Creative Writing Pedagogy

Blog #3  -  September 26, 2016

Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. Lore. Practice, and Social Identity in Creative Writing Pedagogy. (2010). Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture. 10(1). 79-93. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.odu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=be3fcec4-ccdb-47a8-8d56-785c48aebf97%40sessionmgr4007&vid=1&hid=4210



In this essay, Lim raises important questions about the mission of creative writing programs, the development of creative writing pedagogy and its relationship to how creative writing workshops are actually conducted, the ongoing discussion about whether creative writing can be taught and the value of creative writing programs to innately talented students. She raises these questions in order to lay the foundation for what she considers one of the most important challenges facing the creative writing workshop today: the “absence of ‘diversity,’ particularly as a raced, culturally, communally, and marginally specific subject in the 'lore' of the workshop narrative."

She opens the essay with a definition of "lore" - the term used "to describe standard practices in writing instruction." She uses the lore discussion to raise and discuss pedagogically two of the fundamental questions facing creative writing pedagogy today: “can creative writing be taught” and "what is the mission of creative writing?"

Having raised these questions, Lim proceeds to the real heart of her article, what she calls the “conscious construction” of language to be purposely and explicitly inclusive.  She uses the metaphor of the "elephant in the creative writing classroom"; instead of being approached directly, race, culture, and ‘diversity’ are more often cloaked in the that all-important aspect of creative work, "Voice."  Voice has many different terms of expression depending on who is talking about it, ranging from the “traditional Euro-white, Anglo-British, male subject to (now) include gender and other attributes of privilege in any given context.” One possibility that Lim points to for uncloaking the elephant is the ability for creative writing classrooms to become a place for  introducing social responsibility into the model, freeing previously silenced voices, and "allow(ing) for multiple kinds of writing (and reading and talking) rather than relying upon those language activities that merely aim for 'finished' student writing."

The issues Lim discusses are of immediate interest not only to creative writing pedagogy but to all writing education pedagogy. For, as Lim quotes Judith Harris in this especially salient observation, "How can a student write as a self without first formulating a social context in which to express the personal?"  Inside the classroom, the responsibility for creating the conditions that allow that social context to develop rests entirely with the professor. It must be understood as an integral aspect of the pedagogy of teaching the course if we expect our students to learn what we have to teach them. Uur ability to successfully create the conditions for that context is a prerequesite for our students’ ability to succeed.  We nust begin from the premise that "writing is a collective act, an act that builds on the attempts of other writers to transform silence."

Making Education More Accessible to Trans Students

Blog #2 

September 19, 2016

Making Higher Education More Accessible to Trans Students

Spade, Dean. Some Very Basic Tips for Making Higher Education More Accessible to Trans Students and Rethinking How We Talk about Gendered Bodies. (2011). Radical Teacher.  92, 57-62. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/463370

As transgender students become more visible in classrooms, educators have been faced with a range of new challenges. Access to facilities such as locker rooms and bathrooms have received the most outside attention, but pedagogical questions also arise for instructors who strive to make their total learning environment as positive as possible. This includes assuring accessibility to trans students by “avoiding unintentional exclusionary practices” and remedying obstacles to trans students' classroom participation. As Spade predicted in 2011, the need to address these issues has grown and the "tips" he offers for making it easier for trans gender and other gender nonconforming students to feel more comfortable and included are more relevant today than ever.

Names, pronouns, gender identity  

 

Much of the awkwardness instructors and students feel when interacting with transgender and gender nonconforming students comes from not always knowing what pronoun to use and what name to call the student (in transgender students, it is often different from her/his birth name).  Spade suggests instead of calling the roll, a sign-in sheet be passed around on which students can say how they self-identify and by what name they want to be addressed. He gives several tips for specific circumstances, but the most importance is to set a tone of respect in the classroom.  He emphasizes the need to make the classroom a safe space for students, and I believe this is of particular importance in a writing class at whatever level, because students will always be encouraged to write in their most authentic voice, and this will never happen if they do not feel safe enough to do so.

He goes on, however, to offer additional suggestions which I think are equally important for creating an environment in which students will be encouraged to write most freely. Educating oneself about trans history, trans experience, trans resistance and understanding what gender nonconforming means will allow the professor to bring more authenticity herself to how she runs the class. This then leads into the next step of including trans issues and gender nonconforming literature on the syllabus, making sure that the full spectrum of experience is included, not just that of wealthy white trans individuals.  This also involves thinking and talking about gender norms and what they mean, how do they influence what we read and how we write, and what we write about?

Talking about gendered body parts

In the second part of the article, Spade focuses on the language used to describe and talk about the parts of the body that are gendered, that is, reproductive and sex organs.  He proposes that the only way to ultimately eliminate the historical gender bias that attaches to our biologically determined body parts is to dismantle the connection between gender and part. In practice this would mean saying, for example, "people who ejaculate" and "people who menstruate" and so on. Without commenting on the many issues this proposal raises on all different philosophical, political,  sociological, and other fronts, it is enough to point out that simply from a rhetorical perspective this would be a  major  disruption of the language, written and spoken, in a profound way with tremendous implications for English pedagogy.  There is no evidence that it would improve the English language in any way, in fact a strong argument can probably be made for it having a negative effect, but that would be beside the point. The crux of the argument is whether it would be worth it terms of the greater inclusionary value of language; a classically whether the ends justifies the means argument. Spade does not address this aspect and nor will I, but I think it is a fair point to raise nonetheless when an article appears in a journal read by educators. 

I think this article has great value for students of English pedagogy, although I suspect most would not give it a second glance were they to see it in a table of contents. It is also, of course, a "hot button" issue which many people would prefer not to acknowledge at all, even in the context of higher education, especially if that education is in any way supported by state funding.  Nonetheless, it raises issues about situations in which educators are increasingly going to find themselves and an ostrich-like attitude is not going to be possible. Thought-provoking articles are important not only for those entering the field, but for those who are entrenched in it; and the more provocative sometimes, the better. I think that the first part of the essay is excellent and should be read and considered by every student who takes the Eng 664 course and anyone who teaches any of the composition courses.  I think the second part of the essay is valuable because, in its wonderful extremity, it highlights in a way that it might not be possible otherwise, just how gendered our language is; how that genderization (if you'll allow me) which is so institutionalized and ingrained in our vernacular, has real political and sociological implications for the way we perceive men and women differently regardless of how unconscious we are of doing so; and how uncomfortable it should - though I suspect it won't and will be mostly dismissed as ridiculous - make us feel if we really think about it. The author enumerates in the very first paragraph of the section all the ways the presence of a uterus, for example, shades the way women are just inherently perceived.

Although I'm very certain the author did not it intend it in this way, when reading this section I could not help but think of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal et al.  This article fits very well in my continuing consideration of the pedagogy of race, “multiculturalism” and cultural values in the writing classroom.

Post Multiculturalism in Teaching Writing

Blog #1

Barlow, Daniel. (2016) Composing Post-Multiculturalism. College Composition and Communication, 67(3). Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org.proxy.lib.odu.edu/cccc/ccc/issues/v67-3 .


Barlow opens his essay with a review of recent literature looking at race in the pedagogy of rhetoric and composition, saying that it "emerges . . . quite frequently as a discursive problem." He then deconstructs the concept of multiculturalism, using the arguments of Prendergast and Jay and Jones that what has been taught historically is a "celebratory, rather than critical" model of multiculturalism, that is, "the multiculturalist illusion that racism is the United States is an aberration."  Barlow builds on these theories to make his argument for a post-multiculturalist model based on developing "scholarly discourse on race into pedagogical methods that lead to the improvement of student writing," that is, using race is a  "productive opportunity for engaging students" (emphasis in original). "Racial inquiry," he proposes, "can facilitate post-multiculturalist advancements in rhetoric and composition scholarship." He supports this argument with examples from writing by students in his first-year writing courses, in response to questions about race. "The symbolism of inclusion can often distract students from critical thinking about racialism and its legacies," he says, pointing to what he calls "uncritical multiculturalism," a term which he equates with "celebratory multiculturalism (which) perpetuates itself through . . .fantasies of achievement rather than critical engagement with the social problems that dominant cultural norms mask." He asks how students are able to develop a "critical lexicon" for confronting institutional racisms "that continue to perpetuate forms of violence in disadvantaged communities?"  He supports his argument by laying out a strategy of what he calls "strategic discomfiture" using discordant texts, materials that require students to think outside of their proverbial comfort zone and the familiar anti-racism tropes with which they are so familiar and in which they are so practiced. He notes that students typically avoid using the words race in their writing, even when assigned topics that explicitly call for analysis that require recognition of race; instead they fall back on writing about cultural differences, a more comfortable and familiar terrain. By giving concrete examples of how he responded to his students' comments, he demonstrates the difference in an approach that focuses on looking explicitly at students' ideas and conceptions about race with the goal of using the tools of rhetoric and composition to explore and develop them further, from an approach which looks only at the mechanics and opinions from the perspective of correcting and/or challenging a student's incorrect or "inappropriate" views.

I found this to be a very thought-provoking and indispensable article for any instructor of composition and rhetoric, particularly given the political climate of increased racial tension both on and off campuses. It is more than ever important to understand how race and the racialism of education and all other aspects of society affects us, and the university is in a particularly strategic position to contribute to that understanding. Composition is about much more than just mechanics when well taught. It is about critical thinking, analysis, and organization of thought. Communication is at the core of how humans relate to each other in society, and when we are teaching students the art and science of how to communicate through composition and rhetoric it is critical to teach how much of an impact racialism and racism has had on how we communicate and how we perceive how others communicate. However difficult it may be for both us as educators, and our students to accept, the reality is that, as Barlow notes in his article, "language often features the compelling rhythm of political aspiration and homeland pride, while also offering straightforward expressions of identity and social positioning." These can be read, as Barlow suggests, quoting Pendergrast, as "linguistic strategies put forth by many of our students . . . as evidence of successful socialization into a colonial sensibility." Does this characterization cause discomfort? Then it is probably exactly the place to begin.