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Although brief, Rhodes' introduction to the text made a blunt and fantastic argument for the writing and composition that is currently being taught. The introduction focused on the movement of radical feminism and the ways that it intersects with composition courses. Specifically, Rhodes spent some time talking about the means of the text being executed. "Radical feminist textuality, with its emphasis on temporary positionality and its use of available technologies, offers much to compositionists," Rhodes explains (2). In other words, this movement has strategically taken advantage of modern day writing tools in ways that other movements and studies have not.

Furthermore, Rhodes goes into the impact of texts such as these. Rhodes claims that they are "collective responses designed to work social change" (2). These texts are not meant to remain idle. They are meant to be active and living in culture, even beyond the time period that they are written in.

Thinking about this introduction in the ways that it relates to the rest of the content that we are learning in regards to FYC courses etc., it makes me wonder if these courses cannot undergo a form of evolution to keep up with the multiple forms of writing. From my memory, these classes taught more formal, long-term writing. I do not remember writing and pieces with social activism in mind, or with a brief digest in mind. How wonderful would it be if we could teach our students that their writing can be immediate and change-evoking?

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I am so glad that Professor Cole recommended this as an important read in her weekly assignment video. After reading it, I can see why it is such a crucial read.

When I was in my composition class in my undergrad, I completed a unit plan for my final project. My overarching principal of this unit plan was bringing in everyone's language into the curriculum without discrimination. In English curriculum, we often focus on formal language. But that is not really the way that most people speak at home. I wanted students to feel comfortable speaking their home language in my classroom, whether that is a dialect of English or another language. I felt that project connects to the article that we read and the view of multiculturalism in writing and teaching.

Villanueva begins the text by relaying his experience with Puerto Rico and how the systemic terms of multiculturalism "show up even in individuals" (183). His overarching argument for this in the classroom is that "we seem to be working counter to the cultural multiplicity we seek. And I think that means that we will have to rethink the whole thing" (183). WOW! What a bold and important observation. I could not agree more with Villanueva. Until we confront these issues, we cannot move forward in education.

He later on reaffirms the goal of multiculturalism: "the cultural and historical affirmations among all of America's citizens... but as long as we continue to follow an assimilationist model, we will fall short; and those who will be most affected negatively will be America's people of color" (188). This is such an incredible mantra to have in mind as an educator. What voices are we letting in our rooms (both literally and figuratively)? What voices are we silencing? What voices are we looking down on?

To be honest, this is not always easy to incorporate into a public school classroom. As always, there is the issue of curriculum and standards that must be met.

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Waite's essay, "Cultivating the Scavenger: A Queerer Feminist Future for Composition and Rhetoric," covered a lot of different fields that could be discussed at length. The one part that really caught my attention, however, was a short statement towards the end of the paper:

"Courses that 'allowed ideas to be held up to reexamination, to contradiction, and to the multiple stories of women’s lives hold at least some promise to counter the absolutist forms of thinking that prevail in our society and to allow more students to remake their view of the world' (101)" (63).

I think that this is such a challenge in education- to be willing to boldly and intentionally confront challenges. I feel that it is safe to say that, as teachers, we often teach content that is digestable. When I look back at my own high school education, I don't remember being taught much with space for challenge. Sure, we could argue our views of what a metaphor stood for, but overall, answers were cut and dry.

Waite, however, is arguing that we should do the opposite. We should offer up texts that open space for cross-examination and curiosity to blossom. We should welcome conversation and disagreement. And none of this is easy.

As I was lesson planning for my Social Justice class this week, I came across a TED Talk that I think relates to this topic. Although about an entirely different topic, the message of the danger of relying on a single story still applies. See link above if you are interested!

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Transcript of "The danger of a single story"

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TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

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To me, this chapter and the way that Inoue orients their course reminds me so much of Villanueva's text. The same concept of "more responsive" teaching and writing is reflected in both texts (71).

I think of myself as a very practical person, so whenever I come across an idea that seems great in concept but difficult to execute, I get a little bit hesitant. For that reason, I found myself paying very close attention to Inoue's second question of, "How do we know how well we are doing?" (80). I love the idea of gradeless teaching, but I wonder how it could actually work.

While exploring the answer to this question, Inoue explained that "when you're not judged by how good you can write, you're able to do more with your writing" (83). I do completely agree with that statement. When students are given freedom, they feel more ownership in their writing (connecting back to our original readings about gaining power over your writing).

Although this course was designed for post high school, I wonder how the same principles could exist in a high school classroom. We are held so strictly to curriculum- is there a way to do something like contract grading? Personally, I really can't think of a way that it can be done.

*On a sidenote for a different conversation, I loved Inoue's statement that "the measure of 'good' quality usually conforms to a white, middle-class, academic discourse" (84). Amen.

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In this chapter, author Teresa Redd discusses the way that she executes the theories that she believes in inside of the classroom that she teaches in. She then lays out a set of goals that she has for her classroom. I was particularly interested in her fifth goal: "To develop students' ability to compose in multiple environments, using everything from traditional pen and paper to electronic technologies" (151).

The reason why this goal caught my attention is because of the world that we are currently living in. In modern times, it is rare to see someone in public writing with pencil and paper. Instead, coffee shops are filled with people looking for wall seats close to outlets to plug in their laptops and iPads so that they can connect with their research. In any public space, the WiFi password is prominently displayed even though a book cannot be seen in sight. Even a close friend of mine, who recently restarted her career path and decided to begin nursing school, was required to by an iPad to download textbooks for nursing school instead of spending an incredible amount of money on hardcopy books.

Now, there are two ways to look at this. The first (and most natural for me) way is to look at the situation in a disillusioned way. We can be upset at this impersonal transition to technology and constantly go on rants about kids these days. The second option is to get on board and look at the positives. To understand that we are simply in new times and to look for the benefits that technology provides, despite its setbacks.

It is different to look at this as a teacher. When I was in high school, although it was not that long ago, I rarely used computers. Teachers rented computer carts, but we did not have personal devices the way that my students do today. Now, I can't even pull students away from their technology.

So, how do we, as teachers, embrace teaching to the technology without encouraging students' addiction to technology? I think that we have to focus on the academic, interdisciplinary aspects of technology. For example, mastering the use of Google Docs or conducting research while not showing TikTok videos in class.

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"He talks at length about the after-class group during which he and a small group of students met to evaluate the day's session and to plan classes and projects. Shor's students offered up scathing criticism of his chosen texts and time management; the result was a remarkable redistribution of power and responsibility. Shor's knowledge and authority had not been erased; instead, another avenue of power had been constructed- it became, Shor says, a two-way street: 'I found myself immediately and continually accountable to students'" (81).

I really enjoyed this chapter on Critical Theory and Pedagogy. Even though it was dry, I appreciated the background of the Critical Theory movement since that is not something that I am very familiar with. It was helpful to learn the big names in the game.

I really liked the example from the teacher above. I think, as teachers, we appreciate control over our rooms. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. We have a lot of moving pieces and a mix of so many learning styles. When someone else steps in to take control, and we know what we are doing works, it can be threatening.

But what if students taking control does not mean us losing control? It simply means that our pedagogy is becoming student-centered. How can our teaching be focused on the student if we don't let the student have a voice?

As teachers, it is our responsibility to share our control. To let our classroom to be a democracy. To allow students to take ownership of their learning.

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In my own teaching practices, I love to encourage my students to think about how they can connect what they are doing in my room to what they are learning in their personal lives. Often times, I am met with "this doesn't connect to real life at all," but every now and then, I receive a profound connection from a student.

For that reason and interest, I love the approach that George, Lockridge, and Trimbur took to Cultural Studies and Pedagogy in regards to the Composition course. At the end of their chapter, they summed it up perfectly:

"For the cultural-studies-influenced writing class today, that shift is especially evident any time a teacher asks students to move their investigations out of the classroom- physically or virtually- to map spaces, record oral histories, examine the uses of language in a given community, create political blogs, and pay serious attention to the world as lived experience both local and transnational" (105).

If students are not able to bring their life into the classroom or the classroom into their life, we are doing something wrong.

Throughout the entire chapter, the authors confronted the question of what composition studies is actually studying. In other words, what is the actual content? Using the approach of cultural studies, there is an actual content. And it is applicable in real life.

This book has taught me so much about the way that we can restructure our courses to have a greater purpose.

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Sarah Speltz post (I wasn't logged in when I posted this!): Labor v. Work 

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Sarah Speltz post (I wasn't logged in when I posted this!): Labor v. Work 

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I loved so many of the ideas in Inoue's chapter. Similar to Kaitlyn, I was a little overwhelmed at the idea of implementing something like what Inoue describes, but there are a few key takeaways that I think can inform a lot of what we as high school teachers do within the traditional system. I think, too, it's fair to say that Inoue hits on a lot of the fundamental concepts of teaching writing that we've been reading about this semester and then shows how to do your very best to avoid squashing all of it when forced to give a grade to the students trying to learn writing.

First, I was fascinated by Inoue's discussion of labor versus work. He describes how labor is often painful and uncomfortable, but that "work" is usually the work of the class, like the papers and assignments they do that are graded. I can see the benefit of separating out the two ideas, particularly because, as Inoue notes, many students come into writing classes having been "graded poorly" on their previous work.

Second, I found very helpful the discussion  about what assessing means. Inoue writes, "the student and I jointly assess his or her work in conferences where we discuss grading and how we know how well we are doing" (84).  I have found that students are usually pretty honest about what they are or aren't doing in a class, and they tend to grade themselves and each other even more strictly than teachers do, so I think if we do a good job building up rapport and trust with students, we can absolutely make them part of the conversation about assessment. My goal with English 12 students would be to have them again focus on GROWTH. What have they been doing that has improved their abilities or added to their skill sets. In this section, I appreciated Inoue's particularly illustrative example of the Hmong students and how they reacted to the judging and ranking system. Grades are harmful to all students but to certain groups of students in particular.

Finally, in the same section, I was struck by Inoue's comments on how we tend to compare student writing to "ideal writing" (which, as Kaitlyn noted, is usually a white and middle class and academic). But I was nearly knocked over by Inoue's assertion that when we make these comparisons, and when we read to try to correct problems, "we read to look for deficits, not for differences" (87). These words will be rattling around in my head as I read student work this weekend.

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Sarah Speltz post (wasn't logged in, sorry!):          "[T]eaching writing can ignite a fire that will make a pot boil over" (Redd 162)

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Sarah Speltz post (wasn't logged in, sorry!):          "[T]eaching writing can ignite a fire that will make a pot boil over" (Redd 162)

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The final line in Redd's conclusion just gets me so fired up to go to school tomorrow! And I just really enjoyed this chapter in FYC.

Kaitlyn, I also gravitated toward goal 5, and I found that Redd succinctly described everything (and it's a lot) we're trying to do on page 151: "To be truly literate, students need to choose appropriate technology for their role, purpose, and audience. In addition, they need to evaluate, synthesize, and contribute to what they find online and avoid plagiarizing what they find. At the same time, students need to incorporate technology to save time, paper, and energy." I mean, no big deal. That's only 10 different things, if my count is correct. I think the part about this goal that I found the most difficult is that I'm not sure I fully understand what my students' tech skills are, and I'm not sure how to help them articulate what they know in this arena -- mainly because I feel like they know more than I do -- not about the plagiarism piece but about pretty much everything else. This takes me back to Inoue's chapter and finding structured and thoughtful ways to bring students into the conversation about assessment. I think students may not even be aware of the skills THEY bring to the classroom and how important they are to the writing process-- particularly the writing process in the 2020s. (I almost said 21st century, but the first 20 years of the century and this current decade are worlds apart, I think.)

I also found Redd's comments on rubrics really helpful, and I was fascinated by the section on why she asks her students to read their work aloud during 1:1 conferences. It's so beautifully simple and she learns SO MUCH about the students from what they do as they read. I don't know how I could do this with high school students when they are all in the same room at the same time and for only 49 minutes, but this approach is so cool.

Lastly, I was particularly interested in the syllabus section of this chapter-- perhaps more than in any of the others. And I love the final section on pages 181-183 with the examples of African American Styling Patterns. I can think of 50 different ways this compilation could be helpful to students, not just for writing but also for reading and discussion.

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Like much of what we have read so far this semester, George, Lockridge, and Trimbur use their chapter to discuss the ways in which composition instructors can right some wrongs of the past by making the class more inclusive and redefining what literacy means. While the chapter touches on inclusivity in terms of gender and race - topics tackled at length in multiple works that we have read for this week - what makes George, Lockridge, and Trimbur’s work here unique, in my opinion, is its detailed discussion on the ways in which implementing works of popular culture and digital media in the classroom serves to make the composition classroom a more progressive space as well.

George, Lockridge, and Trimbur reference Henry Jenkins, who “challenged the then-typical conceptions of media consumption as a mindless or antisocial activity...instead presenting media fans as engaged in acts of creation and activism - ‘as spectators who transform the experience of watching television into a rich and complex participatory culture’” (99). While I was not around in 1992 to judge for myself, I imagine that this was quite a hot-take in intellectual circles. While today, there may still exist a population of old-fashioned individuals who believe that media consumed via a screen possesses inherently less value than media consumed via text on a page, they would have a hard time arguing that engaging with that media genre is anything less than a social act, given the ubiquity of technology in modern society. Of course, in 2021, Jenkins’s belief expressed above extends beyond the bounds of television. We engage in acts of media consumption and/or composition each time we shop online, choose a show to watch on Netflix, write a product review, or engage in social networking, just to name a few examples. In the composition classroom, if we wish to create meaningful lessons and assignments in which students feel authentically invested, we cannot ignore the means of consumption and composition with which almost all of our students authentically participate and observe almost every day.

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As the title suggests, the course Ann George describes over the course of this chapter the ways in which a composition classroom should serve as an example of democracy at work. George references Shor as a model for practices to implement in her classroom that would grant students power that they would otherwise not possess in a class with a more traditionally-minded instructor. As George explains, “Students in Shor’s classes co-create the syllabus by contributing readings and voting on unit themes, write classroom bylaws, and negotiate grading contracts right down to the attendance policies” (81). Additionally, Shor modeled democracy in the classroom by asking certain students after each day’s lesson to openly and honestly express their thoughts on the day’s work, an act which left Shor “immediately and continually accountable to students” (81). George tells us she took inspiration from this approach and adopted it in her own composition classroom. I truly admire Shor and George’s willingness to open the floodgates for direct criticism in this manner, as shudder at the thought of what some of my own high school students might say if I asked for their honest opinion on our work with something like “The Fall of the House of Usher,” for example.

What I wish George had discussed further, however, are the ways in which she has taken these criticisms and suggestions and altered the course of her class as a result. As anyone who pays even slight attention to politics knows, power redistribution does not occur simply because a person with power listens to the criticisms of those without. I ponder the processes George has used in determining if and how her class should change based on daily student feedback. What action would she take in a situation where the students in this post-class discussion group did not come to a consensus regarding the path to take moving forward? Would decisions be made on a purely democratic line in which the minority is subject to the will of the majority? I do think that running a classroom in a democratic manner would help some students take a greater interest in the course, but I just wish we had some more specific stories of what this looked like for George in practice.

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"The history that we tell becomes the present that we value, and the present that we tell becomes the history that we value" (22).

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"The history that we tell becomes the present that we value, and the present that we tell becomes the history that we value" (22).

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I'm grateful to Rhoades for summarizing in the final paragraph the big ideas she covers in this chapter. She covered a lot of ground, from Michel Foucault's genealogical history to Elizabeth Flynn's evolving perspective on composing (and teaching composition) as a woman. I found this chapter both interesting and difficult, perhaps because my previous experience in grad school was as a literature student, so my lens for discussing feminism was as a reader critiquing and analyzing literature. Of course, in that case, feminist criticism was part of a broader discussion of looking at "the other" in a text. That seems also to be the problem with feminist composition theories.

Now, as I study how we teach writing, I was particularly interested in Rhoades' points about composition teachers. She raises the issue of how we view women as nurturers and how many of the instructors who teach FYC are women (who are part-time or adjunct), and that this role is often looked down upon or dismissed. Rhoades also writes, "Because of the drive to legitimize ourselves within academe, and because, perhaps, we have thrown in our lot with academic feminism rather than 'street' feminism, we have remained curiously silent on the subject of the public textuality of second-wave feminism" (20). I'm not sure I totally understand the nuances relating to first- v. second-wave feminism here, but I am always interested in the tension between finding universal truth (or common threads) and respecting individual diversity. As teachers who are trying to help our students find their voices and be capable writers, I think we all understand the tension between nurturing individual expression and cultivating their sense of civic responsibility within the larger community. As teachers we don't want our students to be disruptive, but we also want them to be disruptors, right?

Also, just as a side note, this article made me think about the impact of k-12 teachers' gender on writing development. I'm on 3 teacher teams right now: 7th grade ELA (all women), 9th grade English (mostly women, but the men teach the honors sections), and English 12 (all women). Then I think about my college English experience. All of my professors were men, with two exceptions: and one was my freshman writing teacher.

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Waite's article, as with so many of the readings this week (and I haven't finished them all yet) acknowledge how difficult it is for us to escape the past, the traditional, the way things have always been done -- whether it's with grading or how we understand feminist theory, and so much more related to teaching and learning. But Waite gives me hope right at the start (and possibly also answers the questions I had at the end of my Rhoades post), when she writes, "there are ways to embrace the contradictions in our field, in our scholarly writing, and in our classrooms" (52).

In addition to absolutely loving how Waite threaded in her 3rd grade experience, I also loved the section on pages 57-58 when Waite describes the difficulty in responding to student writing -- even when it's *just* one word, in this case "he." The example perfectly illustrates so many of the challenges we face in the classroom-- from determining how to comment, how much to say, how much time to spend on one student's paper, and how to help students "fix" things. Ugh! It's so painful and wonderful at the same time!

Waite also does a great job on pages 59-60 of putting into words a conflict I currently feel between what I'm doing with my student writers in 9th and 12th grade. Unsurprisingly, we're teaching 9th graders to do things that by 12th grade I try to get them NOT to do. For example, 9th graders are given sentence starters like "This quote shows..." because they are just learning how to do lit analysis. When my seniors do this same thing, I talk to them about how to get away from such phrasing.  But Waite points out, "If what we want is students who can think in disruptive, non-normative, and contradictory ways..., we must ask them to write this way. And we must write this way" (60).

I want to say two more things about this article. First, I never would have expected this article, on a seemingly very specific topic within rhetoric and composition, to help me understand some of the bigger picture issues in the field so well. It even, on page 66, echoes the reading we did earlier in this course about the history of the field and the history of English departments, taking us way up to a 30,000 foot view. And second, the example Waite keeps coming back to of her student AJ reminds me so much of one of my current seniors who I am really trying to get to take more risks, to be less responsible, as Waite describes it. But I realize in reading this article that there is no reason for my student to take risks. The system is set up for his success, and he has always been very successful by existing in it as a white male student athlete who gets good grades and is popular among his classmates. I keep trying to push him outside his comfort zone, but it hasn't been working. No wonder. He has never been uncomfortable. Why would he want to be? I am not sure exactly how to incorporate Waite's scavenger method, but it's definitely got me thinking. And the image she leaves us with -- of her 3rd grade teacher's messy classroom--heartens me. I usually say "learning is loud" to explain what's going on in my classroom, where it is rarely silent, but I think it is also very messy!

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I love a lot of Inoue’s ideas concerning labor-based grading, but I feel many of these ideas ignore the realities of teaching and are naïve to the ways students think and operate. I have felt the same way toward many of the writers who subscribe to process pedagogy that we have encountered so far this semester. To be fair, Inoue does say in the chapter’s opening paragraph that the course described within is his “ideal” writing course. Unfortunately, the ideal is rarely practical in the real world.

I cannot argue with Inoue’s assertion that a grade on a student’s writing project can be harmful for a handful of reasons that he notes in the chapter. For one, many instructors without a composition background assign and assess composition projects, for another, students often walk away from these assignments believing that they are “bad writers” because they earned a bad grade, and finally, there are certain cases where the instructor assessing a student’s writing only offers feedback in terms of the grade itself (72-73). I recognize that these issues are all prevalent to one extent or another at the high school and college levels (though I personally do not recall ever receiving feedback on a writing assignment that consisted of only a number or letter grade, and I have never had a colleague who provides this kind of lazy feedback to their students on such projects).

While Inoue succeeds in pointing out the obvious and not-so-obvious problems with quality-based grading in the writing classroom, he fails to convince me that labor-based grading is better - that it is somehow more accurate or authentic in evaluating a student as a writer than the alternative. After reading this chapter, I remain convinced that an instructor eschewing traditional grades in favor of assessing labor is merely trading one set of problems for another. While Inoue presents valid criticisms of the traditional grading scale, he - either intentionally or unintentionally - does not address some of the most obvious problems that would arise in a course where students know they are being graded on their “efforts.” The flaw in Inoue’s system that stands out most to me at the moment is that evaluating the effort a student puts into a writing assignment is no less subjective than evaluating the quality of that same writing assignment. It would perhaps be fair for a teacher to evaluate in this manner on an assignment completed in class, where they are able to observe students in their process, but this only makes up a small percentage of the assignments in Inoue’s ideal classroom. On the other hand, just to point out two specific examples, this would not be a fair or authentic way to assess the reading/reflection/response assignments on which his students are expected to spend 40-60 minutes of their own time each weekend, and this would not be a fair or authentic way to assess the weekly “labor journals...that document time spent on activities, and the level of intensity of the work” (81). Because a student cannot actually “prove” the amount of time and effort they put into these assignments, they will fib their way through them. That does not make them bad people; that makes them human beings. If a student can complete the required tasks in those weekend assignments in 20 minutes instead of 60, they will do so, and they will fib in their weekly labor journal about this amount of time if they know honesty will result in negative consequences. Is this more or less authentic than the student intentionally dragging out the task to meet an arbitrary requirement? Would you say the same about an hourly employee intentionally dragging out a two-hour task into six so that they could get more money from their employers? The only real difference between these two scenarios is that in the latter, the employees are effectively taking extra money, a finite resource, from their employers, whereas in the former, so such quandary exists - an instructor does not have a limited number of “points” to distribute.

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I have to admit up front that this was a very challenging read for me. The presentation of sometimes-conflicting philosophies regarding feminism combined with often-opaque prose left me scratching my head even after a second read-through.

One interesting idea that I felt I had some grasp on was Rhodes’ invocation of Hartsock, who, responding to Foucault, says “we are led to conclude merely that each of us both dominates and is dominated. We are all responsible, and so in a sense no one is responsible” (8-9). Though not without its flaws, I felt this was such a wonderfully simple way of describing an incredibly complex aspect of being human. As a white, cisgender male, I recognize that I possess inherent privileges in the society in which I exist. To use terminology from the chapter, in the average life situation, I likely fulfill the role of the “dominator” due to these intrinsic qualities. However, I certainly have found myself in situations where the opposite was true. Growing up attending Catholic school, where the only political issue that matters is abortion, as a child of liberal, pro-choice parents was tricky. This left me in situations where, when I was younger, I had to keep my parents’ beliefs a secret when the issue came up in school (which it did...A LOT), and situations where, when I was older and no longer ashamed of my beliefs or my family’s beliefs, I earned vocal scorn from certain classmates and silent scorn from certain teachers when I defended my positions. Today, being a liberal atheist-sometimes-agnostic in deep-red South Dakota (where there seem to be as many churches as people), I still find myself in situations where I need to choose between deflection or scorn when religious or political topics arise. I want to be clear - I am not comparing my situation to that of minorities (racial and otherwise) in modern America. I do not face systemic domination (again, just to use terminology from this chapter) on a daily basis, none of the traits which put me in the “minority” in certain contexts are visible on the outside, and all of these traits are ones that I have chosen for myself. My point here is that this is an example (no matter how small-potatoes on a grand scale) of the point Hartsock, and by extension Foucault, tries to make in saying that we all dominate and we are all dominated. The problem with Foucault’s idea here, which Rhodes herself points out in the chapter, is that if no one is “responsible” for systems that grant power to one “kind” of person over another, then the oppressed will always remain oppressed and the oppressors will always remain the oppressors, as no one will feel obligated to change the systems that enable this oppression to occur. In other words, a person cannot ignore the ways they dominate others in certain contexts simply because they themselves have been the dominated party in others.

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I read this piece immediately after Rhodes’s chapter, and the timing could not have been better. Rhodes spent much of her article referencing the works of writers whose views on feminism were often distinct from, and sometimes in conflict with one another. This left me confused in some cases, and, more to the point, bothered in others. I promise I will bring this all back to Kirsch and Ritchie, but at one point in her chapter, Rhodes says “Caywood and Overing’s claim that feminist (and process) pedagogy can facilitate the development of the individual woman’s voice - which is and has always been (essentially) the voice of a noncompetitive, maternal-thinking nurturer - forms a key component of almost every essay in the collection” (14). I realize this is one sentence from a chapter nearly 20 pages long, but it serves as a microcosm of what I struggled with in the chapter. This sentence bothered me on two levels. One - I cannot tell if Rhodes is saying that Caywood and Overing claim that an individual woman’s voice is and has always been non-competitive, maternal, etc., or if Rhodes is making the claim herself, expanding on Caywood and Overing’s words. Two - I had to pause to wonder if this statement, no matter the source, is sexist in itself. As a male who is, at best, a novice when it comes to feminist theory and history, it would be irresponsible and ignorant for me to make a judgment on the matter myself. All I can say is that statements essentially boxing men and women or masculinity and femininity into defined categories or roles seem too inherently simplistic to accurately reflect an authentic human experience, no matter the human’s gender.

To bring things back to the article at hand, Kirsch and Ritchie reference Adrienne Rich, saying “we can no longer utter phrases like ‘women always….If we have learned anything in these years of late twentieth-century feminism, it’s that “always” blots out what we really need to know: When, where, and under what conditions has the statement been true’” (9). Kirsch and Ritchie later point out that “In general, feminist philosophers disavow traditional rule-governed ethics based on ‘universal’ principles and on unbending rules, because acting from principle entails acting without experience and context, without a politics of location” (21). These two passages demonstrate, to me, the heart of Kirsch and Ritchie’s thesis in this piece - a thesis that serves as a cure to the ill I felt while reading Rhodes’s chapter. The key takeaway here is that everyone, not just writing instructors, needs to recognize the irresponsibility of “essentializing” (i.e. stereotyping) individuals based on their inherent traits. Stating that “the individual woman’s voice... is and has always been (essentially) the voice of a noncompetitive, maternal-thinking nurturer” as Rhodes does in her chapter is an example of this flawed way of thinking - it is literally a “women always…” statement which Rich cautions against in the passage above. Instead, as writing instructors (and as members of the human race), we need to recognize the individuality of each student in our classroom. We need to respect and recognize the different perspectives that our students whose race or gender (just to name two key examples) differs from our own bring to the table. At the same time, we need to respect and recognize that those differences are borne out of localized context and experiences, not from qualities or ways of thinking that are somehow inherent to individuals of certain races or genders.

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Villanueva’s piece is brief, but it packs a punch. In slightly under seven pages, he manages to show how ridiculous it is for anyone to believe that we live in a truly “post-colonial” society by pointing out the ways in which members of minority groups are still forced to comply with “the core” (i.e. White America) in order to navigate certain aspects of daily life. The fix that Villanueva - alongside many other writers we have encountered this semester - calls for is to make room for multiculturalism in the writing classroom; do not perpetuate colonialism by holding the students to the traditional (White) idea of what English is.

Villanueva also calls attention to a paradoxical issue I have thought long and hard about during my four-and-a-half years as a teacher when he invokes Gai Kelly’s discussion of the Vietnamese under French rule, saying “in the search for something like multiculturalism, the French taught Vietnamese culture to the Vietnamese, through French eyes and through the French language” (188). On the same page, Villanueva uses a more contemporary analogy by saying “someone who taught African-American literature without knowing the ways with words or the ways of being of African American cultures - or worse, without allowing expression in he ways with words of the students’ cultures” would fall into the same trap. I call this paradoxical because, as a white man who teaches high school American literature, I recognize that it would be irresponsible of me to exclusively teach texts written by other white men in my classroom, as I would be indirectly “raising up” those voices as the only ones of importance. At the same time, it would be irresponsible of me to act as if I could possibly understand the true significance of Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man or the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, for example. If I were to attempt to do so, I would be an imposter. I would be disrespecting my students who have a cultural background authentically represented in those texts, and I would be disserving my students who do not, as I would indirectly be presenting myself as an authoritative voice on the matter. I understand that the best solution to this issue would be to set aside my role as the classroom “leader” and allow for those with more authority on these matters to take charge, but this is more than a little tricky in rural South Dakota, where I teach to a population where around 9 out of every 10 of my students are white.

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The Shor line that George quoted immediately caught my attention: "It's a tricky business to organize an untraditional class in a traditional school" (Friere for the Classroom, as cited on 83). It's also tricky with students who, while perhaps eager for something different, have mostly been trained since 1st grade to succeed in the traditional school system. As George points out on page 85, it's sort of unfair of us to suddenly expect students be excited about completely breaking the mold they have for years been trying to fit within. I found Jennifer Gore's questions on page 87 to be helpful: "instead of broadcasting "what we can do for you!" or debating "what should we do for you?," critical educations must reexamine "what can 'we' do for 'you'?"

I have mentioned in this class before that we use standards-based grading for my English 12 course, so it's nontraditional. In the earlier weeks of the course, we read an article about the harmfulness of traditional grades and, as part of the discussion, we (2 other teachers also teach English 12, so we plan lessons together) asked students, "What do you think should/could change about grading at RHS?" Rightly, many students in my class flagged the question as pointless because they didn't see anything changing, especially for them as seniors. They were annoyed by the question but not annoyed by the topic. They were very open to the discussion about grades and grading, but none of us could really see a way to effect major change to the traditional model, even with our course that has a nontraditional grading system. And, in the end, their work in my class will still translate into a letter grade because we have to put something on their transcript.  So, what are we actually doing?

To further digress, while I was reading George's chapter, with so many references to Friere, I couldn't help but think back to my first exposure to his work. I was a freshman in college, and I signed up for a May Term class called Urban Ministry, which involved living in a church in the Bronx for a month. I went there thinking I would spend the month doing a bunch of volunteer work helping in the community and come home feeling great about all the ways I "did good." Instead, the instructor sent us out into the community to shadow local activists leading grassroots organizations that served the communities they lived in. I felt completely adrift at first because I just didn't understand what we were supposed to do. We read Pedagogy of the Oppressed over the course of the month and, believe me, I was definitely still confused. I came back to the Midwest completely shattered. On some level I think I'm still processing the experience.

I'm not sure how anything in this post ties together. Except perhaps to circle back to the tricky business of a democratic classroom, of empowering students to take ownership of their learning, and of trying to break down a traditional system to make something new.

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I wish during the first week of this course I had started some kind of map to keep track of all the different scholars in this decades-long conversation, sort of like I have to create a family tree when I read a Louise Erdrich novel so that I can keep track of all the characters in all the different generations, and then try to remember which characters I've encountered in her previous novels. I still often get lost. But I guess the fun part in reading this GCP chapter is that I'm starting to see names I recognize, like old friends popping back up. And I think, too, of my 12th graders who I am trying to help understand that, when they write about a famous poem for example, they are joining a bigger conversation that's been going on for years. (They look incredulous when I say things like this, but I say them anyway.)

Perhaps the most helpful section of this chapter for me was right at the end, when the authors mapped the ways certain assignments (there are three main types that came out of this movement) evolved as cultural studies changed from the 80s to the past 10 years. I guess the concrete examples of how cultural studies translated into actual composition are helpful. And these assignments do sound a lot like coursework described in the syllabi we see in the FYC text.

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As happens every week, I realize I should have read the articles in a different order! This time, it's that I should have read Ritchie and Boardman before reading Rhoades. Interestingly, Rhoades' article was published first, but the R & B article documents the authors' re-reading of three decades of books and articles written from a feminist perspective. Unsurprisingly, feminist voices were speaking disruptively for years, but what they were saying was seen merely as interruption (and ignored or silenced), or was referenced by other scholars in the field but not credited as disruptive, feminist work. The authors also acknowledge that a lot of early feminist work is not documented because it was happening in informal conversations or in committees. Or, it was documented in the form of personal narrative about teaching (or composing) as women, so it was discounted because of its genre.

Ritchie and Boardman unpack a lot of overlapping issues, too, including the metonymy of feminism and composition, and that many early feminist accounts in composition were seeking inclusion and equality for women.  I found all of this really interesting, but there's just too much to talk about here.  I think we're all well aware from our previous readings and from our online discussions, that our conversations about inclusion have expanded beyond the gender binary to also address race and class.  And while we may also be beyond the metonymy of feminism and composition, we are certainly not beyond the issues of writing teachers being relegated to the basements, to the non-tenure track, to the less-than-full-time statuses, etc.

Overall, I really enjoyed this revisiting of the "foremothers." But why is it that we never know the role women played in history until we go back to search for it? I mean, I know the answer to this question, but I'm asking it anyway. I'm a teacher -- I ask a lot of questions I know the answers to but I'm still always curious to hear what students think the answer is!

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George et. al did a great job in this chapter of highlighting the shifts in cultural studies from a rhetorician's perspective. Knowing that this interest in studying cultures really came to light in 2005 actually helps clarify a lot of the techniques teachers and professors used in my classes as I was growing up. I remember writing microethnographies early in high school as a way to get in the habit of studying groups around me. While the goal was likely just to push me to think about those cultures I am not a part of, I think I ended up building more empathy and scope of understanding within myself. George et al writes, "...not so much as expert critics but rather as participant-observers studying their own engagement in culture as shoppers, consumers, fans, gamers, spectators, workers, and so on," (104.) It is these examples of identity that interact with and intersect our cultural barriers. Identifying  our own identities makes it easier to understand identities we do not possess.

I consider cultural studies to be the most important piece of education today because so many problems in society stem from a lack of understanding. I think about the violence committed against trans women of color and how so often that violence is rooted in simply not understanding the nuances of humanity. While cultural studies in the composition classroom might feel stilted and academic, this is the ultimate key to understanding one another better.

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When giving the briefest overview of literary theory to my Intro to Literature college course this fall, they audibly gasped when I clicked the slide to "Critical Race Theory." To which I burst out laughing and explained the basis and background for CRT. They replied, "wait...that's it?" Additionally, when administrators found out that my U of M CIS Course actively teachers CRT, they asked for all of my lesson plans at the beginning of this year related to CRT. Insert eye roll here.

Interestingly enough, I remember being fascinated with Paolo Freire in undergrad because he wasn't afraid to talk about Marx in his classroom. Granted, I teach Marxist theory too, but all of these theories inevitably contain fear of being accused of indoctrinating students. George writes, "Critical teachers today find that student resistance accomplishes little except to confirm media portrayals of radical academics indoctrinating students or, worse, push 'students already hunkered down in the 'everybody-has-a-right-to-an-opinion' foxhole to dig even deeper,' (Anderson 198)." (89.) While I absolutely agree with the sentiment, the anxiety of teachers, (especially public school teachers) increases every year as the political landscape gets more staunchly divided in America. It's an interesting tactic of conservative minded people to attack elements of brick and mortar education standards as being too leftist, but it seems to be working to some extent.

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Since March 2020, I've noticed an enormous shift in education toward labor-based grading in both my grad school courses as well as in the school I work in. Personally, I've done a ton of reflection on what grading and assessment means in my classroom, but I also look at it from my student perspective. I was tagged as a "gifted" kid early on in elementary school which gave me an ego for academic success and no coping skills with how to deal with school actually gets tough. I was an honors student for all of high school which again, made me feel as if I "won" academia even though I was sloughing through every course by the skin of my teeth. I made academic success not only my main personality trait, but also something my morals rested on. If I wasn't succeeding academically, I was bad. I've had to unlearn so much of that mentality over the course of my career, but really it's taken up until this Fall to really grasp the impact that the "gifted" title bestowed upon me.

Inoue's chapter on labor-based grading was like a warm cup of coffee on a chilly day. It made me feel safe and secure in my ability to function as a highly qualified teacher BECAUSE I incorporate a lot of labor-based grading into my classroom. My college course that I reference all the time has shifted to include labor-based grading and the increased emotional stability of my students in palpable in the classroom. They are not stressed over points because they know if they complete the requirements, they will get the points. Their quality of work and analysis has even improved from this lack of stress forced upon them by the intricacies of rubrics.

I find myself giving way more feedback that they are able to listen to because they aren't distracted by their poor grade. I remember getting bad grades on rough drafts in high school and not even wanting to improve them because I felt that I was simply A Bad WriterTM. On the flip side, my own students feel confident that they are genuinely focused on learning rather than worrying about their GPA.

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The other day I was talking to a student in my study hall. She often sits across from me at my desk and works on assignments. Occasionally, she'll talk to me, but mostly she just sits quietly. On this day, she said, "I think my English teacher thinks I'm dumb." She went on to explain that she knows "proper" grammar and how to use it, but she also recognizes that her way of speaking at home is valid and should be respected at school. I went on to explain to her that she is multilingual because she can switch back and forth based on setting, but she's right that she shouldn't have to. She knew everything I was telling her, but she knew that she basically just has to keep dealing with people assuming she's dumb until the world shifts to understand this at a larger scale.

Redd writes, "It is important to empower speakers of AAE to take control of conventions instead of letting conventions take control of them," (151.) I love that explanation because it allows room for language to retain its fluidity as humans shift and adapt.

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This is one of the most valuable readings I have encountered so far this semester, as Teresa Redd describes in this chapter a course built on goals that are both progressive and practical. Her discussion of the role conventions play in her course serves as a perfect example of how the two ideas can be blended. Rather than doing away with the conventions of Standard Written English which - as many of the writers we have encountered this semester have pointed out - can be harmful in the ways it tells students of color that their language is “wrong,” Redd imparts upon her students the role that conventions such as these play in helping writers connect to their audience. Speaking specifically African-American English (AAE), Redd points out that “readers who expect the conventions of Standard Written English (SWE) may not attend to the content of a text because they wrongly assume that AAE is ‘bad English’ and, thus, consider the writer incompetent” (150). To me, Redd’s take on conventions reads as an “If a tree falls in the forest, but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” scenario. In this case, the question that requires answering is “If a student wishes to express their thoughts through writing, but their audience cannot comprehend the text, has the student truly expressed their thoughts?” At the same time, Redd emphasizes the importance of allowing students the space to explore their own voices by assigning work that allows students write in their “home language” (151). Unlike strictly traditional writing instructors, Redd does not hold up SWE as the “good” English at the expense of others. At the same time, Redd does not suggest that asking students to abide by the conventions of SWE is a harmful act in itself, as some instructors adhering to expressivist or process pedagogy might suggest. Instead, Redd emphasizes that, like the act of writing itself, all writing conventions have value in a given context.