Response to Readings for 28 Apr 08

“The Adult Literacy Process as Cultural Action for Freedom and Education and Conscientizacao” by Freire

Freire advocates the need for critical consciousness on the part of both teachers and adult students in his essay. First, Freire speaks to teachers and asks that they be aware of their methodology and praxis for teaching. Using examples of “good” and “bad” primers, the author asks teachers not to sustain the “digestive concept of knowledge” in their instruction (617) because, (my use of a biblical analogy here), this way of teaching only feeds the illiterate for a day and does not help them fish for themselves in the future. Instead, teachers should find ways to help adult students facilitate their own learning experiences.

Then Freire explains the steps of the National Literacy Program that he began in Brazil prior to 1964. Each phase takes the illiterate participants through the cognitive stages of learning to include a higher level of synthesis (when they learn to first analyze and then synthesize syllables of words). The first phase of this program touches on some of our readings from last week in that Freire demonstrates how student-centered literacy has to take the students’ lives and environment into consideration. During the first phase, researchers studied the orality of groups and determined what might be the most meaningful instruction for their needs. From there, subsequent phases built upon this orality and slowly added literacy to the program.

When Freire points out at the end of the essay that the “ex-illiterate” became more political after going through the program, I thought of Ong’s assertion that purely oral people cannot really reflect on their lives, etc. I think Freire’s essay refutes Ong’s idea fairly well because I believe the illiterate of Brazil had already considered the political environment but did not previously have a way to communicate their concerns.

“Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class” by Berlin

Berlin deconstructs cognitive, expressionistic, and social-epistemic rhetoric to demonstrate how each supports an inherent ideology. In doing so, Berlin cautions us, as teachers, to be fully aware of the implications of the practices we choose to engage in with our students because “teaching is never innocent” (735). Berlin first examines cognitive rhetoric illustrating how the ideology of this practice tries to assume a scientific objectivity. What often happens, however, is that this rhetoric reinforces the power dynamics of societal classes because it uncritically accepts the status quo. In his explication of expressionistic rhetoric, Berlin shows how the struggle to fully individuate oneself actually works to bolster the very system it purportedly fights against – capitalism. Making no secret of the fact that he most appreciates social-epistemic rhetoric, Berlin admits that this is the most difficult ideology to master. The potential for analysis of self and society is high in this rhetoric, but the ever-changing dynamics of dialectics does not provide us with a set of rules to follow.

Berlin’s essay was eye-opening for me in that it suddenly made connections between the various rhetorical theories that I had not made before. (I know…I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes!) For example, I find cognitive processes to be very interesting, but I hadn’t really considered their shortcomings (despite the fact that we read Bizzell…okay, I’m REALLY slow on the uptake sometimes!) At the same time, I am very interested in social-epistemic rhetoric because I believe that our thinking is deepened through our interactions with others. Who knows…maybe I’m a socio-cognitivist?? I guess I should have figured this out by this point in my graduate study, right? That’s the problem with taking a theory course in the last semester of a program.

“Monday Morning Fever: Critical Literacy and the Generative Theme of ‘Work’” by Shor

Extending Freire’s use of generative words in the National Literacy Program to North American classrooms, Shor details how he has used social-epistemic ideology to help students become better writers and thinkers. Rather than use generative words, however, Shor uses idea-sparking topics, such as workplace experiences, to reach students on a personal level. In addition to assisting students in the invention stage of their writing, the interactive exercises that Shor uses, like the “dictation” drills and the “voicing” sessions, help young writers learn more about the arrangement and style of their texts.

Wow, Berlin wasn’t kidding when he said Shor provides a very comprehensive and detailed look at social-epistemic ideology in this reading. Shor’s explanation of the importance of his voicing exercises especially hit home with me because I saw what he meant every day when I worked in the UNLV Writing Center. We, as consultants, always had students read their work aloud to us. It never failed that students I helped would either correct their wording or add missing words as they read to me. When I would stop the students and ask them why they had vocalized something other than what was on the page, they would shrug their shoulders or look at me with no awareness of what they’d done. Reading aloud to others or yourself is definitely a helpful tool in becoming more self-aware. I just wonder, as I usually do, how we can implement Shor’s detailed process in the limited time we have with our students.

“Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing” by Hairston

Opposing the ideology of writers like Freire, Berlin, and Shor, Hairston believes that freshman composition is no place for teachers with a political axe to grind. Hairston sees danger in a teacher taking social-epistemic rhetoric too far with students because the teacher might inhibit a student’s writing and voice with a “prescribed political content” (709). Acknowledging that freshman composition has seen an increase in teachers who want to push a certain agenda because of a rise in student diversity and political turmoil, Hairston feels we can fight against this trend by allowing students to write from their own experience.

I understand the concern that prompted Hairston to write this essay because I don’t like the idea of anyone pontificating to students about a personal belief. But, I’m not sure I agree with the way she typically extends her points to the worst case scenario. I don’t know about anyone else, but I guess I’ve been lucky in that I never had a college professor who made me feel that his/her political stance was the only correct – or “prescribed” – one. Most of my teachers have been willing to discuss their views but have also challenged me to find my own stance on issues. I feel like I learned how to do this better by seeing how someone else who is passionate about an issue speaks and writes about it. (Again, I like the practice of modeling writing for students.) In the end, I think Hairston also comes across as politically motivated as some of the writers she criticizes when she speaks rather condescendingly of composition teachers fighting for a place with the literary teachers and calls for an upheaval of the power struggle in the conclusion of her piece. As Berlin points out, sometimes a writer’s call to action can actually work to reinforce the status quo.

“Students’ Goals, Gatekeeping, and Some Questions of Ethics” by Smith

Smith argues that compositionists who fight against or deny gatekeeping miss the essential point that gatekeeping is already intrinsic to the system in which they operate. Students are only in teachers’ university classrooms, for example, because there were checks and balances along the way that decided which students would go on to college and which would not. As a result, Smith believes teachers should recognize that students have come to the university “not to resist but to join an elite” (304) in their efforts to pursue professional/managerial positions after college. Therefore, rather than trying to influence students’ political or social beliefs in the few weeks they have with students, teachers should focus on helping students achieve the long-term goals they set for themselves.

I have very mixed feelings about Smith’s essay because I found myself both cheering and jeering along the way. I thought it was refreshing to hear someone in composition speak about teaching writing for foundational and practical reasons versus as a way to expand an audience for some current literary theory trends. I completely agree that teaching cannot and should not always be done using “the motherheart” (306) approach. In the military, for instance, the most effective way for me to help someone learn how to think strategically under extreme pressure was not to treat them in a warm and fuzzy manner. And, in my business writing classes, I don’t think any of my students would call me maternal because I hold them to the same tough standards that their future bosses will probably maintain. (Maybe that’s why the drop rate for my classes tends to be high.) I do believe, however, that my students would say that I am firm but fair.

At the same time, I don’t agree with Smith about certain aspects of his discussion. First, gatekeeping cannot be universally applied in the same way that he uses in his essay. In his example of Felicia, for instance, Smith acts as though gatekeeping in the medical arena has the same meaning as gatekeeping in the classroom. I don’t think we can equate removing doctors from the field who might be putting patients’ lives at risk in the same category as ensuring someone in a writing class does things a certain way. Second, I disagree with Smith’s assertion about people being used instrumentally to achieve a higher goal as being “the only way things can work, period” (312). Companies like Google have shown that treating employees well and as “ends in themselves” has a beneficial effect on all aspects of an operation. I think the best we can do as teachers is to be aware of what our students’ plans for the future are and try and help them achieve those goals within the standards we set for our classroom.