance of what we came to call “safe houses.” We used the term to refer to social and intellectual spaces where groups can constitute themselves as horizontal, homogeneous, sovereign communities with high degrees of trust, shared understandings, temporary protection from legacies of oppression. This is why, as we realized, multicultural curricula should not seek to replace ethnic or women’s studies, for example. Where there are legacies of subordination, groups need places for healing and mutual recognition, safe houses in which to construct shared understandings, knowledges, claims on the world that they can then bring into the contact zone.

Royster reminds the teacher that the challenge is “to teach, to engage in research, to write, and to speak with Others with the determination to operate not only with professional and personal integrity, but also with the specific knowledge that communities and their ancestors are watching” (33). As a student and teacher, I love this concept—bringing together the ideas and voices of the community within my classroom, sharing our stories to demonstrate the transformation and growth we have as a society. But, as my students are testing in my room right at this moment; this noble and respectful idea seems to dissipate as I worry about what the administration will say about my test scores, maybe I focused too much on themes, culture, connections, and not enough on test taking skills, grammar, spelling…superlatives and appositives. Can I interpret this movement as one that “coopts, dissipates, and displaces voices” (35)? Has this movement forgotten the voice of the individual because of a dominant form, audience, and content which presides over the educational system? Are we criminals, guilty of “spirit murder”? Robbing our children of their voices to fulfill the requirements and standards dictated by some higher power that provides our paychecks?

What do I know? I know I can do better. I know that my room is a contact zone. I know that I need to shift and transform by crossing boundaries. This is my voice.