StepAside

Shall we begin the diversity discussion? I'd like to hear from each person about what you found useful in Clark Ch. 10.

As you're referring to stuff in the Clark chapter(s), please provide page number so we can all keep up with you. And as you refer to stuff in the Tate book, provide page #s, too--but also remember that I'm Tate-challenged today, so you'll need to explain what you're saying so that I can understand it without seeing the text.

Ooooh, when you're conducting a class discussion, you're supposed to wait a full 15 seconds for answers when you ask a question, and 15 seconds is a looong silence; it's tough to do! Now I'll have to figure out a formula for how long you should wait for online answers :)

As you all know, I wrote the summary for the Critical Pedagogy chapter in Tate. This chapter speaks most directly to my areas of interest and realtes to my final project. It relates to Clark ch. 10 in that it takes up the political space of the classroom. Should I start talking about this now or hold off a little?

Go for it, J. But focus on Ch. 10; use the Tate chapter to talk about/enrich Clark 10.

I'm for you getting us started....

if we had a common definition of "diversity," or at least a blanket + subdivisions (little pillow-sheets?), it might be easier to comment on how we should have this nebulous "it" as part of our curriculum. does "include diversity" mean "talk about racial inequality"? mean "challenge heteronormativity"? mean "bring old people to class so our students don't think only 18-year-olds study writing? so that's challenge 1, i suppose!

the current mode of dealing w/this in our curriculum--which my inside spy sources tell me is going to get MORE entrenched as new learning outcomes are soon unveiled--is to lean on and sometimes pound to death CONTENT heavily interested in "diversity"--students read academic by hooks & Ahmed (NotWhiteMen) & are challenged to act like adults in classroom conversations about hermaphrodites. doing it this way seems to present constant challenges in terms of focus--i end up in debates with students about whether or not Indians really are lazy and trying to explain (as if i know) what straightening one's hair really has to do with coming-of-age instead of being able to keep the class's attention on rhetorical concerns, on their writing & the writing of others.

in my dream world, on the other hand (the "should") question, classes focus on using language, and in discussions about style & sentence variety & word choice issues of preference & priority come up, which lead unavoidably into politics, into power relations, into racialized and (other) class-or-culturally-marked ways of using, classifying, and ranking words, expressions, and linguistic structures.

is that "flipping the script"? i'm wary of that term. but i think making "diversity" a content-focus actually does more to obscure the real issues of access and difference already inherent in our classrooms (and who's kept outside of them) than digging deeper into language--the theoretical purpose of the class in the 1st place--where issues of "diversity" are "always-already" (i hate that term, too, but it's infecting me) present.

Chapter 10 reminds me a lot of the discussion we had in class already about language variety and non-native speakers...

Do you prefer the Klein approach that's in Clark 10?

Ohhhh, we're supposed to have really long posts. I see.

So what we have so far: the Klein chapter (10) focuses on language diversity; it's not so much what we teach as how. Tyra's account of the 105 diversity work describes a curriculum part of whose content is diversity. How satisfying do you find the Klein account of diversity--its being limited to language diversity? How does it position the teacher and student? Who has agency?

So the concern is the point of entry into the diversity discussion? The question of, "Is it more important to foreground diversity or writing?" It seems the approach Tyra is arguing for is one of "If you teach writing, diversity will come," right? (so odd posing questions in this manner to a person sitting next to me).

I guess my question would be whether or not it's an either/or, first/second, sort of deal. I also want to address the question about whether or not we have to be experts on the content (straightening our hair), but I'm taking too darn long to type and am worrying about typos...

You're thinking maybe FYC should combine both content (teaching diversity TO students) and method (accounting for diversity in HOW one teaches)?

Your concerns about diversity concealing the real issues remind me of the arguments surrounding multicultural vs. polycultural. Multiculural is accused of celebrating diversity without treating the inequalities. Polycultural is supposed to recognize that we live in a blended society and that not everyone is treated equal. It also reminds me of the politics of identity that helped define the black and gay movements and then that was demonized in favor of the politics of difference, which again is supposed to deal with the difference in power and privilege. It gets frustrating--like we are playing linguistic games to stall really doing something about it. Do you all think that this chapter on diversity gets us any closer to solving the issues in the classroom or does it just continue the discussion.

My electronic chapter said that we would talk more openly on line... What do you think?

c'est interessant, je peux ecriver comme je veux ici, ca va bien avec vous ? khabirini!

I'd like to hear from everybody on this: HOW USEFUL to YOU is the material in Clark 10? And what, specifically, IS useful?

this is a little off-topic in terms of worrying directly about "diversity" in FYC, but i think it relates, b/c it's about the impressions we give of what counts as "diverse" and what doesn't--where "diverse" is usually "divergent," and for something to be recognizeable as divergent, it has to be diverging from some (too-often hidden) standard of normalcy.

so here's a comment? concern? observation? about chapter 10--or specifically (figure 10.1): the text explains that the chart was designed to indicate "whether each feature is specifically an AAVE feature or is also found in the other vernacular Englishes that AAVE has had the most contact with" (438).

i don't understand why the distinction about contact is being made here. the writers don't explain the significance of that w/in their larger argument, & it doesn't seem to fit to me with their discussion of the language-pattern HAVING regularity & study-able features--that proves itself. contact isn't required.

my chart looks different b/c i went at it w/a pencil & for "some British dialects" added "northern England" and for some where nothing about British English appeared at all added "some Irish dialects" because i know these things are true. i did that before i noticed the line about contact--so i see now why my additions weren't already included with that as a parameter, but i don't know why it was a parameter in the first place.

i can't articulate exactly what bugs me about the contact thing--maybe i'm still seeing grammatical disease metaphors, like "we have to find out where you CAUGHT this flu so we'll know what kind of germ we're fighting." i do know that this specificity of american dialects (intermingled racially & geographically in ways that i'm not sure suffice) without including the details about other englishes gives me a first-glance impression of grubby lower-class-citizen (usually brown) american distortion of a "pure" language--what each example is introduced as being "instead of"--when the reality is that there is just as much variety--and in some of the exact same features--in non-american englishes, in upper-class englishes, in privileged white englishes even in the misty isles of avalon.

ca va bien!

I think this might reveal a potential internal conflict in my pedagogy. That is, coming from a cultural studies / critical pedagogy background, I tend to work towards achieving content diversity (teaching diversity, as Prof H says). But, as afar as method, I'm not sure how I take that up. Well, I do, but....

Okay, T, good. It's an issue that concerns me, as well. Vanessa talks about the traps of multiculturalism, and here you're identifying the sort of paternalism/colonialism that can be embedded in language diversity pedagogy.
Now tell me what's *useful* in the chapter.

Tyra, I want to respond to what you said about class, though you didn't use that word directly. I went to a race and ethnicity reading group recently and was disappointed (though I should have expected it), that no one wanted to talk about class in relation to our perceptions of race and ethnicity. White privilege keeps the status quo and I get excited about the idea of privileging other languages in the composition classroom, but how do we still do this and teach "English" comp? This also touches on Jeremiah's concern about how much do we talk about diversity in the classroom as out subject matter to have WRT 105 students read and write about... Perhaps this is a compromise of sorts? We have to teach this one way, so let's talk about other ways of talking, living, being in the world...

USEFULNESS

1) a lot of chapter 10's specific looks at linguistics would be useful at least in terms of really fascinating me, if i hadn't already had a class in the stuff, but i have.

2) the distinction between I-language and E-language might be useful. i can see that being a theory i use to hurt my freshmen's heads--especially if i can actually work w/a curriculum that looks AT language instead of THROUGH it like it's a window, b/c it isn't.

3) how am i finding klein? she's annoying me by dropping in little things like the line about contact i mentioned above, like her passing reference to Spanglish on 418, that she sometimes comes back to but doesn't deal with in the context of what she's talking about. i feel like she had 30 more pages to say & truncated them awkwardly. you asked.

& Ina, you have a particular slant to bring to this discussion of Clark 10, because you've learned English as a 4th language. When you put the material in Clark ch. 9 together with the recommendations in Clark ch. 10, what do you think is particularly helpful for thinking about specific issues of *international* diversity?

Tyra, give us page numbers for the I-language & E-language discussion in Klein, SVP.
It's interesting that Jeremiah says he's content oriented because of his background, and Tyra is saying she's been there, done that re the Klein discussion of method. And Vanessa's wondering about *how* to teach polylinguistically when the course is about *English* composition. & earlier in the semester, Ina was experiencing some aversion to writing *in* English. & Aleshia has referred to her undergrad education as having been too obsessed with grammar.

Useful? I like the Klingon exercise (418-420). Sometimes I think we are too close to the issues of diversity, like not being able to see the forest for the trees. Perhaps using metaphors like StarTrek in the classroom would help us engage students in discussion related to diversity AND language issues in a way that is not threatening.

it's useful because it makes us aware--even though we know language diversity exists and is relevant to us as teachers, it's not always at the forefront of our minds.

AAVE makes me mad--after all these years of forcing people to learn standard english, NOW educators are going to cave in?!? i know students have rights to their own language, but in order for us to function as a group of people, we HAVE to have a common language (MUSE?). they just need to have a kick in the pants. they can say "at home you use this; at school you need to use this." i'm not saying don't believe in your own language--if i had a language i'd want to use it, but i'd also want to communicate with others.

for example, down in the mines in south africa they have this language--it's like a mutt-language (creole)--a mixture of a whole bunch of different languages b/c they have to be able to talk to each other in case something happens to somebody some 200 miles underground or whatever. and the equipment being used is all labeled in english, so you have to be able to read english to use the equipment... what i'm trying to say is that there SHOULD be a common language.

otherwise it's a conflict of interests, sort of--or why are we teaching? that's the whole point of education, isn't it? that we all learn the same language and have a common ground?

(J interjects--"but whose common ground? who decides? we should all speak esperanto.")

Okay, so another question: how are *you* going to "do" diversity in your classroom the next time you teach FYC (or sophomore comp, for that matter)?

You can, of course, continue to respond to previous questions--or to raise new ones :)

I'm not excited about the idea of learning another language, but it would be really cool if we had one global language that would allow us all to communicate. Also, I don't think it should be English because it is associated with white privilege.

[tyra's transcription services]

e: i hate that idea.

a: i hate it too! but we all have to communicate on some common ground. i'm not saying enass, lose your language...

e: so you're saying people in california who do not speak english, should what? maybe they speak english, but they don't read or write english. what?

a: i'm just wondering, if we're becoming that society--how many language does the US government translate documents into? i know spanish is one.

j: all i know is spanish, because there are very large enclaves of spanish speaking people.

t: but there are other enclaves of other language users. like japanese, korean...

j: it's a population issue--there are second-language learners, or smaller groups in isolated places.

t: and they lack that geographical continuity that spanish-speakers have, where the language's borders and the geopolitical ones aren't the same.

a: i hate this chapter 10 diversity. i can't even say what i got out of it, except i was mad. and it says it's language AND diversity, but isn't it just about language?

"Doing" diversity in a classroom starts, of course, with the teacher being a racist, xenophobic pig as little as possible. Remember my premise that--at least if you're American (I can't speak for the rest of the world but have quite a bit of U.S. experience), you can't help being racist and xenophobic; the issue for me is not *whether* you are but HOW HARD YOU FIGHT IT.
AND I think that most if not all of our students aren't in that place. Every one of them will tell you that they're *not* racist and xenophobic--which puts them in the position of having to defend their purity rather than improve upon it.
So for me, the first thing about building diversity into the syllabus--whether as method or content--is working on your own perspective.

Ah, clearly I'm missing the Good Stuff by being in Earlville, and Vanessa, I assume, wants to hasten to campus. Nice transcript, T.

i/e-language is on 416.

our latina coworker here in the office says "language diversity? here? there isn't any."

"i gave a reading--of my short stories the other night--and one of the other women in my program came up to me and said i needed to take an accent-reduction class because, you know, when you're nervous, your accent gets stronger."

I think I want to return to an earlier point I made. My concern was about how I *do* diversity in the classroom. My method includes diverse readings and examinations of normalized cultural standards...blah blah blah...but it doesn't (and this is what it sitting in my head at the moment) cater to various language approaches. Aside from incorporating less formal patterns of speech, I can't say I teach anything other than Standard English rules. Now, as we've been debating here in the lab, this can be a positive or a negative -- we give everybody ("give" is so paternalisitc and colonial, isn't it?) a common language to work with. BUT (and dang this feels obvious) we inadvertantly privilege those who come in with the language and put those without it at a disadvantage.

Thus, does this bring us back to Becky's point about teaching all English as...what was the name?...international English?

As far as how to get there? How about an international conference where all people of all languages and dialects are present and make recommendations for a global language? I know that sounds crazy, a dreamer kind of comment, an overly optimistic view, but--with internet technology we could do it. First, people have to be connected though and that gets back to privilege. Not only that, but perhaps there are people and parts of the world that would resist this utopian vision. Maybe people don't want to share in this dream, this global language. Then what? Yikes, maybe this global language idea is just another form of imperialism, like economic globalization. Is there any way out of this cycle?

The desire for linguistic diversity has driven lots of FYC teachers to refuse to take up their students' work on the sentence level. Aleshia, in contrast, is saying, "You need it; suck it up and learn it." And certainly all of us are where we are right now (educationally, professionally, whatever) because we've had a certain measure of success with (a) the standard of (b) English. And it's a fact that many of our students, regardless of their national, linguistic, or ethnic background, *want* to learn standard usage. Where I've been on this issue for several years is to do two things simultaneously: (a) teach the standard (imaginary figment though it may be); and (b) reveal the social hierarchies that it conceals. That way, my students can have the instruction they want but can be much cannier users of language and much more critical participants in their communities.
So for me, linguistic diversity *and* the standard have important places in FYC, as both method and content. Hair-straightening, OTOH, is a felicitous topic but not one that gets at the thing that is for *me* most central about diversity and FYC.
And of course my own problem with Klein is that she's method-only. No critique. Just the beneficent teacher, equipped with good techniques.

hey, let me know overthere when you're ready to break so I'm not typing out in left-field (literally and figuritively)!

vanessa,
nasty reality check--it doesn't matter whether the proto-global language SHOULD be one already associated w/white privilege or not, b/c it is/is going to be. so what are we going to do about it? how, as teachers of the language, can we encourage it to be less of that, be more THAN that?

i HATE the idea of a global language, because i think negotiating meaning & translating & thinking in different tongues is really good for us as a human activity, but that idealism is also irrelevant--if it isn't efficient & doesn't put money in somebody's pockets, it's not happening. so what's more interesting to me is how we can infuse what's already going to happen with what we'd like to see happening.

aleshia or jermiah one (i forget) said a few minutes ago that the american language would or should soon be spanglish; i'm all for that. can we do more to fold IN linguistic diversity instead of only setting it up as something to be taught out of people.

Okay, roll with me on this one:

Since we've had both technology and Star Trek brought into this conversation, I want to refer to something from the Trek films. Anyone who's seen the films knows that, whenever Kirk, Picard, or some poor red-shirt fella discovers "new life, new civilizations," the new aliens all -- conveniently -- speak english. Why is this? For one, it's for the simplicity of the TV show. Of course, sci-fi dorks and linguistic dorks alike would cry "Foul!" and point out how absurd that is.

Soooo....the writers came up with the idea of a "universal translator." Essentially, when wearing this device, the person hears everyone speaking English (Or whatever his/her native language is).

The reason I bring this up is not to revel in my dorkdom (though it is nice) but to illustrate how some people answer Vanessa's question. If there were a universal translator device, we could get around this whole sticky issue of privilege and power that so many are unwilling to address.

So, is this a long way to arrive at Tyra's conclusion? I don't (totally) think so....

Nope, Vanessa, as far as I know, there's no way out of the cycle. There's no "there" in "out there." I have to keep reminding myself of Nietzsche's principle: what's important is not some *product* that results from your efforts, but the *process* of making those efforts. So on issues like this, one must always stay in motion, always working at it, cuz you will never arrive *there.*
And I'm very much the economic determinist when it comes to international language. English has become the global language because of the economic and political domination of English-speaking people. Early 20th-century efforts at a culture-free international language (Jeremiah refers to Esperanto) never went anywhere. So we're stuck with economics driving language choices, and all the horrible baggage that goes along with it. And we teachers are not going to change that. We can, however, change how we and our students act within that system. And Steve Parks will tell you that you should also go *outside* your classroom and engage in direct political action.

I think I kind of hear Vanessa asking for a break. Everybody ready to take one?

technology already gives us translators--in major languages, available on the web, free googling (or we can pay for more reliable real-human generated translations of texts). but w/them come the same access issues that always have:

what counts as a "major" language that appears in common translators? who can afford the "higher class" translations vs. the free ones? who can afford access to the web in the first place? and with economics as at-the-heart-of-everything as they are, i can't imagine a time when these kinds of economic issues WOULDN'T keep technological toys from functioning the same way linguistic difference already does--to make it easier for those with money and/or already in the dominant system to have their needs involving other systems met than for those w/o one of those qualifying criteria.

I think spanglish is a reallly bad idea. That only accounts for how the country's population is comprised at this point in time and doesn't take into account how it will change. However, I think the idea of folding linguistic diversity into English is a decent compromise. So, there would be an asian-english, spanish-english, etc. That means, unless someone wants to develop grammar rules for the exponential combinations, we have to ignore how it's written and focus on the ideas. But, there's the rub... how do we know what the student writing and speaking in some mixed language is communicating and if it is valuable for academic discourse. WRT 105 says that we're teaching this, but if we can no longer clearly interpret what is being conveyed how will be effectively guide students? It seems a risk of multiply combined languages being honored in the classroom is a vagueness that we are not supposed to allow at this time. That's why one language make sense to me, but it forces ways of making meaning on people...

I agree with Becky's observation about perpetual motion. We're constantly in flux and nothing will ever be set. Even if we could have "all languages and dialects" represented at a meeting, how long before a new dialect emerges somewhere else.

Also, we have to recognize why (as Becky again points out) WHY English has the power it does. Considere the fact that America is one of the few places in the world (I believe) that doesn't use the Metric system. We (Americans) are comfortable with the idea that we don't have to change to accomodate people.

There are theories afoot now that talk about how America's Empire is slowly start int to dissolve. Only at that point will we see change in global power relations. (In star trek, for instance, it took some big-a$$ war to kill most people and leave a few to rebuild the world anew). These shifts, it seems, are glacial in nature and there is, sadly, little we can do to speed them up (it'd be like spraying CFCs into the air to speed up global warming). The best we can do at this point (again, as Becky said), is to teach the system while simultaneously "pulling back the curtain" to reveal the wizard(s) behind it.

In the spirit of perpetual flux, perhaps we should stop and relaocte to an area containing more chocolate then we presently have.

j, the point you & i are both making about privileging those who already come in w/the common or dominant language ties directly in to the critique of process pedagogy clark talks about (citing cope & kalantzis) in the genre chapter:

that focusing on & encouraging students' writing process, writing whatever they are from wherever they're at, allows those already born/raised into knowing what they'll need later (cultural capital? blech!) in terms of forms & conventions (& so standard ways of using the language--vocabulary, spelling, etc. too) to stay in a superior position as compared to those who didn't arrive w/those things and aren't being directly instructed in them at school.

which goes back to aleshia saying "isn't that what education is FOR"--giving everyone the tools to access opportunity?

OKAY! BREAK/CHOCOLATE TIME! See you in 10 minutes.

er, relocate

v--1 2nd j's call for chocolate--let's break. :)

As you come back from break, feel free to continue in this thread, and I'd really like to hear about people's thoughts for their *own* future pedagogy re diversity. But let's get started on the other threads, too. I know I kind of set this up sequentially, but we've really extended the diversity discussion (which is great!), so here's my revision:
(See? Even when we're online, I can't stick w/ my syllabus!)
Let's do these things simultaneously:
• Vanessa, make an entry in the technology thread;
• Tyra, make an entry in the genre thread;
• Anybody who has done a WC consultation, make an entry in that thread;
• Everybody else, make an entry in whatever thread you wish.
And THEN everybody can just jump from one conversation to another at will.

Jeremiah, I love the Wizard of Oz metaphor!

Isn't there something we can do to speed up the glacial process or will we just drown in the run off?

I don't know, it seems that as teachers of language AND diversity in a university setting, in a university that under it's new leadership is pledged to discover the "soul" of Syracuse and get more involved with the community off the hill, that we are positioned to spur change. Is the only change we can make right now exposing the system without a clear idea of how to change it? Marxism failed. I like queer theory in that it is a like polycultural approach to gender and sexuality... Maybe we need something like a polycultural queer perspective on language to get students thinking outside the box. I think one of the most valuable things I've been able to convey to students this semester is collapsing the binary, as I feel this is a mindset that they can carry with them, long after grammar rules have escaped their memories.

We need a "Sci-fi has the answers to everything thread"!

I feel like I should say more about this topic. is anyone still in here?

I'm here, and I almost bit on your "sci-fi has the answers" post, but then decided I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole :)

Rabbit Hole! AWESOME! (I'm a Matrix NUT and have wanted to talk about it at many points.)

Anywho, To continue my thoughts....

I really liked the Critical Pedagogy chapter and have lamented not being asked to talk about it :(.

The article really crystalized a lot of the questions that relate to critical pedagogy: the ethics of it; deterining how political a classroom can/should be; the danger of indoctrination; etc. I think these questions really get to the heart of many of the debats we've been having in class.

I found it particularly interesting, for instnce, that there are scholars who advocate for "simply" teaching writing and for compositionists to "stay within [their] area of professional epertise" (qtd in George 101). This reminds me of Tyra's concern regarding how much she needs to know before she can teach "Straightening our hair."

SCI-FI _IS_ THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING.

that's what it's FOR.

See, I don't think it's possible to "simply" teach writing. Writing is too deeply embedded in the ways our culture sorts the haves from the have-nots--or more accurately, I think, in the ways our culture *pretends* to sort the haves from the have-nots. "Simply" teaching writing is itself a profound act of linguistic/cultural conservatism. There is no "there" out there.
Soo--Jeremiah, tell us more about the critical pedagogy chapter!!!!!!!

"Rabbit hole" can also be an allusion to Lewis Carroll, dontcha know. *Matrix* has an intertext.

OMG, you all, we're approaching the end of our allotted time. Class dismissed, and thank you for playing. Whatever the aggravations you've experienced with the genre, from my perspective this has been a great success. In fact, here on my blog I'll start a thread that reflects on my experience today, and I hope you all will post to it, if you're interested.
And you can stay today and keep "talking" as much as you wish, of course!
And because these threads will stay online, you can return to them and continue to post to them. That would be extremely interesting, I think. Because I'm sure we'll all have more to say after today's conversations, and after some cogitation may want to make more entries. Eventually today's threads will drop into the blog archives, but you can return to them easily, by clicking today's date in the calendar that's on the main page of this blog.
Thanks for a great morning!
Becky

oh sure! Matrix is totally intertextual; that's part of the reason i love it so. I figured that, in this sci-fi themed thread, that would be the natural (oooooh, loaded term!) allusion.

Anywho, here's why everyone should read this chapter:

1. It explains the main issues of crit ped
2. It approaches crit ped not as the panacea, but as a very useful and highly contested tool to use in effort to work towards student empowerment.

I want to say more about these ideas, but we are out of time at present. Next week?

of course matrix has an intertext. it's SCI-FI. it has EVERYTHING. :)

Okay, Jeremiah, I'm taking you up on this. We'll add the critical pedagogy chapter to everybody's reading list for next week.
Enass, Aleshia, Tyra, Vanessa: are there any other chapter assigbnments that we've skipped over that we really need to focus on? We've got two more, very open, class meetings, so you all can sort of take charge of things from here on out. Let me know.

OK, I know it's all over but I'm lagging behind out here in my own corner of cyberspace. Just wanted to point out that it was interesting that Jeremiah's last post ended on issues of student empowerment which is what I suggested over there on the writing center post in relation to diagnosis.

Perhaps this is where lifting the veil leaves us.

Hey, did anyone notice that we don't talk in so many metaphors in class? Or do we and it's just more obvious when we write and have more time to reflect and think....???