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.

Reflection on Cauthen's "Methods and Pretexts"

Well, this was a first, the first time I really wanted to continue with a class mandated reading. Cauthen’s excerpt left me wanting to learn more about his law school subjects. I wanted to see samples of their writing, their professors’ comments on said writing, and what types of assertions were gleaned from this ethnographic study. With that said, the second chapter did provide a broad based introduction into what this study was trying to accomplish. Perhaps it is the voyeur in me, but I like to read the descriptions that observers feel are noteworthy to document; I always wonder how similar or different my notations would be if I was given access to that exact same situation. Of particular interest, was the connection between women in law school to words like “open aggression” and “hostile environment” (42-43). In addition, so was the insight into wardrobe choices and the gendered implications of such in the courtroom (44). Given the amount of the reading I was currently privy to, the most fascinating part of this chapter was Dr. Cauthen’s up front description of where he placed himself politically and philosophically. I know that he has verbalized this “up front” approach before, but it was the first time I actually saw this technique used in the context of an academic text. This is a very brave rhetorical inclusion, and I am still thinking about how the inclusion of such information impacts the readers’ final analysis of the study.

Trainor: The Emotioned Power of Racism

This ethnographic study provided some disheartening observations.  Growing up in North Orange County at a predominantly white, upper middle class, wealthy high school, I related a lot to what Trainor observed at Laurel Canyon.  Yes, my school was more diverse, greatschools.org shows that my high school is 65% white and I had friends of other ethnicities, but we were taught, similar to the students at Laurel Canyon that our destiny was in our own hands if we maintained the right attitude.  I never really thought about much about this because I knew I would get a college degree and work in education since my mom married into some money and we were able to stay in this prestigious district (based on city of residence).  I never really thought about all those students that didn't have those opportunities due to financial difficulties or different backgrounds until I worked at a community college.  We had money ever since I was seven (when my mother remarried) and my stepfather was highly educated and I was conditioned to believe that if I worked just as hard as he did, I too would be successful.

Trainor states, "Students internalized these emotioned rules and put them to unintended, and sometimes racist, uses.  For example, for students whites were seen as having an appropriately instrumental view of life; they understood the importance of tests, learning how to write, doing well in school, whereas people of color, in students' estimation seemed not to understand the connection between hard work and a good attitude" (97). As embarrassing as it is for me to admit, I think I fell into this as a high school and college student.  Never would I call myself racist, but I was emotionally conditioned like the students Trainor is observing.

What I take from this study is that as hard as it may be, as teachers, we need to step outside of what the school's M.O. may be, similar to Elizabeth who was stated to have too much passion.  We need to be aware of emotional education and be diligent in not promoting such close mindedness.  Why do people feel what they feel and how can we guide this are questions we should be answering.

Repost of March 25 Research Report - Mike Rose

Either I failed to post this correctly the first time, or it dropped out for some reason. 

 TITLE: “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language:  A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block

AUTHOR: Mike Rose

SOURCE: College Composition and Communication 31(4) (1980): 389-401

RESEARCH QUESTION(S):  1) Why do some students experience writer’s block when others do not? 2) Does the way that students learn to write contribute to writer’s block or the lack thereof? 3) How does overly rule-based and/or formulaic writing instruction effect a student’s writing process?

ANSWER TO RESEARCH QUESTIONS:  1) Writer’s block can occur for many reasons, but this study only explores how the impact of learned writing strategies or styles affect the potential for this phenomenon. 2) Yes, students who learned to write from a more proscriptive writing background had composition strategies that inhibited their writing processes which could contribute to writer’s block. 3) The learning of certain heuristic rules and plans can affect the problem solving process. For example, if a student is having difficulty writing the introduction to a composition, she/he may fall back on a rule like “Always Grab Your Audience” strategy, which in turn, because of its creative demands, can further inhibit the creation of an introduction.  

RESEARCH DESIGN:  Case study including talk aloud protocols.

KEY RELATED STUDIES:  Builds on previous studies of the effects of rules and plans on the cognitive process of writing including Flowers and Hayes”Plans and the

Cognitive Process of Writing,” 1981.

UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS:  That students who experience writer’s block do so because of how they were taught to write a composition.

SUBJECTS: Ten UCLA students from a variety of disciplines, attitudes, GPAs, and socio-economic backgrounds who were competent writers and had courses that required writing assignments.

METHOD OF RESEARCH:  One to three interviews with each student with questions based on observations of her/his notes, drafts, and the compositions completed.

MEASUREMENT OR ANALYTIC METHODS:  The difference between the students who experienced writer’s block and those who do not.

RESULTS: Students who struggle with writer’s block have understood and/or interpreted various writing approaches as rigidly set “rules” that impedes rather than facilitates the composition process.

CONCLUSIONS:  Students who try to compose based on a strict type of composition rubric will have difficulty, and even disdain, for the composing process.

IMPLICATIONS:  Instructors should offer students a variety of writing techniques and not be so inflexible as to form. Students who have received a rigidly set composition pedagogy need to be “rehabed” into more flexible, natural ways of writing.

STRENGTHS OF THE STUDY: Provides an interesting insight into what student’s feel when they try to write. Highlights “writer’s block” and its relation to how students learned to write.

CRITIQUE OR LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:  The highlighting of writer’s block as it relates to prior instruction. Although an interesting idea to explore because it is also listed as a strength, it is obvious that so many other issues (physical and mental health, current environmental stressors, etc.) can affect the writing process too.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STUDY:

Research Paper: Heffernan/Lewison

TITLE:  Rewriting Writers Workshop: Creating Safe Spaces for Disruptive Stories

AUTHOR: Lee Heffernan/ Mitizi Lewison

SOURCE: Research in the Teaching of English Vol. 42

RESEARCH QUESTION(S):  What are we trying to find out?

What did we find out? 1) How does having children write about bullying help them solve their differences?

ANSWER TO RESEARCH QUESTIONS: 1) By the end of the study, children became more civil towards one another and shared how they hoped that their books would make the school as a whole, a better place.

RESEARCH DESIGN:  What type of research (case study, survey, quantitative methods, etc.)   Survey of 19 students plus one teacher

KEY RELATED STUDIES:  What’s been done sort of like this? What theoretical work does the author draw upon?

UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS:  That having children write about bullying experiences can help with many of the problems they face.

SUBJECTS (including how selected): Who are we getting the data from?

3^rd Graders: 12 boys, 7 girls and teacher. Five students, all boys, required special ed services. Two were Asian and the rest were of European ancestry. They were in a Midwestern community.

METHOD OF RESEARCH (including key variables):  What exactly do we do to get the data? Each issue that the students face are grouped into categories. Child-authored books written during the 1999-2000 school year by Lee’s 3^rd grade class were examined. Field notes, student notebook entries, and student interviews.

RESULTS: What’s the main (condensed) drift of the data?

Bullying actions, reactions, role of the adult characters,and protagonist agency

CONCLUSIONS:  What conclusions can we draw from the data?

Physical violence is more prevalent in boys. Girls portrayed verbal abuse 57% of the bullying incidents.

IMPLICATIONS:  What should we research now, and how should we change our teaching now, based on these findings?

We should see how this study works in an urban setting, and also get more involved both as educators and parents about bullying.

STRENGTHS OF THE STUDY:

Consistent involvement of the children and the open forum used to analyze how the power structure of the 3^rd grade class hierarchy is viewed.

CRITIQUE OR LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY: 

Only studied one class

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STUDY:

Could this study be conducted in all grade levels K-12? Would the same issues the children faced be any different in an urban setting?

Response to Trainor

This was an interesting article. For me, being a black man, (I prefer this description) I try to see all sides. These “privileged” children are far removed the racial tensions of the 50’s and 60’s. So am I for that matter, but I can see why they would think of Angelou’s piece as being whiny. The author of this piece says she grew up in a mostly white, small Midwestern town. The students are unaware that Angelou grew up in a time where this country was divided by racial lines. These students come from two parent homes, neatly manicured lawns, and the only real thing that they have to worry about is missing soccer practice. I never knew there was such a thing as something called “whiteness studies”. That was an interesting phrase. In mostly all white schools, the faculty seems to tell their students to do all of the right things to succeed:

“For example, teachers, coaches, and administrators emphasized

to students the importance of a positive attitude in sports, social life,

and academic endeavors. Much of the infrastructure at Laurel Canyons supported,

and even necessitated, this emphasis, as I show below. As a result, students

often told each other to “look on the bright side” or “keep a good attitude,”

and they often interpreted literature so that it too taught the power of positive

thinking. When they read a text like Angelou’s, they praised Angelou for her

positive attitude and condemned those passages in the book where Angelou

critiques racism. In those passages, students felt Angelou was overly negative.”

In my school, no such advice was ever offered. I enjoyed reading how the students felt about blacks and their culture. Still, it was a little difficult to find exactly what Trainor was trying to accomplish with this article. Is she trying to establish that racism is taught in both school and home?

The Core of a Teaching Philosophy

I wrote one in 2008 as an undergraduate, and it seemed pretty good at the time: two single-spaced pages neatly divided into philosophy and methods. It was dedicated to writing and mainly aimed at a community college student population. It doesn’t help a lot with this current task. I have so much more to say now. Writing a teaching philosophy for adult ESL is much harder. I find myself getting bogged down in the practical skills involved, which only include writing—and not just composition, but phonemic and morphological awareness and even the alphabet and the English system of spelling. So far I have left out grammar and pronunciation—two big issues in the ESL world.

Last night, after I had finally put together one more draft, I asked my partner to take a look at it. I rarely ask her to read my writing because she reads fine print all day at work and, to be honest, doesn’t seem particularly interested in reading my stuff. I was surprised when she agreed to do it. I explained the parameters and gave her Dr. Cauthen’s informational handout, my paper, and a pencil. She’s a contracts attorney, so I knew I’d get some practical organizational notes like, “What do you mean here?” and “Why don’t you put this there?”—the sort of feedback you’d expect from someone who analyzes contracts for a living. (Do you know that people have philosophies about contracts? Yes. And they can get pretty emotional about them too.)

She generously spent an hour and penciling questions and suggestions—mostly about making sure I had discrete sections for objectives, methodology, etc. Until I read her notes, I was feeling pretty happy. Maybe with a few nips and tucks, I could put this baby to bed. Unfortunately, her comments left me in an even bigger quandary: Does this bit go under objectives or methods or something else? How do I connect the two? It still wasn’t coming together. My paper’s problems were even bigger than I had thought.

Back at the computer, I was muttering over the keyboard when she came in and said [I paraphrase], “Do you know how we judge people’s singing on the technical stuff but what it really boils down to is heart? Well, I think that applies to your teaching philosophy. I’ve heard you talk with such passion about teaching ESL, and I’d like to see that in your paper. That’s what people want to know about because it tells them who you are.”

Well, I was grateful for this piece of wisdom, and it helped—especially for the opening. It meant adding an introductory “Background” section, which is starting to shape up like a hook that I’m kind of pleased with. Now the hard work starts: how to talk about objectives and tie it in with methods without sounding too clinical? So this is where I am on the teaching philosophy. Anybody else having issues?

The Twelve Readers' Responses (and a partridge in a pear tree)

Maybe it’s just me, but I preferred the responses to “The Twelve Readers” by our class over the ones created by the “professionals” – White, Stewart, Anson, and Gere (Richard?). Since I commented upon “The Four Seasons,” that was the selection commentary I was most interested in comparing. Except for Gere, all three responders made comments regarding tone or word choice and White even compares his phrases to a “greeting card.” I am very sensitive to these types of comments (yes, I received similar comments during my undergrad years) and I think that discussions about clichéd phrasing need to be contextualized and thoroughly explained or the writer, like I once felt, may feel that he or she is a cliché, rather than some of the wording he or she used. I remember one time I received a “cliché” comment on a paper and I had no clue that it was a cliché. I thought I had created it. How does one learn what the popular clichés are and how long does it take to learn them so you don’t use them? Also, I know tone is important when writing, but the tone shift in David’s paper was so subtle that I feel it was hardly worth mentioning. Stewart’s 1.5 page commentary manifesto is just plain ridiculous. His points are salient, but it was way too much. I like how after one page of commentary text he then says he won’t “go into excessive detail.” Keep in mind that I know David was described as an overly cocky student, who may suffer from the thought that every word he writes is stellar and there is no doubt he needs some clarification, but I don’t like the tone of some of the responders. It was cheeky and pedantic.

Thoughts on Dr. Cauthen's Paper

Let me preface that I have only read the first part of the chapter "Male As A Second Language" First of all, thank you Dr. Cauthen for using language in your writing that is accessible. I really enjoyed reading your work, and I can relate to it as well. I went to law school for 2 1/2 years. I did not go to a big Ivy League school like Harvard or Yale. I went to a small, private law school in Long Beach. The name of the school is Pacific Coast University School of Law. At the time that I attended, the school had not yet become accredited. As a result, after the first year of classes, students were required to take a "Baby Bar" exam, given by the State Bar Association. I took the exam three times and did not pass. When I had my professors examine my essay's, they could not understand why the State Bar graded them so low. I was allowed to continue on with my second year of school as long as I kept trying to pass the exam. I was even allowed to begin my third year upon the Dean's approval. At the time, I was also working as a paralegal in a bankruptcy law firm; surrounded by lawyer's on a daily basis. I started to think that the State Bar was failing certain students based upon age, gender, etc. I'm still not convinced that they weren't doing just that. Half way into my third year, I decided that I really didn't want to become an attorney. Working with them all day long and seeing the amount of stress and the number of hours that they worked was very unappealing to me. I dropped out of law school.

I can totally relate to Dr. Cauthen's arguments that law schools are genderized and not always female friendly. I also agree with the ways in which law school changes your personality and life perspectives. I was one of those "women who expressed liberal or feminist views, or were simply outspoken" (43). I think that because our school was so small and private, the number of female to male students and professors was pretty equal; unlike those at Harvard and Yale. These is no space within the law classroom for personal opinions or emotions. If you become passionate about a topic and start speaking in language other than legalese, you are quickly shot down and told to state the facts only and never ask "what-if." Law school requires that you learn an entirely new language, a new way of studying, and a strict set of standards that dictate human behavior. I remember on my first day of class, the dean of the school, Prof. Lewis gave a two hour lecture about how our roles as people had shifted from 'citizens' to 'officers of the courts' and that we were now being held to a much higher standard in our ways of thinking and behaving. Decorum, decorum, decorum, ad nauseum! We should avoid drinking too much and we should never do drugs. We should be highly selective with who we spent our time with. He told us that if we were married or in a relationship that we might as well say goodbye to our loved one's now because the relationship was doomed to fail since we had given over our entire lives to the world of law. This is evident in what Dr. Cauthen calls "disciplinary isolation...the moral boundaries between the private individual and the public individual" (43).

 The study of law is very aggressive and antagonistic. I had graduated from UCI with a BA in English, where I was taught how to read effectively and write 10-12 page essays in an organized and efficient manner. In law school, you read a case, anywhere from 2-3 pages to 50-75 pages or longer and then you had to write a brief. Brief is the operative word in law school. My briefs were 5-6 pages long when they should have been 1-2 pages long. There was no place for words such as fair and compassionate. Only the most relevant facts are permissible to determine guilt or innocence, liability or no liability, etc. In quoting Worden, Dr. Cauthen makes this distinction with this quote: "The implicit (and sometimes explicit) message is not only that 'male voice' reasoning is a superior form of expression and understanding, but that anything else is not even communicative" (45). Dr. Cauthen goes on to say "When this is combined with the legal tendency toward very precise, very literal definitions of terms with moral valances (Foster, "Antigones" 244), we are left with a vision of law school as a closed, mathematical system, in which proper procedures lead impersonally to correct answers" (45-46). The study of law clearly enforces the end result of product and not process. There is no such thing as group work in law school. Students compete against one another rather than collaborating and working together, law students develop a very low tolerance for what they consider ignorance, and it's inevitable that you begin to debate every issue with your friends and family members to the point that you completely alienate yourself from everyone. I love the quote by Karl Llewellyn (who may be quoting Goodrich) on page 48; it resonates so truly what occurs to a first-year law school student! It's too long to add to this too long blog, but basically what it says is that first-year law students are stripped of all humanity and turned into fighting robots. Well done Dr. Cauthen, you couldn't have said it better.

Trainor’s “The Emotioned Power...”

About ¾ into Trainor’s “The Emotioned Power...” the only things I was getting from the article was gratitude, such as geographic gratitude, the fact that I will probably never teach at a 97% white classroom in my career. But later on in her article, her main points finally seemed to come together. This particular school was hell bent on sublimating the message of “rugged individualism,” an ideology that is purported by some to be racist in itself. It creates a discourse that subsumes the necessary mechanics of critical thought: the dialectic, passionate debate, questioning of the norm and so on.  Instead, these are the components of creating “chaos,” which is disapproved of by the teaching staff.  It is, perhaps, an unintentional sublimated outcome that seems to feed upon itself. Trainor doesn’t give us any answers, but her call to action to find a way to have an awareness of what “emotioned rules” we  may teach through is important one to think about.

research report Carter

TITLE: Living inside the Bible (Belt)

AUTHOR: Shannon Carter

SOURCE: College English, 69.6 (Jul., 2007) 572-595

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:  

Can the pedagogical method of rhetorical dexterity help students use literacies that characterize their community of practice to achieve literacy in the Academy?

ANSWER TO RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

The method of rhetorical dexterity helps students to use literacies familiar to them  become literate in the university setting.

RESEARCH DESIGN:

Teacher Research/Case study

KEY RELATED STUDIES: 

Amy Goodburn, Priscilla Perkins, and Lizabeth Rand on similarities between criticial positions of academia and evangelical Christians

James Paul Gee, Brian V. Street research  on the New Literacies and the nature of literacy

Lave and Wenger’s work on situated learning

Kintz’s work regarding conservative Christians

Vander Lei’s work on Religious faith in composition classrooms.

UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS: 

1) There are different varieties of literacies.

2) Literacy is a situational, social phenomenon.

3) One type of literacy is no better than another.

SUBJECTS (including how selected):

Kenishia, a Pentecostal student in Carter’s basic writing class.

METHOD OF RESEARCH (including key variables):  Teacher feedback given on the student's draft and face to face conferences.

MEASUREMENT OR ANALYTIC METHODS: Teacher comments on the subject's written drafts and face to face conferences with the student.

RESULTS: The student was able to write papers that helped her to examine the literacy of her Pentecostal community and communicate the norms of that community of practice effectively in an academic setting.

CONCLUSIONS: The method of rhetorical dexterity helped the student use the literacy of her community of practice to better master the literacy expectations of the academy.

IMPLICATIONS:

Teachers should use the pedagogy of rhetorical dexterity to help students who belong to communities of practice unrelated to the academy to use literacies familiar to them to develop literacy that is expected by the academy.

STRENGTHS OF THE STUDY:

1) Study provides extensive data about the subject.

2) The researcher is forthcoming about her own biases.

CRITIQUE OR LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY: 

Researcher only does a case study of one student. Categories for measurement or analysis lack definition and precision.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STUDY: Could this methodology be applied to other Christian groups, other religious groups? Could this work for groups not based on religion? (i.e. cultural or political groups)

Trainor's "The Emotional Power of Racism: An Ethnographic Portrait of an All-White High School"

Look on The Bright Side!

            Jennifer Seibel Trainor’s 2008 essay “The Emotional Power of Racism: An Ethnographic Portrait of an All-White High School” is a valuable one.  It took a while for her to get going.  She seemed to spend so much time “defining terms” (as Plato and Aristotle might have had her do), that I thought we would never get to the study itself.  The points she makes for us, as educators, are valuable ones.  They go a long for me in explaining some of the reluctance and/or disconnects I have experienced from my students toward texts that I have brought to class.  This is why I have learned to build in LOTS of prior knowledge and prior experience. (This sounds like so much middle-school pedagogical propaganda, but it is actually essential that we do this.)

            Trainor’s major premises are based on the works of others.  She opens up with Ralph Cintron’s Angels’ Town: Chero Ways, Gang Life, and Rhetorics of the Everyday. I am wondering if any of you, my esteemed colleagues and friends, have read his works.  I am embarrassed to say that I haven’t.  She also mentions the work of Sharon Crowley, who I was exposed to in the teacher credentialing program.  I like her a lot. 

            I am intrigued with how Trainor situates racist discourse in a larger framework:  racist remarks function metaphorically and are often connected with social issues and issues of infrastructure, which we all know exert a great deal of power.  It takes a while for Trainor to explain what she means.  So often, we see racism as the result of the dominant power attempting to hold on to this power.  We also see racism as the product of ignorance.  I am not yet convinced that these causes do not play enormous roles here.  But what Trainor means, I think, is that racism has a social component, as well.  Schools, she argues, are institutions that have visible and invisible practices that work against what many of us are trying to accomplish in the classroom. 

            For too long, we have seen emotions as emanating from and operating on individuals.  We almost always consider emotions as quite separate from the realm of rational thinking.  Both of these preconceived, closely-held notions are toppled quite completely in this essay.  Trainor asks us to see emotions as occurring on a public stage, where the social and the personal are connected.  For some reason, this reminds me of Judith Butler’s ideas about the performative.  Am I crazy? Probably.  In terms of reason, we should begin to see it as far more entwined with emotions than we may have ever imagined.  Logos, then, and pathos are not discreet areas of rhetoric after all. 

            As a middle-school teacher, I know firsthand that jingoistic slogans of positivisms abound.  I have been slightly annoyed by them from time to time, but I have truthfully never considered how damaging they can be.  To see Maya Angelou as whining is almost amusing.  The students in this study are so far from understanding the beauty and the inherent optimism of I know Why the Caged Birds Sing – or any of her works.  I can only begin to understand how this teacher, “Elizabeth,” must have felt. 

            And yet…I would love to find out how Elizabeth set up this novel.  How did she build in prior knowledge and prior experience?  This is missing from this extremely valuable essay.  I love the hybrid form of the essay – the mixing of ethnographic work with essay-writing (some of which is narrative, some informational).  And I can relate to some of the findings.  All students have blind spots for “the other.”  But I do feel that how Angelou’s powerful novel was set up for these students was missing.  Without this piece, I don’t quite know what to think.

            The students that I work with are predominately Asian.  I work with students from Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, and Vietnam.  Many of these students were born in the United States, but still more were born in these Asian countries.  I also teach a number of students from Africa – Nigeria to be specific.  Most of my students are good students, but frequently want to find the quickest way to a good grade.  They are less open than I had initially hoped to understanding the struggles of other peoples – indigenous Americans and African-Americans.  With time, these students and the white students in my classes can and do learn to develop empathy.  I use a lot of video, photographs, poems, discussions, and journal writings before we read ANYTHING.  When I shortcut these steps, my readings fall flat.  I have learned to spend more time than I think I need building this prior knowledge. 

            And while all American schools seem to rally around the sports cry of STAY POSITIVE, we can deconstruct the negative/positive binary quite a bit.  It takes times.  And a sense of humor.

            I do not mean to belittle this essay.  Most likely, Elizabeth DID build in this prior knowledge.  She sounds like a thoughtful and bright teacher that I could learn a lot from.  I just want to know how she presented this beautiful novel.  I read a good chunk of it to my middle-schoolers, and they were visibly moved.  Is her population that much different from mine? 

            Friday, I plan to tackle more of this important essay.  I know that I haven’t done it justice.