1)
Premises include: the theories of textuality and
discursive resistance
a.
Brodkey focuses on Foucault’s use of discourse
and ideology which I find interesting considering her case study highlights
class differences that make me think of Marx more. The negative associations a deterrent, maybe?
b.
I love this type of stuff. I discuss it with my boss all the time,
issues of class and privilege. I want to
have these conversations with everyone and for a while I thought I could. For a while I’d say things and not realize
their impact, their offense, their brutality, their assumption, their charge in
the ears of middle class white people, especially when those people think they
can relate to me (gets kinda awkward after and I usually end up feeling like a
dick) . I am constantly contemplating
rhetorical awareness- in my speech, position,
clothing, environment, surroundings, associations, everything, but mostly my
language in written and verbal forms. I
play tricks on myself in my head with people to see who can see through me, who
can play with me, and who can’t play for shit. I need to explain a
bit more since this a part of my teaching philosophy. I’ll try and make clearer my
thoughts, try.
2)
“The letters were generated in the discourse of education, since they were
initiated by six white middle-class teachers (four women and two men) taking my
graduate course on teaching basic writing and sustained by six white
working-class women enrolled in an Adult Basic Education (ABE) class” (128)
a.
What is the difference between middle-class and
working-class? Is working class the lower
class and if so, why not say it? I get
the same feeling as when Marx wasn’t mentioned cause I'm a "weirdo", like Don mentioned to Dora.
b.
They are all white people. Funny, when I was reading the correspondence
pieces encountering the broken English, I envisioned people of color, colored
people, minorities- are any of those politically correct? People that look like
my Dad or most, wait, all the guys I’ve dated (does mentioning that mean I can
use politically and unpolitically correct terms?). I had forgotten that it was white people by
the end and not until I’m writing this did I realize.
c.
How middle class is a teacher? Isn’t a teacher working because they can’t
afford anything because they get paid 40k a year. Or 50 or 60 depending on your degrees,
school, etc. etc. So, is that middle
class? they need to be married or
something like that, no? I kept
thinking, especially now and days, this line between working and middle class is
stupid af because it’s kinda non-existent except in our heads. Along with the authority of the teacher comes
the reputation of authority and that means, as was mentioned, “professional
class narcissism”. Like, how awkward is
it that you’re a “scholar” and yet you are in the same financial position as
the student who no able write in tense or make sentence clar.
d.
Side-stepping- that thing we do when we don’t
want to really talk about something so we acknowledge it passive-aggressively. Like Don did to Dora when she mentioned the
death and murder. I argue with many
people about mechanics and grammar because my teaching philosophy does not…
give standard academic English the weight and privilege many of my colleagues
give it… they tell me, “so you won’t teach your students any of it in your
class? You’ll let them write like that-
with fragments and tense issues, etc. etc.”
….. ready for it…. YES. Maybe… now what?
You think I am not fit to teach? I think the same of you. Interesting isn’t it? I think we are fascinating, we at seemingly opposite ends although I see myself as you and me, whereas your reality is just you with a dash of me to "liven" up the classroom when not doing "real academic work". what was that meme sent to me on FB, jokingly of course, by friends of course----
Back to my point… so the teacher’s mastery of linguistics,
rather SAE, allowed them to side-step the conversation instead of getting in
the mud with Dora. I thought- hey, this
is like Facebook- when you press the “like” button to passively acknowledge a
photo. Post, comment, etc. The “like”
button has many interpretations, I’d argue, and I believe this is one of
them. Who needs mastery over language
when I can press “like”, or create a meme with my application that needs but a
few words anyways? What mastery over SAE do I need then? But that is basic
communication, Amanda, we are talking about preparing students for their
careers.…. Yes, you are right..... just like an academic essay prepares our students for their careers.......... Hmmm
e.
“to the credit of the teachers who participated in
this study, none took the usual recourse of justifying their discursive control
by focusing on errors in spelling, grammar, and mechanics that are indubitably there and that make reading the
literacy letters as difficult as reading Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, or Althusser”
(139)
i.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ii.
I took this as --- idk how to say it. I hated it, and loved it. Like--- on one hand, bless you teachers for
your sensitivity to your audience, way to not correct your way into
condescension. On the other, ha!!! You just
put their language on the same page as some big time names, you say it
jokingly? Partially seriously? Iunno, but you say it, and people like me, goo----
no but seriously, Linda, I see their work as just as …. Beautiful. But I still want to teach code-switching! But
I still love how correct syntax and grammar can make a sentence sing,
correctly; sing in tune, I mean, or not it’s just like jazz and that’s not… I
mean…wait…more like EDM, which is not music but appropriated and spliced
together pieces of… not really a creation...wtf am I saying…anyways… my teaching philosophy, can you spot its
pieces in here?
Blending various forms, genres, mediums, modes, lowbrow to
highbrow, focusing on the relationship between content and content holder in
context to it(s) surroundings, its rhetorical space, is what I found my philosophy
on. I emphasize this because I see it as
a way to cut through ideology(s) and discourse(s) similar to what was mentioned
by Brodkey, not cutting around, not carving out, but diving in to till you
drip in confusion (by confusion I mean the pieces to our lives- social,
political, cultural, gendered, religious, etc. all that good stuff that makes
us who are we are). Only then can you
taste the salt in the water, and then after a little while longer the minerals-
an acquired taste of sorts, it must be “learned” hmmm. Still a work in progress, but I think I’m
getting closer.
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