Thursday, January 6, 2011
The argument in Julie E. Wollman-Bonilla's "Teaching Science Writing to First Graders" that scientific language (and, in my opinion, all content-specific language) is a "hegemonic discourse … in order to challenge the inequitable power structures it represents, whereby access to information and participation in doing science restricted to those with the necessary cultural capital" (37) struck a particular chord in me. Submitting to a content-specific lexicon is a paradoxical amalgamation of subjugation and liberation: mastery of the lexicon "liberates children by developing their power to engage in, contribute to, and critique a discipline" (38) while at the same time keeps them shackled to the norms of the field in question's particular discourse. This is such a double-edged sword, and one that I err on the side of conventionality with; as Sam wrote in the entry below, I too am astonished by how students are no longer learning grammar and spelling. They're able to communicate in their own improvised way, and yet will never be taken seriously once they leave secondary school. Likewise, I've noticed few teachers correct their students' pronunciation; for myself, I correct them whenever I can because I would consider it such a disservice to teach my students a language they cannot even pronounce. Even in my own experience as a college student, I would always feel cheated when a professor didn't equip us with the conventional method of communication in whatever subject I was taking; I had my own opinions of the topics I studied and expressed them in my own inferior way, but I always knew (and resented) that I'd never be able to compete with experts and would be perceived as amateurish because I didn't have the "cultural capital" to express myself conventionally. Because of this, I am extremely conservative about writing methodology and this partially explains why, in our group curriculum project, I am having difficulty with some of the more unorthodox ideas we've been debating. I believe students should be encouraged to break the rules and discover their own voices, but only after they've spent years working on the "proper" method first.
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I am having trouble organizing my thoughts right now so this may come out as a mush but here goes. I think the reason Lindsey and I argue for some of the more unorthodox ideas is because the very notion of a "proper" method is problematic, and the notion that if students continue to communicate in "their own improvised way" they "will never be taken seriously once they leave secondary school" is a kind of oppression. Who will they never be taken seriously by? The people who believe only the "proper" method is a sign of "cultural capital" or value. What "rules" would students be breaking by discovering and writing in their own voice? Whose rules are they? Isn't the "proper" method just a kind of style? Who's to say it is better or worse than any other style? Yes, I want my students to have a facility with academic writing, to be able to succeed in that realm if they choose to do so, but I'm not teaching writing so my students can write a research paper. I'm teaching writing so my students can make themselves heard in the world, so they can have the feeling that they said what they wanted to say and know that they were understood. I want them to find their own reasons for writing and communicating in the world. Yes that means mastering (and playing with) the conventions of various contexts, but the variety is key, and I think giving students the impression that there is a "proper" method does a disservice.
ReplyDeleteLet me add too that I do think it is important to teach students that different genres have different expectations and criteria. I just think it's equally important to explain these genres in context, and to think critically about those expectations and criteria, where they come from, and why.
ReplyDeleteMelissa, I was interested to read your reflections on yesterday's group work. Which ideas did you find unorthodox, or, in other words, not in alignment with teaching students the fundamentals of writing? I think what's at stake here is problematizing the idea, similar to what Liz has commented, that there is a proper way. The onus on us as teachers, especially in an urban setting where our students often will belong to marginalized groups, thus ones that do not necessarily follow the dominant group's cultural values that have been historically (and presently) practiced by schools, is to remember that these students come from cultures whose practices are just as valuable (and valued by its group members) as mainstream practices. To simplify, we need to ensure that these students, when we do indeed teach them how to code switch when they speak, and how to write in a way that follows the (current) conventions, don't feel as though their home language or literacy practices are "wrong." Rather, we can help them understand they're merely different. And, you're right, there definitely is a double-edged sword at the heart of this discussion. In order to empower students from historically disempowered groups, we have to give them access to the very cultural capital that serves to oppress. Perhaps what we can do, at the least, is unveil this cycle of oppression.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I understand I've gone off on a bit of a tangent and in a direction probably not intended by the authors of "Teaching Science Writing..." nor by Melissa, but I think it's an important discussion. Perhaps the connection is that because individuals from the dominant (white-Anglosaxon) group are the demographic to which schools were intended to teach, this group has an unfair advantage in the already challenging endeavor of discourse language acquisition.