Response to Mike Rose

Mike Rose article “I wanna be average” was a huge inspiration to kids who are slackers. The author of this piece has gone to great lengths to vividly describe his friends and dysfunctional learning environment. I can relate to this article in several ways. First, I was put in a vocational ed track. To this day, I have no idea how I found my way there. Unlike Brother Clint, who discovered this error, mine went completely unnoticed. I also detest anything that has to with adding numbers. Mike Rose was blessed to have an educator like Jack Macfarland. If this young enthusiastic educator had not intervened, Mike probably would not have reached his full potential. The education which he gave Mike was priceless. Not only did he give Mike a great education, he also saw to it that he continued by getting him into Loyola University. Mike was able to go beyond his invisible boundaries and free himself of a cycle of poverty that plagues those who have not, nor sought education.

My love/hate with Bartholomae

This class has opened my eyes to teaching in a whole new way, which is slightly terrifying.  Before this course, I felt like I could walk into a writing class and kick ass as a writing professor.  Now, I am grappling with theory upon theory and study upon study as what is and will be successful in my class.  I've always had a secret fondness for Bartholmae even though I find him to be a bit too rigid, but I agree with him in his essay, "Inventing the University" that there definitely is an academic voice that the students must write in to be successful in academia.  However, I know that often times this voice stifles the students because they are trying to speak in a way that is foreign to them.  I may not know everything about teaching or how to kick ass as a writing professor like I thought I would, but I do know that when students try to conform their writing too much so it meets their professor's expectations, it comes out like they are trying to speak a foreign language.  The sentences are jumbled, their use of words is often incorrect, and their ideas are skewed and unclear.  I witness this everyday and it pains me to see.  Unfortunately, I was exactly the same as those students when I did my undergrad.  I was completely unconscious of the fact that I wrote like that, and I'm sure if I looked back on my own papers, i would grimace.  Now, I have learned to keep my voice, which is a little sarcastic, painfully organized, not full of extensive vocabulary, long winded sentences and maybe not considered academic, but it's  my voice and I won't change it.  (And if I were to try, it would come across as a jumbled mess).  This is something I want to pass onto my students.  There is a happy medium, no I don't write in slang in my essays but I share my thoughts as I have them.  I have invented my own university and I want to show my students that they can do the same.

Anyways guys, if anyone read that, thanks for this semester.  Probably the most applicable class I've taken here for my future career.  Have a great summer! And to those who are graduating, congratulations!  

Thank You!

I wanted to thank you all for making this class and blog a terrific experience.  I have learned a lot from all of you.

Response to Bartholomae

Bartholomae's article was though to grapple with. I agree with him that there is definitely a style that academics share, but cannot agree with him in terms of methodology or opinion. One of the few things I agree with him on is this: "There is a context beyond the reader that is not the world but a way of talking about the world, a way of talking that determines the use of examples, the possible conclusions, the acceptable commonplaces" (406). I appreciate this sentence in its connection to Bakhtin's theory of multiple discourse, but that's about it. I don't connect with Bartholomae's "us and them" vernacular when talking about students. He claims to want to integrate students into academia right away but insists that there is some level of being able to speak in a certain voice for a certain audience they need to achieve to be able to do so.  I believe in the role of teachers as guides more than changers. I lean more toward Lindemann's view of the writing process whereby students learn through writing often and in several stages. I believe in the individual voice and its ability to convey meaning within an academic structure. Bartholomae makes no mention of voice other than the academic voice, and portrays an elitist point of view of the academy. It seems that there is either a pass or fail in his mind when looking at student writing. I'd rather teach more in the style of Lindemann and Elbow regarding the writing process, but appreciate Bartholomae's concern with multiple discourse.

Response to Bizzell

The Bizzell article really touched on the boundaries of English and Composition. The restructuring of both academic subjects must be done across the board. As defined, the contact zone is a circumscribed in time and space, but with elastic boundaries.” It is my belief that both of these studies (literature and Composition) should go hand in hand. I cannot see how one could study English without either one of these. It would be similar to making a peanut butter sandwich with no jelly or vice versa. Bizzell makes a great argument on organizing genres historically. She gives a great detailed breakdown of her proposal:

For example, the New England region from about 1600 to about 1800 might

be defined as a contact zone in which different groups of Europeans and Native

Americans were struggling for the power to say what had happened in their

relations with each other. Thus canonical Puritan histories, autobiographies, and

captivity narratives would be studied in connection with historical commentaries

and memoirs by non-Puritan Europeans (traditionally treated as "minor"), European

transcriptions of Native American speeches (problematic but invaluable),

and letters, histories, and spiritual autobiographies written by Native Americans

in English (unknown in the academy until very recently). The object would not

be to represent what the lives of the diverse European immigrant and Native

American groups were really like. Rather, the attempt would be to show how each

group represented itself imaginatively in relation to the others. We would, in

effect, be reading all the texts as brought to the contact zone, for the purpose of

communicating across cultural boundaries.

I believe this could work, but I wonder how many years would it take to implement such doctrine across the board?

Bartholomae versus Elbow: My Last Blog Post...Until Next Week

I hear you, David Bartholomae, loud and clear, and in many ways I agree.  But if both you and Peter Elbow were teaching a composition class in one of my son’s schools, I would steer them toward Peter. 

            I agree with you.  Students need to learn the language and the dynamics of writing for the academy – and, as you remind us, writing for teachers who know the subject better than they do.  But, if I thought about this too much, I don’t think that I could write at all.  Both you and Peter Elbow had to start somewhere.  Both of you had to write for professors who knew the subject better than you did, and who recognized all your structural flaws, botched word choice, awkward phrasing, bungled analogies, and mangled metaphors. 

            Both you and Peter see the problems of audience and relate it to “power” (You 407).  Peter says in “Reflections on Academic Discourse” that he loves what’s in academic discourse: learning, intelligence, sophistication, even mere facts and naked summaries of articles and books…but hate[s] academic discourse” The reason for this visceral reaction, he says, is that “discourse carries power” (Peter 55). 

            In the interests of time (I know my audience, and they are busy right now with final papers), I will say this about your essay “Inventing the University”:  Perhaps one of the major flaws of all the essays you analyze for us could be summed up as student-writers trying too hard to write for the academy – to give the English department at this school, professors judging their work, the definitions and examples of creativity that they are expecting.  I don’t know if I am right.  Perhaps not, but when I get papers from my students like these, I don’t ask students to learn and emulate the language of the academy and to “show an awareness of the codes” (You 413), but to reveal more of how they really feel.  Your writers are playing it too safe. 

            Locating oneself in a discourse sounds complicated – and painful.  I think with time we learn how to write for our audience and yet remain true to what we want to say – need to say – for ourselves.  I don’t think Flowers’ writer-based prose must be wrenched from the writer; it must be gently guided and transformed toward prose that meets the needs of both the writer and the reader.

            Like Peter Elbow, “I love to explore and communicate with others through writing” (72), and when exploration and communication are allowed in a classroom, I believe with all my heart, writing grows and writers emerge.  I don’t need anyone to remind me of all the people that write a personal narrative better than I do.  All I need to do is pick up Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings to know that I have a long way to go.  I read good authors and hope it makes a difference.  But when I am writing, I need to forget about everything but what I want to communicate.  And at that moment anything is possible.  My ideas take flight and I feel like an author.  Take that away from me, and I am lost. 

            Where I think we agree, David, is in sensing what is wrong with essays like the “white socks” piece.  For me, it is not that the writer did not acknowledge the others who have done similar acts of creation, but that he didn’t enjoy revealing more of himself, showing his journey, exposing his vulnerability.  The student who wrote about copying music does this – to some degree – making her piece more engaging.  This is what I ask my students to do.  Take down the guard just a little.  Allow yourself to look imperfect – even foolish.  Show how you learned something and are a work in process.  I know that I am.  Even as I am about to get a Master’s degree (I still don’t believe it can be possible), I realize how little I know.  It is in this admission that I have any chance of writing something – or teaching anything – of value. 

            Therefore, I agree with a lot of what you say, David, but I’d rather have Peter teach my sons – and guide me as I teach others.   

research prospectus

For the past few weeks I have immersed myself in articles regarding revision and ESL speakers. A few things have stuck out for me. Firstly, the research I have seen so far has focused mainly on how secondary actors such as writing center tutors, peers in class, and teachers affect the revision process. I have not seen anything so far on how the ESL writers themselves approach the revision process. Also interesting is that most of the research subjects that I have seen are Asian. Very little has been done on Spanish speakers. I am thinking maybe I need to look in the ERIC database, one I have not consulted thus far.

I must admit that the lack of studies about Spanish speakers does surprise me. I suspect that researchers are more interested in English language development in terms of speaking and reading. Perhaps writing is not a priority for them. I am almost tempted to follow through on this thesis project for my Master's, because I believe that helping the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population develop proficiency in writing is vitally important, and frankly I am disappointed that so far the research community has not devoted much attention to it.

Trouble With Narrowing Down my Thesis Prospectus Question

The center of focus for my paper has remained relatively the same, although the overarching question that I want to focus on keeps shifting. I am focusing of the concept of "white privilege", the unearned and often unwanted advantages that white people have over people of color, and how this ideology affects Black students who resist white teachers who teach in urban, low-performing colleges where the majority of the students are Black. The question that keeps popping up in my mind is: How do we prepare White teachers, who choose to teach in this type of educational environment, to be sensitive to the reservations and prejudices that Black students have for White authority figures? Also, how do we assure our Black students that we are learned in the African American literature that we teach since we have not experienced the same hardships that they may have? These are very controversial issues and I have learned so much through the literature that I have been reading. However, I am having trouble narrowing my thesis, and I am also having difficulties in finding gaps in the research that I have read thus far. Any suggestions?

Lindemann's Top Eleven

My Top Eleven Quotes from Erika Lindemann

I hereby apologize for the reductive nature of the assignment I have presented myself.  I really do love this book and find it both extremely useful and inspirational.  As my opportunities for posting to this blog are fast fading, I wanted to consider what will stick with me the most from Lindemann.  I have appreciated many of our other writers this term, but I haven’t written enough about Lindemann; her common sense approach mixed with high ideals is what I want to aim for as a teacher.

1.         “Writing as Knowing” (5)

            Lindemann opens her book by discussing ways in which writing benefits us.  She talks about writing as “economic power,” “social necessity,” and “writing as knowing.”  In this section, she says that “writing also helps us solve problems” (5).  I cannot tell you how many of my own problems I have solved through writing.  (You probably got a taste of that with my last post.)  I have written all kinds of things that have helped me to understand my feelings on various issues.  I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t write.  I want my students to feel the same way. 

2.         “Clearly writing is a messy business, rarely in real life as tidy as textbooks describe it” (23). 

            I am delighted to find someone else that doesn’t see the writing process as perfectly discreet stages of development.  I have felt guilty for far too long.  I love how Lindemann says that we don’t begin at a neat step one, “find a topic” (23), and move to drafting.  When we draft, new ideas emerge.  We can’t and shouldn’t feel obliged to stick to the plan.  Additionally, she notes that “prewriting and writing can occur simultaneously” (23).  Everyone has a different style of development, and while it isn’t a good idea to censor the first draft needlessly by stopping for every issue of word choice or punctuation, if something is glaring at me, I am going to fix it.  And now I do so without shame.

3.         “Prior to about the ninth grade, writing courses should emphasize self-expressive writing, description, simple stories, fairly concrete subject matters” (97). 

            This quote comes from Lindemann’s discussion of Jean Piaget, and those of us who have studied child psychology and educational theory know that you can’t push the abstract concepts and assignments to those just beginning to enter operational thinking.  You can push them gently and lovingly in that direction.  My twelve- and thirteen-year-old students are concrete learners, with occasional inklings of abstract thinking emerging from some.  I have them write from experience all year – and that has made all the difference.  While I am obliged to teach formal essay writing, and do so, the results are bleak unless they also write from experience.  Too many of my colleagues give up experiential writing.  I admire much of what they do, but feel strongly that without personal buy-in from young people who are fairly consumed with themselves, I can achieve very little.

4.         “The teacher must in such lists as this (brainstorming), begin to encourage honesty, to have the student look into himself and into his subject with candor and vigor” (Donald Murray as quoted by Lindemann 112).

            Brainstorming can make a teacher feel good about his/her efforts.  It looks like what we should do; it’s interactive, visual, and altogether quite twenty-first centuryish, but Murray and Lindemann recognize that we need to push our students past clichés and generalizations.  I am keeping this quote close by.

5.         “Journals offer students a place to write without fear of making mistakes or facing criticism for what they have to say” (117). 

            We all know the value of journal writing – this opportunity to write without censor.  After all, we speak, for the most part, without censor.  Why can’t we have a place for writing without fear?  I do read my students’ journals; they love the acknowledgement that their writing is worth my time.  I have followed Dr. Cauthen’s suggestion and told my students to staple pages that they don’t want me to read.  They have, and I have done my best not to peek.

6.         “An outline can force premature decisions and limit options” (138). 

            Outlining can work, but not always.  Sometimes, efforts at parallelism simply defy outlining.  This is why Lindemann recommends “informal written plans” and “chunking” and “blocking” (139).  I am looking forward to trying this approach with my students. 

7.         “Instead of focusing instruction on what paragraphs are, we need to teach students how to discover relationships and express them in units of discourse” (151). 

            At the moment, this chapter on paragraphing is my favorite.  I have done my best to teach students why and how a paragraph comes about and what it ought to signify, but in this chapter, Lindemann makes clear that paragraphing is not a cookie-cutter (to quote Alyssa) operation.  Topic sentences and support are too limiting, and, according to Lindemann, emanate from Aristotle’s ideas of topoi.  Again, Aristotle is misinterpreted and misused. 

8.         “As Donald Murray explains, ‘The writer toys with language, knowing that out of his most irresponsible word play may come his most responsible writing’” (175).

            I love this quote (again Donald Murray) and appreciate this sense of play.  I have felt guilty having my students play with words.  And yet on some primal level (theirs and mine) I know that they need it.  Playing with words is what made me fall in love with writing.  Why would I not give my students the same opportunity?

9.         “To be effective, writing workshops need careful planning” (205). 

            I like her ideas about heterogeneous groupings and guidance in how to give feedback.  Some writing workshops are disasters; when the one’s I have put together don’t work, I know that I didn’t plan them enough.  Learning outcomes and specific goals for given time periods were too nebulous.  Planning is key.

10.       “What do I want the students to do?  Is it worth doing?  Why?” (230).

            I hate busy work.  If work doesn’t fit in with my objectives for students, it has to be thrown out.  This seems simple enough, but I have to keep these questions central to my planning, which is why it made this list.

11.       “Growth in writing is a highly individualistic process that occurs slowly…” (233).

            These words come from Lindemann’s chapter on responding to student writing.  This chapter, of all chapters, changed my thinking this term.  I no longer want to use my comments to justify a grade; I don’t think I was conscious of doing this, but I probably was.  Instead, I want my comments to continue a conversation that began in the planning stages and that will move beyond, as we conference and consider how to revise.  I want students to see writing as a process.  Allowing students to conference with me and revise their work is very difficult; I have close to 200 students, but it is a sacred trust that I must endeavor to fulfill. 

Research Report: Jennifer Seibel Trainor

TITLE:        The Emotional Power of Racism: An Ethnographic Portrait of an All-White High School

AUTHOR:   Jennifer Seibel Trainor

SOURCE:   CCC 60:1, September 2008 (NCTE)

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

Global questions: What are the causes and origins of racism? How does the emotional infrastructure of schooling and institutional practices work against anti-racist pedagogies?

More specifically, the study asks—

(1)   What emotional rules were taught and how were they taught?

(2)   How and when were emotional rules performed and enacted?

(3)   How were they applied and policed across contexts?

(4)   How did emotional learning participate in the development of racial identity, and in the construction of persuasive social beliefs?

ANSWER TO RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

The emotional infrastructure of schooling and institutional practices works against anti-racist pedagogies by encouraging students to respond in the following ways:

(1)   Denial or rationalization of racism (e.g., “They just want to complain.”)

(2)   White victimhood and reverse racism (e.g., Whites are victims of racism too; “only a small number of ‘ignorant’ or ‘redneck’ whites [are] racist.”)

(3)   Bootstrap Theory (“Anybody can make it if they try.”)

(4)   White superiority (Non-whites are biologically and genetically inferior to whites.)

RESEARCH DESIGN:

A one-year qualitative study based on—

(1)   discussions with a high school teacher during her daily planning period;

(2)   interviews of students and administrators;

(3)   observation of students in two classrooms; and

(4)   examination of curricular material and student writing.

KEY RELATED STUDIES:

Abu-Lughod, L., and C. Lutz [the politics of emotion]

Anderson, Virginia [“property rights”]

Boler, Megan [emotions and education in relationship to power]

Cintron, Ralph [an ethnographic study of how emotions affect institutional practices]

Crowley, Sharon [an analysis of the importance of emotions in persuasion, the relationship between whiteness and critical or anti-racist education, and persuasion]

Daniells, B.A. and Lindquist, Julie [some recent examples of nonacademic ethnographic literacy studies]

DeVoss, Daneille Nicole, Ellen Cushman, and Jeffrey T. Grabill [the embedded social arrangements, organization\, and conventions of practice that govern local practices of literacy, i.e., infrastructure]

Foucault, Michel [mentioned but not cited. Trainor states her research methods derive from Foucaultian theories focused on how norms and rules govern public behavior and private perceptions and emotions.]

Gorzelsky, Gwen [the importance of paying attention to emotional processes when changing ideological beliefs]

Jacobs, Dale, and Laura Micciche [rhetorics of emotion]

MacIntosh, Peggy [a representation of white privilege as property, which Trainor disagrees with]

Kates, Susan (quoting Gere) [the short time span between high school seniors and freshmen composition students]

. . . from a total of 29 citations

UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS:

(1)   The “prevailing view of student racism as arising from a need or desire to protect or gain white privilege, or as rooted in ignorance of systemic oppression or lack of exposure to difference” is wrong-headed.

(2)   Educators need to rethink “our curricular and pedagogical responses—multicultural exposure to difference, critical interrogations of whiteness and privilege.”

(3)   We need to do this by examining “the workings of emotion within institutional practice [the ‘infrastructure’], the embedded social arrangements, organization, and conventions of practice that govern local practices of literacy.”

(4)   We also need to pay “attention to the role of individual and collective emotions in the creation of persuasive belief systems.”

SUBJECTS (including how selected):

Students in an all-white high school enrolled in (a) an advanced writing course for college-bound students and (b) a graduation requirement called Introduction to Humanities. The central theme of both courses is “identity, difference, and social justice.”

METHOD OF RESEARCH (including key variables):

A one-year qualitative study based on—

(1)   interviews with a progressive teacher at an all-white high school;

(2)   interviews of administrators;

(3)   observations of classroom interaction;

(4)   interviews of students; and

(5)   examinations of student essays.

MEASUREMENT OR ANALYTIC METHODS:

Qualitative analysis

RESULTS:

(1)   Almost every student essay reflected at least some racist beliefs.

(2)   Many students simultaneously held racist and non-racist beliefs.

(3)   Many of the racist beliefs were based on emotional rules taught both intentionally and unintentionally.

CONCLUSIONS:

(1)   Racist assertions do not always or even often originate in racist attitudes or belief.

(2)   Racist discourses are best understood as psychosocial rhetorical phenomena—forms of persuasion that need to be understood not only for their political meanings and implications but also for their persuasive subjective and affective coherence.

(3)   Racist discourses structure feelings sometimes linked to, but rarely reducible to, the racial politics such discourses forward.

(4)   School scaffolds the emotional frameworks within which racist discourses cohere.

(5)   School itself—its infrastructure—exerts a powerful, but largely unacknowledged, pedagogical and persuasive force.

(6)   Institutional racism is fueled by curriculum and in-school social practices.

IMPLICATIONS:

Educators and researchers need to—

(1)   pay attention to persuasion in antiracist education;

(2)   examine the ways that schools structure the emotional logic that makes racism convincing;

(3)   consider ways to teach different emotional rules;

(4)   change current emotional positions to serve as alternative models for students;

(5)   reconsider the effectiveness of racism-as-property metaphors in anti-racist education when exploring racism with white students.

STRENGTHS OF THE STUDY:

The overarching question is limited to an examination of the emotional infrastructure of the school and its curriculum. The author is careful not to generalize about participants’ levels of racism and shows that some individual students hold more than one view. She cites a large number of references that develop and often support her study’s premises from a variety of perspectives.

CRITIQUE OR LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:

(1)   Trainor mentions outside-of-school factors that create racist views and discourse but fails to give sufficient evidence of their possible effects on the racist school infrastructure.

(2)   Trainor admits many students exhibited both racist and nonracist beliefs but declines to include the latter.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STUDY:

Would there have been a way to analyze the effects of non-school racist beliefs?

Response to Lu

Lu's article on the contact zone is a great accompaniment to the Bizzell article I blogged about last week. She addresses the borderlands of everyday life for students and teachers alike and offers advice about what we should be teaching regarding this issue. I liked the example she used of the handout but was a bit confused as to why she uses it repeatedly in her classroom as I feel there are much better examples out there. Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands is one in particular that I feel illustrates her point a bit better. Lu's article echoes Bakhtin's theory of multiple discourse, which she mentions at one point. I think orienting students first toward this theory and then jumping into contact zone literature would be very helpful. Some of the points I liked in Lu are as follows:

"On the other hand, if the student's decision to reproduce a code results from a process of negotiation, then she would have examined the conflict between the codes of Standard English and other discourses. And she would have deliberated not only on the social power of these colliding discourses but also on who she was, is, and aspires to be when making this decision. If the occasion arises in the future when she experiences difficulty in reproducing a particular code, as it very likely will, her reaction may be much more positive and constructive" (455).

Here she illustrates the importance of viewing pieces of literature as containing negotiations of power. If students approach literature this way, they will be more likely to take all sides and points of view into consideration, a very positive thing. Lu states, "How to voice and talk to rather than speaking for or about the voices of the 'other' within and among cultures is thus not a question which can be resolved prior to or outside of the process of negotiation" (456). This is true, and if we could work toward making the writing and literature classroom a more open place for negotiations between voices, I believe this would carry over into students' everyday lives and prejudices would be lessened.

Now Let Us Pray

            In reading Shannon Carter’s fascinating discussion of “Living Inside the Bible (Belt)," I found myself remembering a time in my life, not so very long ago, when I was confronted with similar challenges.  Not identical but similar. 

            My husband received a job offer to teach a photography course at a liberal arts college in Chicago (that will remain nameless).  He was led to believe it might result in a permanent position.  He is a freelance photographer, and the promise of regular work was tempting -- so tempting, in fact, that we picked up and moved.  It was temporary, we told ourselves, an adventure, and an opportunity to find out if we liked Chicago, and if a still life photographer could make a better living there than here.  In the downturns of the economy, we had sold our house the year before, in order to put our sons through college.  I am happy to say that I had the presence of mind to take a leave of absence from my current teaching position. 

            I will not bore you with the sorted details of our sojourn in Chicago.  Besides, I am not sure that this blog was designed with this in mind.  (I promise, Dr. Cauthen, that I will bring this around to Carter’s essay.)  I will only say this about Chicago:  It is a good city.  But it is not my city.  I did not like the relative state of segregation we found there.  No one smiled at the local Whole Foods Market.  The movers stole their tip out of my wallet.  We couldn’t afford most of the restaurants.  And we don’t like deep dish pizza. 

            We had been advised to rent a house in a suburb, that will also remain nameless, but that brings to mind The Stepford Wives.  No one returned our smiles or “good morning” on walks.  And when inquiring about a book club at the local bookstore, I found myself being interviewed and carefully warned that their club read real books; they weren’t sure that I would like it.  The photography department at this college told my husband that he must teach all of his classes with portraiture, and as a still-life photographer, he found all this very, very strange.  We lived near a train station, and the lonely sound of the trains and the serious-suited men and women that got on and off each day reminding me of a couple of movies from the 1950s:  The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit and Executive Suite.  (Almost everything reminds me of a movie.)  We were lonely and depressed. 

            And then the blizzards began.  One after another.  Someone told us that it was the worst winter they’d had since 1969.  It must have been.  I resisted buying warmer clothes as long as I could, because I knew we were going back. 

            On December 23^rd we were fired.  It was a sad Christmas with a $5.00 tree from Lowe’s.

            Our journey back to Los Angeles began soon after.  We rented a 14 foot Penske truck.  It wasn’t large enough, so we ended up renting an additional one – a 12 footer, which my son would drive.  Filling our trucks and our minivan with everything we could, we still had to leave many of our belongings behind. 

            Okay, now begins the part of this experience that correlates with Carter’s essay:  As we drove across country, stuck for a while, due to a blackout blizzard in a Motel 6 in Vega, Texas, we listened to hours upon hours of the radio – all of us caravanning in our separate vehicles.  (In full disclosure, I was not alone.  I traveled with two cats who wandered the van freely.)  The radio from Missouri to Arizona is predominantly Christian.  There is Christian rock, Christian country, Christian pop, Christian hip hop, Christian metal (but not death metal), Christian news, Christian advice, and of course Christian sermons.

            My parents were New York actors.  We learned skepticism and irony.  Neither of them imparted any belief systems on my sister and me beyond Shakespeare.   Their rigidity now reminds me of the extreme professors that Carter writes about, who intolerantly dismiss the Christian students’ belief systems. 

            Anyway, after the coldness, literally and figuratively, with which we were met in Chicago, I am sure that I was vulnerable.  I listened to all the Christian radio with tears streaming down my face.  Too much snow, perhaps, and too much bad news.  When we drove through the Texas panhandle, however, I was shocked at the anti-Obama billboards.  The negativity of some of this religious content was frightening.

            Finally, our Grapes of Wrath journey was over.  We drove into Los Angeles and almost kissed the ground.  Moving into our apartment, however, we realized that we had little time in which to find work or cash.  I had a teaching position for the fall, but that was six months away.  Extremely motivated, to say the least, I immediately found a Craig’s List posting for a private school in Torrance in need of a long-term sub.  I called and had an appointment that same day.  As I parked, I found myself staring at a cross in front of a small residential Christian school.  This was no problem; I was open, willing, and quite desperate for work. 

            It was a little odd, though, considering the many hours I had just heard of Christian radio.  I wondered, briefly, if it was a sign.

            Ushered into the principal’s office, I was greeted with a smile, sustained eye contact, and a few questions about my teaching style.  Everything that I said seemed to thrill and delight her.  When she summoned her assistant, I knew I had a chance.  “Let’s see what the Lord says about this,” was the principal’s next utterance.  I followed what was quickly unfolding, and found myself on my knees with them, holding hands.  The prayer that would seal my current economic fate lasted several minutes.  There was part of me that wanted to giggle; I am not as mature as I look.  Another part of me thought that maybe this whole experience was a sign.  This was where I was supposed to be.

            Naturally, I got the job, replacing a good Christian moving to Las Vegas to work in a casino.  I would be teaching all of the middle school’s language arts classes.  No problem.  I felt fairly confident in what I could offer there. 

            The first day of work, everyone stopped to tell me how blessed they were to have me.  I liked this.  It was quite different from the coolness of our Chicago reception – the college and the homogeneous suburb. 

            The day began here with prayers on the blacktop.  No problem.  Remember that I had heard quite a few prayers on Route 66.  I had made a few nondenominational ones of my own as I left Chicago behind.  I had this.  It would be fine.  What surprised me, however, was that the prayers were for things like the students winning the next soccer game or that the school’s fundraiser would go well.  This was about the time of the tsunamis in Japan, and our prayers never seemed to cover this part of the world. 

            On my second day of work, word was out that I was a great teacher.  I think this was due to the following signs of brilliant teaching pedagogy:  I showing up on time and didn’t put on a DVD from the large stack of Christian-themed films.  With earnest eyes and excitement, the principal invited me to teach the Bible Studies classes.  Keep in mind my background here; no church ever – until I met my husband and we shopped a bit and dabbled.  My protestations that I was not qualified were perceived as reverence and humility.  I was stuck.  I rushed to Barnes and Nobles and bought the contemporary Bible and a Bible for Dummies. 

            The first day of my Bible Studies class, I sat on the table, leaned forward carefully, and said that this would be a Bible Study class like none they ever had.  “Students,” I proclaimed, “it will be you teaching me. You will lead discussions.  You will frame our lessons.  I am your student."  Again, I was the talk of the teacher’s lounge.  “Students are so excited by your way of teaching!” No one ever questioned my Biblical knowledge.  When discussing the Fruits of the Spirit, for example, my rhetorical questioning invited discussions and ultimately, what I know best, theatre.  “Find a way to bring these virtues to everyone!”  I demanded. Short plays were written and performed.

            Now, those of you who have stuck with my post (saga) this long are waiting to find how the hell I am going to tie this in to Carter’s essay.  I have only one response:

            RHETORICAL DEXTERITY! (Carter 574). 

            The strangest thing happened.  First I was overwhelmed, baffled, questioning how I found myself in this strange position.  Then, I wondered if it was a sign.  I had been through so much.  Perhaps, this was meant to be.  When, however, I realized the lack of Christian charity toward the suffering of others in our prayers each morning, I was disenchanted. 

            Yet, with time, I began to see that these people were doing the best that they could.  I was holding them up to higher standards, more difficult litmus tests than I should have.  I grew to love these students quite fully – for themselves – imperfect in all the same ways that all students are, and that I was. 

            I like to think that I expanded these students’ thinking.  I know that they expanded mine.  I had to cultivate an approach and learn to “effectively read, understand, manipulate, and negotiate the cultural and linguistic codes of a new community of practice" (Lave and Wenger, quoted by Carter 574), and through this, I have a far better understanding of what this is like.

            In the fall, I returned to my school district, but a new school with predominantly Asian students. A large number of these students are from Korea.  These students are often Christian, and I like to think that the five months that I spent in the Christian school has helped me to guide these students toward openness to others and toward rhetorical dexterity.  As these students write and discuss literature, I gently guide them toward thinking about how their belief system informs their choices – even writing choices.  As I work in the public school system, I tread lightly and carefully, but I know that I cannot ignore my students’ faith(s).  All I can ask them to do is to deliberately, consciously, and thoughtfully consider how their beliefs inform their work.  How do they navigate a classroom, school, and community that may or may not mirror those beliefs? 

            After reading this article, I am more aware than ever that rhetorical dexterity for all of us is critical.  Now let us pray.