Response to Lyons and Stromberg

Narratives

This week's readings made me think about different kinds of literacy. From quilts, to bow ties, to spoken word, to academic writing, to journal writing, to body language, to music videos...they all have a space in my idea of literacy. Stromberg's piece, however, brings up Kenneth Burke's parlor example, this idea of equal access and how rhetoric (traditional notions of it) creates a hierarchy that denies people who may be familiar other literacies. So, those who are a part of the larger narrative don't worry about people and things that do not impact their own lives. Stromberg maps out a definition for rhetoric that binds the book as he defines "rhetoric as the use of language and other forms of symbolic action to produce texts ...that affect changes in the attitudes, beliefs, or actions of an audience" (4). So, rhetoric becomes an art that allows Native Americans to name themselves, to be at the table that creates knowledge and has a say so in knowledge dissemination and persuasion. Stromberg's piece sets up an introduction that seems to work for a book that will not only give agency to Native Americans, but allow the creation and negotiation of a narrative that is grounded in Native American rhetorical traditions, traditions that have been around for hundreds of years, but have been denied access.

Lyon's piece echoes Stromberg's introduction as he gets more into this idea of narrative in his article "A Captivity Narrative: Indians, Mixedbloods, and 'White' Academe." He notes that Native Americans are "both sides of the story. They are the story" which speaks to the history of America and how one can be "the story," but not be acknowledged as a part of that larger fabric. I really like Lyon's piece because it is a narrative...he models what he speaks about, infusing multiple identities into his writing. The narrative that he provides about his experience teaching in North Dakota brings up questions of rhetoric and power. The name of the school mascot, this idea of wanting to fight to remove the name, and then this notion of safety if one decides to speak out against cruelty. So, again, we have this question of who is "in the parlor" or at the table? Lyons notes that their has to be a space to "bring the reservation into the classroom and historize Indianness, while at the same time examining nuances of mixblood captivities" (107). He is right because these "safe houses" (Pratt) are places where histories can be analyzed in real, and dynamic ways.

The readings for this week reaffirmed for me the importance of narratives because I view them, like Lyons, as "stories of hope" (88). Thinking about the how "every time we speak or write, the history of contact is quietly (or not so quietly) stirring," I am reminded that it is important to recognize the history in narrative and narrative form (89). It is imperative that when looking to a film or music video, we understand the context and the implicit and explicit messages that are being transmitted. Rhetoric as language consciously used to convey a point, then, becomes even more important as it continues to inscribe history and name...thus, we have to constantly be cognizant of history, how a mascot's name may be demeaning our existence.

Response to Swearingen/Mao and Lunsford

My Experience


When I started teaching freshman composition in the Fall of 2008, I knew that I was entering into a contact zone because I was one, teaching for first time, and two, I was teaching students from a completely different region, culture and background than my own. Although the term contact zone was not the language that I used to describe my experience, that is exactly what it was (and what it continues to be). I think that my most interesting teaching moment that semester had to do with my use of Toni Cade Bambara’s piece “Ice” and a discussion about poverty in the US in relation to MTV’s show, “Cribs.”

“Ice” is told from a child’s perspective and the child narrates a life of poverty, racism, and ageism that she sees in her community. My students did not like “Ice.” They did not really see the point of a child talking about community and her experience. I tried helping them along by writing and reflecting about the story, by analyzing it … that seemed to help a bit. Juxtaposed with “Ice,” we watched several clips of the MTV show, “Cribs.” We talked about the idea of community, how it is portrayed (or not portrayed) on “Cribs” and what should or could be alternatives to showing truth in the media (and we had a conversation about what constitutes truth). Most students identified that “Cribs” portrays the wealthiest houses and niceties of celebrity life because it is marketable; it’s what audiences want to see. For the official writing assignment, I asked students to recreate a scene of “Cribs” using the information that we visited about community and what it means. I had to push students to really go beyond what they saw in the media to research and find information about a celebrity on “Cribs” (or one they wanted to see on the show) to recreate an episode that shows a more realistic side of that person and their community. I also asked them to talk about how concepts learned in “Ice” relate to their episode.

After reading all of the papers, I realized that most of my students did not make the connection that I thought that I was conveying. What I recognized as a problem (about poverty, about media portrayals, and about reality) was not necessarily a problem to the majority of my students … or maybe, they just did not want to write about the problem. I thought that I was engaging in what Swearingen and Mao note as a type of “cross-cultural analysis” (43), one that “pushes [students] up against the evasions, self-deceptions, investments in opinions and interpretations, the clutter that blinds, that disguises that underlying, all-encompassing design” (Toni Cade Bambara). But, there were some gaps. There were some points of misidentification; I did not fully uncover the blind spots so that “binocular vision [could be used to see] us and them through the contact zone” (43). I labeled the project as a failed one because most of my students simply rehashed an episode without really critically researching and taking into consideration our readings and discussions.

I mention this experience because it was all I could think about while reading Lunsford’s interview with Gloria Anzuldua. When the women speak about teaching and deviating from traditional models and readings, I am reminded of what I try to do in my own pedagogy. Anzuldua speaks about this idea of assimilation and how “there is something very seductive about fitting in, and being apart of this one culture, and forgetting differences, and pretty soon instead of subverting and challenging and making marks on the wall, you get taken in” (59). This statement is compelling for me as it states a constant battle to move out of a system that teaches the status quo. I feel like a historian, an activist, and an agent for change, but I find myself facing real resistance when it comes to recognizing real truths of history and how it continues to impact our thinking in and out of the contact zone. So, in terms of my experience, the business was “on Front Street,” but nobody wanted to deal with the business. I think, however, that I made progress with just talking about the issue...by making students aware of the situation.

Andulzua notes that “language is a representational system …but what happens with language, this particular symbolic system, is that it displaces the reality, the experience, so that you take the language to be the reality” (63). Anzuldua’s comments stands as what I was trying to get my students to see with “Cribs.” I was trying to show how media displacing reality and focuses one the glimmer and glamour when there are real issues that need to be looked to. Although this piece is a bit milder than other pieces that I have read by Anzuldua, after reading it, I do have a renewed faith and hope in this assignment. The statements that she made caused me to reflect on my teaching and in many ways confirms my need to to occupy such a space. I have yet to try this particular assignment again (although I do use “Ice” because Toni Cade Bambara she is one of my favorite thinkers), but I hope to revisit the assignment some time in the near future.

Response to Gee and Monroe, II

Gee notes that Discourses “are always embedded in a medley of social institutions, and often involve ‘props’” (my italics 27) which speaks, in many ways, to one’s culture and the identities that work to make that person who they are. Discourse, then, has the ability to move one in and out of a contact zone because it has to do with a type of identification. This idea of identification leads to questions of ideology. Thus, one’s background (which is situated in the historical and the cultural) plays a huge part in how one recognizes and understands a concept.

Gee also says that “the complex relationship among Discourses … define and demarcate individual discourses” (32). I do not agree with this. I think that one’s individual idea is always at the root…it is the foundation for which they can understand. So, my thinking about Discourse is similar to our discussion about home discourse last week. The foundational, historical, cultural implications always play a part in how one is able to view something. For example, it would be hard for women to try to re-claim a word that has been used to degrade them. The B-word is an example. Depending of who says it, it can very negative connotations. Thus, the historical can never be dismissed from that word, but other discourses can be added to a persons understanding of the word. The other discourses that come into play should not negate the individual because the individual informs the collective. Moreover, Krista Ratcliffe, in Rhetorical Listening says that “discourses are invisible to the human eye and yet may simultaneously permeate multiple bodies as when millions of people view a movie” (69). Ratcliffe’s claim uses metaphor to describe how one’s historical/cultural understanding will shape their view of something, which speaks to the individuals perception. This idea leads me into this idea of how technology is perceived, depending on one’s ideology.

Monroe’s chapter “Putting One’s Business on Front Street” takes a close look at a Detroit High School’s interaction with email in the mid-1990s. The Black students worked with mostly white tutors from the University of Michigan with writing through email. What I glean from the reading is that the students had a different understanding about what it means to engage in an email conversation. The tutors viewed it as a private act, whereas the students understood it as a very public act. I think that the scenario alone looks at ideology and points to the fact that people use Discourse based on how they perceive the situation (and their reaction is based on their ideas about the situation). The idea of having “business” aired, especially when one’s history points to a theme of exploitation (in many ways) makes people leery of putting their stuff on blast. Thus, students should not be coerced to write authentic or true stories; however, I think that allowing them a chance to construct how they want to be perceived it the step that has to be taken. Monroe notes that “This power of self-invention and self-fashioning is even more important when students are sharing work online than when they are working on paper” (67). Thus, technology becomes an expressive avenue that allows students to participate in ways that do not compromise their integrity. Thus, if students wish to use signifying rhetoric to express themselves, it should be ok.

Response to Gee and Monroe

Stop the Face Lifts

We understand the social to be a large part of learning places/spaces. The classroom, office hours, writing, and presentations all reflect the social nature of school. Much like Gee’s examples of student writing in “Language and Identity at Home,” how one understands language and how one is able to convey such in the classroom is important. Unfortunately, there is this issue with what constitutes literacy and “correctness,” as we read in Bizzell that resurfaces in Gee. We see this issue most evident as Gee speaks about Leona and the ways in which she shows literacy. He notes “the school will start her apprenticeship on academic language too late --- right when she is ready to be a victim of the fourth grade slump” (35). The problem is systemic and is the result of the school system’s ideologies about correctness and literacy…its failure to acknowledge the historical, and its lack of care, time, and understanding about new voices. The question I ask, then, is how can one exercise genuine and honest social skills in an environment that has been “historically … impervious to change” (Gee 35)? Of course there have been changes, but these changes simply cover the surface level problems ; these changes are face lifts that hide the inner workings of the real problem.

bell hooks, in her first book, Ain’t I A Woman, speaks about this surface level change in a powerful way. She notes, “teaching women how to defend themselves against male rapists is not the same as working to change society so that men will not rape. Establishing houses for battered women do not change the psyches of men who batter them, nor does it change the culture that condones and promotes brutality … Demanding an end to institutionalized sexism does not ensure an end to sexist oppression” (191). What hooks is getting to here is a thorough look into a system, one that includes a matrix of domination (race, class, sex) that continues to oppress, even if the rhetoric points other ways (so there is an illusion of change). What we can glean from hooks is that there has to be an ideological shift in how one thinks, in this case, about learning, discourse, literary, and language.

Monroe calls for a shift in thinking in “Storytime of the Reservation” as she looks to home discourses as ones that shape the way in which a student will perform at school. She talks about literacy as a learned behavior, as one that can be cultivated and praised if the teacher understands the context of the writing. Monroe notes “for students of color, academic literacy is an issue of interethnic communication, and that they need to become bicultural in order to succeed in school” (113) which speaks to having to grapple with multiple identities in order to “make it.” Monroe also says that “the lesson that literacy is epistemology is one that all students --- not just students of color---need to learn English in the classroom” (113). Monroe’s work speaks to an active approach to helping students reach their full potential. First, however, there has to be understanding, on the teacher’s behalf, about the different epistemological underpinnings that ground a student so that they can include classroom practices that help students so that they will not become “a victim of the fourth grade slump” (Gee 35) or a victim of poverty.