Rhetorical Sovereignty by Lyons

"This forced replacement of one identity for another, a cultural violence enabled in part through acts of physical violence, was in so many ways located at the scene of writing" (1129).

The significance of this quote is the fact that so many cultures have been violated with violence to conform to a certain identity when it came to their writing and their style of writing.

We should care because our readings today are greatly affected by this, especially academia readings. Historically the writings we read are from white men and other cultures, races, and genders are not represented.

This is very important to the classroom because we need to start teaching our student that other cultures writings are just as important as the white man's writing. Also, it is important that women understand that they need to be heard as well.

In order to do composition justice we need to find ways to go back to archives and pull out different races and genders writings, even if they are extracurricular writings, or personal writings. We need to understand how other cultures view writing and what was important to them in their writings.

My personal blog for those who are interested!

http://ajourneyofheartandsoul.blogspot.com/

Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement this semester!

Community: Joseph Harris

After the discussion we had last Monday night in class, I have not been able to stop thinking about how our classrooms are not teaching about all cultures, so reading Community I find myself asking even more questions and thinking on an even different level.

The first point that I want to bring forward is, "We write not as isolated individuals but as members of communities whose beliefs, concerns, and practices both instigate and constrain, at least in part, the sorts of things we can say. Our aims and intentions in writing are thus not merely personal, idiosyncratic, but reflective of the communities to which we belong." I had never really thought of writing in this sense. Just reading this point help me to understand why voice is such a struggle for so many writers. I had never thought through the fact and/or idea that a person's community truly affects what they say and more importantly what they don't say. Especially if a person is considered to be someone of importance in that particular community they are definitely going to make sure what they say reflects their community in the way they want the outside to see this collective group of people.

The second point I am bringing forward is, "The task of the student is thus imagined as one of crossing the border from one community of discourse to another, of taking on a new sort of language." I had never thought about how much during my university career I always would focus on certain communities when writing papers. Also, when looking at papers from my years prior to college, it is amazing how much my language has changed. It is very much so like I have taken on a whole new language and sometimes I do not even recognize my language in current writings. I am beginning to realize that I do not use the same language I learned while growing up. This is making me question (like is brought up in this section of the book) how do I combine my university language with my natural language? How do I make my voice stronger by connecting these languages? Can I write some of my papers in my voice/language I learned and used while growing up or must they all consist of this new university voice/language I have learned?

All in all what I am saying is this chapter has brought some very strong points to my mind. These points have thus led me to question my own writing. Secondly these points have also made me question communities I belong to and how would they want me to use my voice and language when I write or speak of them.

Updated Rough Draft Paper 2 (Dialogue between Feminist Pedagogy Authors and Rene)

I am following in bell hooks footsteps and making a playful dialogue about feminist pedagogy. This dialogue takes place between myself, Rene, and several authors of the feminist pedagogy articles read. I will be looking at how each author defines feminist pedagogy or what traits each say are a part of feminist pedagogy and then will link them together with my own voice. I agree with bell hooks and feel that by doing a fun dialogue like such will allow me an opportunity to examine the articles closer then I would be able to in a traditional essay. I also feel this will allow me the freedom to be able to possibly come up with a whole new definition of feminist pedagogy by combining aspects of each one. This will also allow me to critique in a way that I feel comfortable as a student learning from these influential scholarly authors.

 

Susan C. Jarratt: From my view feminist pedagogy does not necessarily entail an overt discussion of feminism as a politics or movement, although some teachers do include such discussions in their class. Feminist pedagogy can be described as a practice, but defining this practice is vexing because of feminists' desire not to reinscribe an orthodoxy, disciplining those who fail to subscribe. We can note that the basic practices of feminist pedagogy are ones it shares with the pedagogical innovations of the process revolution in writing instruction: the decentering or sharing of authority, the recognition of students as sources of knowledge, a focus on processes (of writing and teaching) over products. However, what makes feminist pedagogy distinctive is its investment in a view of contemporary society as sexist and patriarchal, and of the complicity of reading, writing, and teaching in those conditions (115).

Rene: Ms. Jarratt, I love the way you discuss what makes feminist pedagogy distinctive. I whole heartedly agree that feminist pedagogy is very invested in the view of contemporary society as sexist and patriarchal, plus the complicity of reading, writing, and teaching in these conditions. From personal perspectives it is very difficult being a female student in writing classes because society still holds a strong view of being patriarchal and very sexist language usage within reading materials. To take a further look at this idea and maybe get a deeper understanding we will discuss this idea with Elizabeth Flynn and her writing of Composing as a Woman."

Elizabeth Flynn: Feminist research and theory emphasize that males and females differ in their developmental processes and in their interactions with others. They emphasize that these differences are a result of an imbalance in the social order, of the dominance of men over women, arguing men have chronicled our historical narratives and defined our fields (field of composition) of inquiry. Women's perspectives have been suppressed, silenced, marginalized, written out of what counts as authoritative knowledge (245).

Rene: Ms. Flynn, after hearing what you have to say about feminist research and theory I see how it builds on what Susan C. Jarratt feels as the distinction for feminist pedagogy. From this if I was to develop my own definition I would combine the two of you and add more. One possibility would be feminist pedagogy is about embracing differences in developmental processes and interactions of men and women with others, looking at how the societal order is imbalanced because of the patriarchal view and use of sexist language in different writings, and finding ways to balance what was historically men chronicling narratives to define the field of composition studies. This definition can go further and include the fact that women have been suppressed, silenced, and marginalized, but with this knowledge feminist pedagogy can now work with composition studies to find ways to allow women to be heard with their voice and not having to be held to the patriarchal voice found in so many writings, especially scholarly works.

However, Eileen E. Schell needs to be brought into the discussion with her article, The Feminization of Composition: Questioning the Metaphors that Bind Women Teachers.

Eileen E. Schell: "Feminization" has a double-edged meaning for women in composition, simultaneously signifying their presence as part-timers, adjuncts, while also signifying their absence in positions of power and influence. Yet "feminization" does not necessarily correspond with a move toward feminist positions. Instead, it defines the work of women composition teachers as both literally "female" and "feminized" in the pejorative sense (552).

Rene: So looking at the idea of the definition I created for feminist pedagogy after talking with Ms. Jarratt and Ms. Flynn almost seems to be thrown out the window with what you just said, Ms. Schell. After reading this small part of the article, I feel that people, especially women should be questioning why there is an absence of a woman presence in power. Granted many universities are not as lucky as Texas Wesleyan University whose English department is comprised mostly of women professors, but as was voiced in a discussion in a recent Composition Theory and Pedagogy course over your article, do women not keep themselves in these lower positions. Since the majority of women teaching composition courses are part-timers or adjuncts, it is because of the scheduling that they chose to teach these courses. For there to be a change in the dynamics discussed in your article, more women need to choose to not allow themselves to be put in a place that is a never ending cycle so to speak. If women refused to teach these courses, then who is left to teach them? Men. Women have made great strides in changing how they are looked within academia, but at the same time they continue to hold themselves within the tightly bound world of being without power. As one person said during this discussion, women are giving up pay because they enjoy teaching this course and also it allows them the freedom they need in order to be with their children. Another part of defining feminist pedagogy has to come from how women assert their authority in the classroom. So, next I will be talking with Michelle Payne about her article, Rend(er)ing Women's Authority in the Writing Classroom.

Michelle Payne: One of the most powerful discourses that has influenced my identity as a writing teacher—and that is often ignored in theoretical and pedagogical discussions—has been my experience as a woman from an emotionally abusive childhood home. Many, though not all, of us seem to value students writing about their family life and care about our students not just as writers but as people, yet we seem reluctant to share publicly the various ways our own private lives have influenced us as scholars and teachers. We are only beginning to understand how our students' family experiences may influence their learning and behavior in our classes, and it seems equally important that we begin to understand what may be influencing us. (403-04)

Rene: I know for many of you reading this dialogue are probably wondering why in the world I am bringing this into the discussion of feminist pedagogy and trying to define it. After discussions with Schell and Payne I would like to look at how to further the definition of feminist pedagogy. So far the definition states: feminist pedagogy is about embracing differences in developmental processes and interactions of men and women with others, looking at how the societal order is imbalanced because of the patriarchal view and use of sexist language in different writings, and finding ways to balance what was historically men chronicling narratives to define the field of composition studies. Plus, women have been suppressed, silenced, and marginalized, but with this knowledge feminist pedagogy can now work with composition studies to find ways to allow women to be heard with their voice and not having to be held to the patriarchal voice found in so many writings, especially scholarly works.

 

Conversations with Various Authors about Feminist Pedagogy

This is a very rough draft…just a start to paper 2.

 

I am following in bell hooks footsteps and making a playful dialogue about feminist pedagogy. This dialogue takes place between myself, Rene, and several of the articles read in this section. I will find essential questions within the articles and then respond to them within my own voice. I want to be able to speak about what I find important and what I feel may be lacking within these articles. I agree with bell hooks and feel that by doing a fun dialogue like such will allow me an opportunity to examine the articles closer then I would be able to in a traditional essay. I also feel this will allow me the freedom to be able to critique the articles in a unique fashion.

Susan C. Jarratt: From my view feminist pedagogy does not necessarily entail an overt discussion of feminism as a politics or movement, although some teachers do include such discussions in their class. Feminist pedagogy can be described as a practice, but defining this practice is vexing because of feminists' desire not to reinscribe an orthodoxy, disciplining those who fail to subscribe. We can note that the basic practices of feminist pedagogy are ones it shares with the pedagogical innovations of the process revolution in writing instruction: the decentering or sharing of authority, the recognition of students as sources of knowledge, a focus on processes (of writing and teaching) over products. However, what makes feminist pedagogy distinctive is its investment in a view of contemporary society as sexist and patriarchal, and of the complicity of reading, writing, and teaching in those conditions (115).

Rene: Ms. Jarratt, I love the way you discuss what makes feminist pedagogy distinctive. I whole heartedly agree that feminist pedagogy is very invested in the view of contemporary society as sexist and patriarchal, plus the complicity of reading, writing, and teaching in these conditions. From personal perspectives it is very difficult being a female student in writing classes because society still holds a strong view of being patriarchal and very sexist language usage within reading materials. To take a further look at this idea and maybe get a deeper understanding we will discuss this idea with Elizabeth Flynn and her writing of Composing as a Woman."

Elizabeth Flynn: Feminist research and theory emphasize that males and females differ in their developmental processes and in their interactions with others. They emphasize that these differences are a result of an imbalance in the social order, of the dominance of men over women, arguing men have chronicled our historical narratives and defined our fields (field of composition) of inquiry. Women's perspectives have been suppressed, silenced, marginalized, written out of what counts as authoritative knowledge (245).

Rene: Ms. Flynn, after hearing what you have to say about feminist research and theory I see how it builds on what Susan C. Jarratt feels as the distinction for feminist pedagogy. From this if I was to develop my own definition I would combine the two of you and add more. One possibility would be feminist pedagogy is about embracing differences in developmental processes and interactions of men and women with others, looking at how the societal order is imbalanced because of the patriarchal view and use of sexist language in different writings, and finding ways to balance what was historically men chronicling narratives to define the field of composition studies. This definition can go further and include the fact that women have been suppressed, silenced, and marginalized, but with this knowledge feminist pedagogy can now work with composition studies to find ways to allow women to be heard with their voice and not having to be held to the patriarchal voice found in so many writings, especially scholarly works.

However, Eileen E. Schell needs to be brought into the discussion with her article, The Feminization of Composition: Questioning the Metaphors that Bind Women Teachers.

Eileen E. Schell: "Feminization" has a double-edged meaning for women in composition, simultaneously signifying their presence as part-timers, adjuncts, while also signifying their absence in positions of power and influence. Yet "feminization" does not necessarily correspond with a move toward feminist positions. Instead, it defines the work of women composition teachers as both literally "female" and "feminized" in the pejorative sense (552).

Rene: So looking at the idea of the definition I created for feminist pedagogy after talking with Ms. Jarratt and Ms. Flynn almost seems to be thrown out the window with what you just said, Ms. Schell. After reading this small part of the article, I feel that people, especially women should be questioning why there is an absence of a woman presence in power. Granted many universities are not as lucky as Texas Wesleyan University whose English department is comprised mostly of women professors, but as was voiced in a discussion recently over your article, do women not keep themselves in these lower positions. Since the majority of women teaching composition courses are part-timers or adjuncts, it is because of the scheduling that they chose to teach these courses. For there to be a change in the dynamics discussed in your article, more women need to choose to not allow themselves to be put in a place that is a never ending cycle so to speak. If women refused to teach these courses, then what is left to teach them? Men. Women have made great strides in changing how they are looked within academia, but at the same time they continue to hold themselves within the tightly bound world of being without power.

 

Toward a Mestiza Rhetoric: Gloria Anzaldua on Composition and Postcoloniality

To be honest I got so involved in my personal reading of Emotional Bullshit that I almost forgot to post about readings for class.

I found this interview between Andrea Lunsford and Gloria Anzaldua very fascinating. I could not believe how much she was talking about Voice. Yes, I know Voice has become this huge thing to me, but it was really fascinating to see her take on Voice. Lunsford used a quote by Anzaldua to open up with and it says, "I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue—my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence" (1401). I simply love this quote because it says so much about who she says in so few words. Yet her main word is voice. This allows us to see that Voice comes in many varieties. For example, I write from a white voice, a lesbian voice, a woman's voice, a college graduate voice, etc. Really what this did for me was to open up my eyes to see how much voice really does crossover disciplines.

If I am being 100% honest, I struggled with the idea that voice carried over into other disciplines. I am not quite sure why, but I did. After reading this interview and just that opening quote alone, I stand corrected. I now completely and totally see how voice moves. I never thought about the different communities I am associated with and how each one of these communities affects my voice.

I was having a conversation with someone tonight, who is college educated, and she never truly thought about how different voices sounded in papers. This got her wheels turning and now she says she is going to be so much more conscious of voice in different things she reads. I find it so interesting that many people do not realize how much voice truly does impact anything we read.

One thing I absolutely loved about Anzaldua was the fact that she sits on so many different boards for magazines because she is one of the few trying to push the boundaries and open up these magazines to different types of voices. It is very exciting to me to see that someone finds this so important, because I feel after many of the conversations held in our class, so many of us feel the same way. I am just giddy about the fact that she has become so popular in Composition because she does dare to push the envelope and dares to push for changes that are long overdue.

Textbook Review: Writing Today by Richard Johnson-Sheehan and Charles Paine

Alright, I know I am a couple days late posting, but here it is, a very rough draft of my textbook review!

    Writing Today, Richard Johnson-Sheehan and Charles Paine, is a textbook aimed at first-year writing students. From the very beginning this text book is definitely aimed towards a certain group of people. The cover of the book is an Apple I-phone that looks like a variety of applications that are available, but give the various titles to the sections in the book. It is pretty colorful. At first glance, looking at the cover I thought of the technology generation and how they would relate to the cover. This then made me ask the question, would a non-traditional first year writing student look at the cover the same way as a traditional first year writing student? My answer is no, because I am a non-traditional student and was very put off by the cover.

    Next, I began looking through the book and as soon as I opened the book the first thing that catches is my eye is the title page within the book, and this time it is the same photo but now the applications are coming off the phone and flying through the air. Personally, I was thinking, this is annoying looking and very childish. Then I looked to the inside of the cover and I really liked what they did here. In a very organized manner they give the "Brief Contents" of the book and it is broken down in parts. Yes, it is very colorful, but for this I find that to be okay because it makes it easier to see when the parts change.

    Still looking at this inside cover, I will say this: for a professor this is awesome because they know that more than likely they cannot cover every single thing in this book in one semester. It is 888 pages long after all! However, since it is broken into parts and the parts have titles, a professor can choose what will be important to them and what will not be important to them. Also, it gives each chapter that is included within those parts, so again a professor can go in and choose if there are only certain chapters they want to use out of each part. Now, for a student this is also awesome because it is a quick reference guide. Personally, I am one who likes to have an idea as to where a professor is going with their syllabus and by looking at a syllabus, then looking at this, I will know.

    Third, I looked at the various pages through out the book. What I first noticed was all the colors used. Again, in my eyes this is very juvenile and reminds me of high school textbooks. So, again I am forced to ask the question, is this textbook only being targeted to traditional students? Then I noticed at the end of every chapter when the authors want to talk about Ideas for Writing, they put in these pictures of people beside the sections within this area. Are you kidding me? It looks as if they are just trying to cover up some white space and one of the authors says, "hey let's use some random pictures of people." The last thing I do not like about this textbook is the random pictures they use for the beginning of each part.

    Those are the negatives to this textbook; however, I do have to say there are some positives within this textbook as well. First, there is an introduction page to every part and it breaks down what each chapter is going to be about. This again makes it very easy for the professor and the student to know what is going on. Something else I like is there are a lot of samples of papers throughout that match what the authors are trying to demonstrate to the student, so this textbook works well for visual learners as well. Another way the authors help the visual learner is by giving a lot of charts, especially flow charts. Probably my favorite part about the textbook is the fact that they show more than one way to do things. Johnson-Sheehan and Paine really recognize that not all students can do things the same way and so they try to reach more than one student.

    Writing Today truly tries to teach first-year composition by breaking down different aspects of writing and giving different parts; Getting Started, Using Genres to Express Ideas, Developing a Writing Process, Strategies or Shaping Ideas, Doing Research, Getting Your Ideas Out There, Anthology of Readings, and Handbook. This textbook truly tries to expose a first-year writer to all different aspects and types of writing. Johnson-Sheehan and Paine teach students through this book using information that is relevant to them and very current issues. For example, in Chapter 5, Profiles, under Part 2, Genres, they show that a person can use a personal profile for such things as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Myspace. All thee of which are very current and popular at this point in time; however, it may not be something a non-traditional student is using because some refuse to embrace technology and others just have no interest in technology.

    The Preface of the book was one of the best I have probably ever seen in a textbook, especially for professors. Johnson-Sheehan and Paine give some of their background information, so a reader understands their personal experiences and it makes the reader feel connected to them. Then they go into how the book is organized and what to expect in each part, yet again giving the professor and an even better idea of what they may want to include in a semester and leave out. Third, they discuss ways this book may fit into one's teaching approach. The word that jumped out at me here was flexibility, because I think so many professors would prefer a textbook, especially for first-year composition, to be flexible to what their needs are. This part even gives some greater descriptions of what they were thinking when coming up with the different parts of the textbook and again this allows a feeling of connection to the authors and also an understanding of what they are trying to bring through the pages. Fourth, a even deeper description of features of the book, so a professor will understand know what they are encountering in each chapter. Finally, they leave us with who they are.

    This textbook is truly a great price at $66.67, especially considering is 888 pages in length. I would highly recommend this book for a first-year composition teacher at Texas Wesleyan or Tarrant County Junior College, but would give them a strong caution that it seems to be truly geared towards the traditional student crowd. I believe both traditional and non-traditional students are able to learn from this book because of the wealth of information given, but a non-traditional student will be very annoyed with how juvenile parts of it are. I believe professors would enjoy teaching from this book because they have made it very easy for professors to be flexible in what and how they teach a first-year writing course.

Feminist Pedagogy—Susan C. Jarratt

After the week I have had I just realized it is Saturday and I forgot to blog about readings for this week…oh well, here we go!

This piece was awesome to read because it gave a lot of historical background and was not one sided like so many pieces can be when it comes to talking about Feminist Pedagogy. One of my favorite lines in this reading was simply men have a deep stake in the goals of feminism because men are most definitely a huge part of the change for feminism. Without the help of me, without the support of men women would not be where they are today. Jarratt evens talks about men who adopt feminist pedagogical strategies can sometimes be more effective and it is simply because students will not look at him as a part of a "special interest" group as they do female teachers who teach feminine pedagogy. I also believe they can be more effective because then the males in their classrooms will see that an interest in feminism benefits them just as much as it does females.

Another part of these reading that I enjoyed is Jarratt pointing out that one of the strengths of feminist pedagogy is its relentless capacity for dialogue and self-critique, and its ability to read and listen rhetorically. Composition and pedagogy is such an open field academically that when feminist pedagogy is spoken of women have tendency to look at themselves and their own lives so closely, plus women seem to be more open about speaking of personal experiences that dialogues are created and then the fields seem to come even wider. As Jarratt pointed out in the beginning of the reading most who are interested in composition studies are also created in social justice…feminist pedagogy has opened up so much dialogue not just about women and inequities, but also about sexuality, racism, gender differences, etc. that it allows teachers who are teaching composition to discuss current cultural issues with their students and this helps promote awareness and helps them to look at how the world around them is constructed. This is very important because so many students do not think about the biases in media, written works, in language, etc. So if anything, one of the most important influences feminist pedagogy can have is allowing students the chance to take a true look at the world around them and what is really being said. It also allows them to understand voices, their own voice, the voice of others, the voice of scholars, the voice of non-scholars, and the voice of their own family.

Teaching to Transgress—bell hooks

I was so excited to see we were reading this piece this week because I am an avid fan of bell hooks…she is awesome in my eyes!

 

I found it interesting to read because in the beginning of the piece she talks about the fear of being trapped in the academy forever leading her into this deep, life-threatening depression once she had received tenure and a part of me has had an opposite fear. I have tried to be so diligent about what to do my master's work in because I want to have several avenues to pursue…I know one day I want to be the academy and teaching, but I also want to be a part of a field where I can gain expertise and knowledge to bring to the classroom. As much as I love writing, pedagogy, English, etc. I have since decided not to do my master's in that area because of other passions that I have within me, but I also know these passions and following these pursuits will allow me to come back to the classroom and then I will be able to impose some of these methods that we are learning about composition in my classroom to get students to open up and be honest about their experiences and journey's.

 

With all of that said, I whole heartedly agree with hooks when she talks about writing being about private longing and personal glory and teaching is about the service, giving back to a community. I believe that following where my passion truly leads will allow me to do the writing that I love, but then I will get to come back and service a community. I believe that if we looked at so many of our professors we can see this is how they operate, many of them work on research that is self-gratifying, but yet they teach because they are giving back to what they love. We may not know what our professors are researching or writing about because is something that is personal to them, but at some point this is going to come back into the classroom, so hopefully the torch can be passed on to someone else to pick up that light and continue on with that pursuit. This is how our professors nurture us, etc. is by having their own passions and bell hooks talks about how teachers in her life were so important in nurturing her into the scholar she is today…lets continue that in the classroom and then the passion of composition, writing, rhetoric, pedagogy, etc. will continue to strive and will continue to transgress and progress. After all according to hooks is transgression is a movement against and beyond boundaries…we have to continue pushing these boundaries so we are able to find the place that makes us happy when it comes to teaching our future students and classes. Finally, her statement at the end, it is a movement which makes education the practice of freedom…how true…education is supposed to be about freedom, but we have to continually find a way to make it this way!

Feedback to Collaborative Reviewing Activity

I truly have no concerns of peer review in this way, but if I have to have one it would be that the reader is afraid to be completely honest for fear of hurting my feelings.

I feel this activity is very effective because personally, I do not have a strong hold on grammar, sentence structure, etc., but I do know my own feelings and I know how something makes me feel when I read it and I feel that is very valuable to a writer because they may be able to see where there paper landed and then they can question if that is where they wanted it to land or not.

I truly think everyone embracing it and not be afraid of being 100% honest is how this process can be very effective.

I want to take the feedback I was given and make my paper stronger and since there were somethings that were not clear to my peers, I want to go back in and clarify those items, so my final draft is even stronger.

100% honesty is the most helpful response because then I know where my paper is sitting with my readers and as Murray feels, the writer must earn their audience and that is what I am hoping to do.

Voice—What Does it Mean to You?—2nd Draft of short paper

So, now I have gone in and cleaned up my citations and changed some things in the paper…let’s see how this one works compared to the first!


Voice…a word heard many times, but what does it mean in composition studies? Peter Elbow wrote in Writing with Power, “…we all have a chest cavity unique in size so that each of us naturally resonates to one pitch alone” and for Elbow this is what he called voice, “often referring to something like style or tone—writing with real rhythm and texture” (qtd. in Harris: 24). Joseph Harris feels that voice “implies breath, spirit, presence, what comes before words and gives them life” (24). Personally, voice is something that is very important to papers. When reading someone else’s work I love to look for and listen for their voice to resonate through those words. It is almost like their voice is being heard in my mind, instead of my own. A person’s pain, joy, triumph, love, passion, anger, hate, vengefulness, lust, happiness, peace, etc. can be heard by a reader, but only if the writer allows freedom within their selves to let it come through in their writing.


Why would a student want to write a personal essay, use their Voice to be heard, and allow their emotions to show in their writing? I cannot help but agree with Terry Myers Zawacki when she writes in Recomposing as a Woman—An Essay in Different Voices, “I like its openness, how it pulls from here and there, observing, reflecting, moving through disconnections to make connections…the personal essay does not rely on positions staked out in advance, on straight arrangements, and tightly connected points leading to a single conclusion…differences can be cultivated” (315). To me the personal essay is just that, a personal essay where feelings are allowed to be expressed, views are allowed to be heard, and stances are allowed to be taken.

Joseph Harris in A Teaching Subject Composition Since 1966, speaks about in the 1960s and 1970s how the idea of “centrality of personal and expressive kinds of writing” started to come up again, even though they had as Harris says, “a long tradition of dissent in English to call on; they also had events of their time to respond to” (26). For instance in the 1960s issues with Vietnam were going on, Martin Luther King Jr. was speaking for equal rights, Kennedy was our president for a short time due to assassination, etc., but also open admission programs, community colleges, and financial aid started to allow opportunities for many students who never thought they were going to go to college (Harris 26). One of the strongest points Harris makes is “…we need to see many 1960s expressivist teachers of writing not as fleeing from politics but as engaged in a political defense to the student in her struggles to assert herself against what was seen as a dehumanizing corporate and university system” (26-27). Currently there are so many social struggles, political struggles, and personal struggles going on that students need to be able to assert themselves in the university system. So, how does one allow a student to deal with their personal struggles in the world in a writing classroom? Allow the student the opportunity to discover and use their Voice.

Now the question turns to how do composition teachers teach voice in the classroom? To discuss how to teach Voice in the classroom, I am referencing Donald Murray’s article Finding Your Own Voice: Teaching Composition in an Age of Dissent. In this article Murray discusses taking away the responsibility from the teacher and giving it to the students and as he says, “I do get discouraged, mostly because the students have had no freedom, and when they find their own voice it has not been tempered by experience” (118). He even goes further and believes that because of the “teacher-centered educational system” students are kept basically at a level of adolescence up until and sometimes beyond, them getting their Ph.D (Murray 118). Murray tells us the four responsibilities that belong to the student are: first, a student must find their own subject; second, a student has to document his own subject; third, students must earn their audiences respect; and fourth, students need to practice many forms of writing (119-120). He gives us the four responsibilities of teachers as well: first, create psychological and physical environments where the student can fulfill his responsibilities; second, enforce deadlines; third, cultivate a climate of failure; and fourth, teachers are only diagnosticians, reading only papers students feel they are having problems with (121-122). Currently, and speaking from personal experience, writing classes have been about the teacher or professor completing all of my major writing assignments for me. Murray also resonates this statement, “the composition teacher not only denies his students freedom, he even goes further and performs the key writing tasks for his students” (118).

Going back to Zawacki’s article, she brings up something that I find incredibly important. She speaks of an experience in which she wants to present the idea of a new course where alternative writing could be taught as opposed to academic discourse and to her shock she found out that others did not agree there were other types of writing to be taught in the classroom (Zawacki 315). Zawacki had become very interested in articles about “valuing the personal essay as a mode of inquiry in the academy…particularly interested in articles about the link between the personal essay and feminine forms of knowledge and expression” (315). Now I know you are wondering why I am bringing up the point of feminine knowledge and expression, but it is crucial, in my eyes, because for so long men were the dominating force in all writing, and women had to learn from men and their writing, especially academically. Women were interviewed by Mary Belenky and her co-authors in Women’s Ways of Knowing, about the notion of being able to bring the rational with the emotional and unifying knowledge learned from others around them and as one woman put it, “letting the inside out and the outside in” (qtd. in Zawacki: 315). Zawacki also talks about reading in Elizabeth Flynn’s article Composing as a Woman, and I agree wholeheartedly with this idea, that some of the women students she had finally realized their Voice was as powerful, if not more powerful than the external voices and this allowed many of them to steer towards authenticating their own Voice (315).

A powerful statement made by Zawacki is, “we may have to risk focusing on gender differences if we want to hear Voices which have been marginalized or silenced by our insistence on rational argument as the prevailing mode of discourse in the academy” (316). After reading Murray’s idea of a classroom, Zawacki’s article, and Harris’s chapter on Voice, I believe that if we don’t want to focus on gender differences in writing than we need to give Voice power and maybe use a classroom like Murray’s to allow our students the opportunity to explore and play with different types of form in writing and as Murray says, “…the teacher of composition may return to his important educational role when rhetoric—the art of effective and responsible argument—was the foundation of a classical education” (123). Let the teachers be the guidance, but allow the students to teach one another, and allow people the opportunity to use their Voice in a very powerful way, Writing.

Voice; What Does It Mean to You?—1st Short Paper

I am going to be flat out honest here…this is a draft. I need help with citations…just warning you! Otherwise here it is!

 

Voice…a word heard many times, but what does it mean in composition studies? Peter Elbow wrote in Writing with Power, "…we all have a chest cavity unique in size so that each of us naturally resonates to one pitch alone" (as quoted in Harris) and for Elbow this is what he called voice, "often referring to something like style or tone—writing with real rhythm and texture" (as quoted in Harris). Joseph Harris feels that voice "implies breath, spirit, presence, what comes before words and gives them life" (p. 24). Personally, voice is something that is very important to papers. When reading someone else's work I love to look for and listen for their voice to resonate through those words. It is almost like their voice is being heard in my mind, instead of my own. A person's pain, joy, triumph, love, passion, anger, hate, vengefulness, lust, happiness, peace, etc. can be heard by a reader, but only if the writer allows freedom within their selves to let it come through in their writing.

    Why would a student want to write a personal essay, use their Voice to be heard, and allow their emotions to show in their writing? I cannot help but agree with Terry Myers Zawacki when she writes, "I like its openness, how it pulls from here and there, observing, reflecting, moving through disconnections to make connections…the personal essay does not rely on positions staked out in advance, on straight arrangements, and tightly connected points leading to a single conclusion…differences can be cultivated" (p. 315). To me the personal essay is just that, a personal essay where feelings are allowed to be expressed, views are allowed to be heard, and stances are allowed to be taken.

    Joseph Harris speaks about in the 1960s and 1970s how the idea of "centrality of personal and expressive kinds of writing" started to come up again, even though they had as Harris says, "a long tradition of dissent in English to call on; they also had events of their time to respond to" (p. 26). For instance in the 1960s issues with Vietnam were going on, Martin Luther King Jr. was speaking for equal rights, Kennedy was our president for a short time due to assassination, etc., but also open admission programs, community colleges, and financial aid started to allow opportunities for many students who never thought they were going to go to college. One of the strongest points Harris makes is "…we need to see many 1960s expressivist teachers of writing not as fleeing from politics but as engaged in a political defense to the student in her struggles to assert herself against what was seen as a dehumanizing corporate and university system" (p. 26-27). So, how does one allow a student to deal with their personal struggles in the world in a writing classroom? Allow the student the opportunity to discover and use their Voice.

    Now the question turns to how do composition teachers teach voice in the classroom? To discuss how to teach voice in the classroom, I am going to look at Donald Murray's article Finding Your Own Voice: Teaching Composition in an Age of Dissent. In this article Murray discusses taking away the responsibility from the teacher and giving it to the students and one reason is because as he said, "I do get discouraged, mostly because the students have had no freedom, and when they find their own voice it has not been tempered by experience" (p. 118). He even goes further and believes that because of the "teacher-centered educational system" students are kept basically at a level of adolescence up until and sometimes beyond, them getting their Ph.D. Murray tells us four responsibilities that belong to the student, first, a student must find their own subject, second, a student has to document his own subject, third, students must earn their audiences respect, and fourth, students need to practice many forms of writing. He gives us the four responsibilities of teachers as well, first, create psychological and physical environments where the student can fulfill his responsibilities, second, enforce deadlines, third, cultivate a climate of failure, and fourth, teachers are only diagnosticians, reading only papers students feel they are having problems with. This is a huge difference from the way our classrooms are ran at this moment. Currently, and speaking from personal experience, writing classes have been about the teacher or professor completing all of my major writing assignments for me. Murray states, "the composition teacher not only denies his students freedom, he even goes further and performs the key writing tasks for his students" (p. 118).

    Going back to Zawacki and her article Recomposing as a Woman—An Essay in Different Voices, she brings up something that I find incredibly important. She speaks of an experience in which she wants to present the idea of a new course where alternative writing could be taught as opposed to academic discourse and to her shock she found out that others did not agree there were other types of writing to be taught in the classroom. Zawacki had become very interested in articles about "valuing the personal essay as a mode of inquiry in the academy…particularly interested in articles about the link between the personal essay and feminine forms of knowledge and expression" (p. 315). Now I know you are wondering why I am bringing up the point of feminine knowledge and expression, but it is crucial, in my eyes, because for so long men were the dominating force in all writing, and women had to learn from men and their writing, especially academically. Apparently many women talked about the notion of being able to bring the rational with the emotional and unifying knowledge learned from others around them and as one woman put it, "letting the inside out and the outside in" (p.315). Zawacki also talks about reading in Elizabeth Flynn's article Composing as a Woman, and I agree wholeheartedly with this idea, that some of the women students she had finally realized their Voice was as powerful, if not more powerful than the external voices and this allowed many of them to steer towards authenticating their own Voice.

    A powerful statement made by Zawacki is, "we may have to risk focusing on gender differences if we want to hear Voices which have been marginalized or silenced by our insistence on rational argument as the prevailing mode of discourse in the academy" (p. 316). I bring this quote to say that after reading Murray's idea of a classroom and Zawacki's article, I believe that if we don't want to focus on gender differences than we need to give Voice power and maybe use a classroom like Murray's to allow our students the opportunity to explore and play with different types of form in writing and as Murray says, "…the teacher of composition may return to his important educational role when rhetoric—the art of effective and responsible argument—was the foundation of a classical education" (p. 123). Let the teachers be the guidance, but allow the students to teach one another, and allow people the opportunity to use their Voice in a very powerful way, writing. As stated earlier, "Voice implies breath, spirit, presence, what comes before words and gives them life" (Harris, p. 24). Now give that Voice permission to fly freely and have life in what you have written, so others may understand the pain, joy, triumph, love, passion, anger, hate, vengefulness, lust, happiness, peace, etc. that you have to share with the world.

Aspasia: Rhetoric, Gender, and Colonial Ideology by Susan Jarratt and Rory Ong

Ok, so I thought it would be fascinating to read this article first, simply because it is about Aspasia and I have studied her in the past and love her; however, I have not read this article before and struggled reading this article. I am grateful I have a background in Rhetoric due to my History of Rhetoric course; otherwise, I would have been a little more lost! Anywho…

To start this article off, there are three questions being posed by the two authors: "Did Aspasia exist? If so, can she be known? And then, is that knowledge communicable? (p 9). They also tell us how they are going to go about covering these questions. The one thing I do like is how they state, "a visual representation of Aspasia illustrates the multilayered operation of historiography in another way" (p 9). Personally, I agree with this statement very strongly. For us to even be able to discover anything about a woman who is teaching a man and writing speeches for a man in 5^th Century B.C.E Athens is absolutely incredible. What makes this even more incredible is the fact that she is not a native of Athens, but instead is from Miletus. However, during this time in Athens aristocratic women were highly watched, everything they did, every move they made, etc. was extremely restricted, to the point that they were confined to the house except during religious festivals.

As much as this talks about the historical aspects of rhetoric and the importance of making such a discovery, I find it to be a little drier than the other pieces I have read on Aspasia. I understand that the Jarratt and Ong are looking at how others view Aspasia and the importance she plays in this history, but I guess I did not like the sources they used, because if this is someone's first contact with Aspasia and with History of Rhetoric it is more complicated for them to read.

One of the other parts of this article I enjoyed is the very last paragraph. "Aspasia, perhaps the first female orator in the Western tradition, attracted not only the admiration of Pericles and the fascination of Socrates, but also the critical attention of a Plato intent on rereading the rhetorical world to which she gave voice" (p 22). How powerful is this. Aspasia is truly a fascinating woman and she is the reason scholars and researchers alike are doing more research into Feminist Rhetoric, because obviously there are more women writers out there that wrote our history, but are yet undiscovered because they have to be hidden behind a man. I am just glad works were discovered to pinpoint her as a writer for Pericles.

My, oh my! Christopher Burnham opened my eyes in just the first page!

This article was fascinating to me in so many ways…

Christopher Burnham opens the article's introduction talking about James Berlin and something he says hits me really hard; "…any single approach supports an underlying set of values while questioning others" (p 19). I truly agree with this simple yet profound (in my eyes) statement from Berlin because I truly believe that anything we deal with, especially while learning to earn a degree, we should know that there are several approaches to everything we do, every way we think, and if we close our minds to only one way of thinking, means we are truly missing some other values that are associated with the subject. Bringing this back to composition, pedagogy, and rhetoric, this in my eyes is why there are so many conflicting views and so many different theories out there. There is not a single view to look at any of these fields, while I may strongly agree with one theory or another and I support those underlying values, but it leaves the values of other theories being questioned. How does this affect my teaching, the quality of my teaching, the style of my teaching?

I also enjoyed how he explained "voice." Burnham talks about it as a presence and calls it ethos, goes on to talking about this being a key factor that expressivists look for when they are evaluating papers. I find this funny because this is how I have always looked at papers and never knew there was a word or for that matter a group of theorist out there who identified this. I also enjoyed the definition he gave for expressivism by using Berlin's triangle method. Basically using this method the writer is in the center and is able to articulate theory and develop a pedagogical system that assigns the highest value to the writer and their imagination, psychological, social, and spiritual development and how these development influences individual consciousness and social behavior, leading to the presence or voice (Burnham 19).

I do agree with bell hooks and that there is a "great value and responsibility on the teacher as well as to the writer" (Burnham 19) and also find it interesting that she would be such an ally to expressivists, even Burnham says that allies are from "sometimes conflicting ideological backgrounds" (p 19) and boy, oh boy is she ever from a different ideological background! hooks is such an awesome feminist who stands for so many different things, but what I find so fascinating about her is the fact that she is a teacher and takes what she believes into her own classroom and uses them, which to me says she practices what she preaches and that is incredible.

All in all, I feel in love with this article just after the first page of reading, of course that is only the introduction, but it says so much about this article and where this article is going to go and say.

The Feminization of Rhetoric and Composition Studies? Janice M. Lauer

    Yes, I know last week I wrote on Lauer's other article, but I am so fascinated by her writings.

    I enjoyed reading this article because it really talks about the struggles of Composition Studies in the beginning and continuing, plus it talks about why it may be considered "feminized." I find it so interesting how at the end of the article she goes into great deal how this field of study could be consider feminine. She talks about how she and colleagues would conduct summer rhetoric seminars and year-long NEH seminars, plus doctoral programs (which she felt was gutsy during this time due to them stepping out and saying that this is an okay area for graduate students to study in were "feminine" because "[they] helped[ing] to release in others unexplored resources and transformative powers." Earlier in the article she was talking about feminine traits and one caring for another's development. She even furthered the idea of this being women's work because rather it was a man or a woman overseeing program development, dissertation direction, and letters of recommendations pay raises or a lightened teaching load were very rare "rewards." Lauer goes on about other disciplinary acts that would continue the tale of feminization, such as bibliographic works and journal and encyclopedia editing, but yet these "feminine" acts are what shaped this field from the 1960's to the 1980's.

    This article really made me stop and think about why do I love the field of composition and why have I become so drawn to it? In some sense I wonder if it is the sense of "feminization" that is involved in this field. When I look at the list Lauer uses as feminine traits I very much see myself and it pushes that urge and desire even more within me to do my graduate work in this field because the idea of watching someone grow and change excites me, like it excited her. I like the statement she uses before the list, "…will foreground some "feminine" traits that have been 'deliberately chosen and enacted critically by women and men, not essentialized features derived from marginalization or oppression'." I find this statement incredibly important because so many people, especially women and extreme feminists feel that having feminine traits are oppression to women; however, if women will embrace this idea of feminine traits, it will not be oppression or something that holds us back. I also feel that if teachers and professors, especially women teachers and professors, take this into their classroom, their writing classrooms, they will find their peace and place. So many women teachers and professors have tried to become like the men that teach around them, but some students crave that feminization trait, that is how they are going to grow not only academically but also as a person.

Composition Studies: Dappled Discipline by Janice M. Lauer

This article discusses the "primary reflections" of composition studies by first outlining distinctive features and then discussing the different advantages and dangers of these features.

Lauer first talks about the distinctive features of composition studies and discusses "at its deepest level, a discipline has a special set of phenomena to study, a characteristic mode or modes of inquiry, its own history of development, its theoretical ancestors and assumptions, its evolving body of knowledge, and its own epistemic courts by which knowledge gains that status" (20). Personally, I did not realize how "new" of a discipline composition studies was until reading this article and Lauer really shows how composition studies crosses disciplinary lines, but also talks about the different theorists theories on the development of a discipline and what truly made this discipline become what it is today. She chooses to begin by discussing in a "dynamic perspective" by turning back to the sixties and some of the pioneers. Basically how composition studies began was teachers within English departments began to feel dissonance between what they understood and the responsibility they had to their students. With Lauer discussing this she connects it to the handout we received and read because so many teachers became concerned about the amount of illiteracy among the population of college bound students. The other way these two other articles connect is through the idea that it took advocates to truly fight to make a difference in the epidemic of illiteracy and it took decades to make this difference.

Lauer discusses how it took early theorists a willingness to be risky, had to go beyond their own boundaries and enter into foreign domains to be able to find a place to start. Many early theorists looked into classical rhetoric, linguistics, semiotics, psychological studies, philosophical theories, and even biological theories. The one idea that seemed to come from all of this is the idea of community. One reason community is so important is because composition is considered a social field and social knowledge depends on personal relationships between an advocate and an audience. By being able to advocate to the right audience the work moves forward, but advocate to the wrong audience first and it gets stalled or put at a standstill and frustrates others who are in the field. However, I believe the most important point that comes out of the idea of community is by theorist Farrell and it says, "knowledge generated by social fields plays an important role in both academia and society because its overreaching purpose is to transform the society into a community by helping define the zone of relevance in matters of human choice" (as quoted in Lauer 25). The reason I find this so important is because in order for the attitude to shift over those several decades it took the community and advocates working together to make the changes. In order to keep up the moving forward of composition studies it will continue to take community and advocates working together.

I truly believe that throughout this semester and the different readings we will be doing we will continually see the idea of community for the discipline of composition because it has been such a struggle to bring this discipline forward and the best way to do that is by forming a community who supports it and wants to see its growth.

Thoughts on Composition Theory

The investment that I have in this class is interesting, well at least to me anyways! I have wanted to take this course because I have toyed with the idea of teaching (I really would love to teach at the college level) and thought this would be a great way to imerse myself into what it is really like to teach writing. Personally, I love to write, my favorite kind of writing though is research. I love to find something I am interested in and passionate about, then go and find all the information that I can possibly find about that topic and write about it to share it with others. I also love to present what I find in my research to others. Due to my personal interest in this course, I am truly hoping to learn different scholars points of view on how to teach a writing course. I have my own ideas, but I wonder what the so called "know-it-alls" have to say about teaching composition.
The video drew me in because I have learned about so many of the scholars in other writing courses that I have taken here at Texas Wesleyan. Several of the scholars interviewed are ones that I am particularly interested in for different types of research. It is so fascinating to hear from most of them how scared they were when they first went into teaching composition and so it makes me even more interested in wanting to discover their theories and how they developed them.
Really nothing on the video surprised, except maybe the idea that they were all nervous in one form or another when teaching in the beginning. I know that the video gave me some ideas as to what I am interested in possibly researching more.