Here we are now; entertain them?

I have really mixed feelings toward the Wysocki and Selfe readings. I find Wysocki’s framework and idea of materiality really useful. She sort of blew my mind when she writes about how different material technologies affect the ways we think – I will never look at straight lines (or grocery shelves) in the same way.

            Briefly, my perspective is that students should learn new media literacy. But let me play the Luddite’s advocate. I agree with Wysocki when she writes that “it is impossible to pretend that the lives of the people coming to school have not been shaped by texts that don’t look like or function like academic essays,” but I don’t think the answer (as if there could be a definitive one) to how much composition teachers should engage those outside influences is clear. I certainly see value in students evaluating their “particular locations in time and place” and how they are shaped by them, but I also see value in making the composition classroom a space that attempts to be out of the soul-sucking throes of advertising and pop culture for a whole three hours per week. If we acknowledge that advertising and media bombardment have a gigantic and sometimes detrimental affect on society, is the solution really to supplant textual forms of learning with yet more exposure to new media? Again, I agree that new media literacy is important, but I wonder if this would be more appropriate in, say, a communications, sociology or women’s and gender studies classroom. Of course, Wysocki and Selfe aren’t just talking about advertising (although that is what I’ve mostly seen of “new media” assignments in the Writing Center) – art, photography, political websites, etc. are also part of this nonbook package, and switching up the medium can be worthwhile. Still, I feel this pressure to not just engage, but entertain students along with educating them, and I think that’s an unfair expectation of instructors. If they want to be entertained, there is entertainment aplenty outside of the classroom. Isn’t part of our role to offer them something they can’t get off YouTube?

Visual Literacy in the Composition Class

Selfe’s article provided a refreshingly specific guide to incorporating visual literacy into the composition classroom.  I found the article’s justification for this incorporation as increasingly relevant and necessary – given the current cultural turn toward the visual – to be quite sensible and convincing. I was particularly glad that the article acknowledged and accounted for the composition instructor’s potential lack of experience or familiarity with the programs typically used to compose visual texts. My knee-jerk reaction to any suggestion of an activity requiring computer or technological literacy has typically been one of innate aversion due to an embarassing technological incompetence. However, I think I could guide students through the visual essay/argument assignment (which I found most pertinent to my teaching goals), provided I had ample time to prepare.

Wysocki’s article, on the other hand, I found decidedly less useful. The beginning discussion of the need to recognize the materiality of texts in a variety of formats was interesting and convincing, but the assignments the article designed didn’t seem entirely practical for a freshman composition setting. I think I would find it very difficult to make my students take the assignments seriously. I can’t imagine asking them to take out crayons and not feeling a bit silly myself, so I can only presume that they would feel the same. I also feel that, although it’s perfectly valuable to encourage students to think differently about text and writing in different formats, it would make more sense to me, as a potential instructor, to do so while still creating assignments that are more practical and skill-based. The assignments in the Selfe article seemed to fit better into this category and my teaching goals.   

Teacher's Expectations and Reflecting

I think Selfe is absolutely right when she writes, “By continuing a single-minded focus on alphabetic literacy—and failing to give adequate attention to visual literacy…we not only unnecessarily limit the scope of composition studies, both intellectually and practically.” From there she quotes Sean Williams, “[I]f composition’s role is to help students acquire skills to lead a critically engaged life—that is to identify problems, to solve them, and to communicate with others about them—then we need to expand our view of writing instruction to include the diverse media forms that actually represent and shape the discursive reality of our students.” At the elementary school I worked at last year, students were given freedom to create a project around building size and measurements. Their goals were to find the area inside of a famous building and to create a “report” of their work back to the class. The teacher made it clear to the students (and to me) that they were free to compose the report in any way they would like. After weeks of hard work, the students had finished and each of them had turned in an essay for their report. When I asked the students why they hadn’t composed a powerpoint, a smart board presentation, or any type of visual aid, they stared at me as if the essay were the only option. And although the teacher had stressed how flexible the final report could be, it was obvious that she hadn’t given them tools to create an academic visual composition. I agree with Jeremy that the professionals that encourage visual literacy rarely have a substantial background in visual composition. How can a teacher expect a student to compose a visual essay if the teacher has no idea what s/he are looking for?

Selfe’s Review and Reflection sheets promote a closer gap between the writer/composer and the reader/audience, which is a goal I would like to incorporate into my future class. Not only do the sheets create a community that holds itself accountable for its work, but it also allows students to give feedback on their work. Presumably, once outside the college walls, these students won’t have people to read their work—whatever that work will be. It’s great to take advantage of various forms of peer review while we can.

Balancing Literacies

I'm interested in Selfe's concept of "visual literacy," but most of all, I'm interested in learning more about the balance we should strike between the alphabetic and the visual.  If Selfe visualizes that classes teaching only alphabetic literacy are quickly becoming obsolete, then does that leave any room for it in the classroom today?  If Selfe envisions a world in which composition teachers make room for both alphabetic and visual literacies, then slowly weans away the alphabetic because it's increasingly out of vogue, surely that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy (as it likely already is): the less alphabetic literacy is taught and internalized among students, the less successfully it will be used out in the real world.

After all, didn't we read all about how high schools are increasingly inadequate in teaching alphabetic literacy skills to their students, so more and more these remedial skillsets are falling on universities to teach?  To me, since I certainly can't yell at the high schools and tell them to shape up, I've taken this as a call to arms.  These students will come to my class with precious little previous experience, and I will want to give them at least the most basic means of expressing themselves in words.  I'm not sure if this is a shortcoming of mine, but I can't picture a society (outside of, perhaps, dystopian ones like from Wall-E or Idiocracy) where we express ourselves solely in visuals.

I think, ultimately, I'm questioning Selfe's prognosis that a class emphasizing alphabetic literacy would truly become "obsolete."  I'm all for incorporating visual literacy in the classroom.  I was convinced by Selfe's talk about the importance of visuals in today's culture, and I don't doubt that my students will have even better, more creative ideas about how to do this than I do myself.  I am growing a little weary, however, of the sensed need for iconoclasm in the world of composition; just because you advocate incorporating a new system, that doesn't automatically indicate that there are no salvagable concepts in the old.  If Selfe really wants to argue that the tenets of alphabetic literacy are "obsolete" in meeting the needs of expression, then why would she have expressed herself so alphabetically?  Clearly there is still some value in it, and I, for one, hope to give my students at least the foundation of alphabetic literacy that Cynthia Selfe and I (and the rest of you) received.

Dickens thought pictures were cool...

Like Ryan, I am all for incorporating media in the classroom - I believe that embracing these visual tools invites students to become more engaged and interested in the material presented.  My own alternate assignment draws upon Selfe's "Visual Essay," and while I am not wholly sure whether or not it will be successful as a teaching tool, I am willing to try these kinds of alternate assignments that incorporate mediums of expression other than straight text.  I must say that I was bothered throughout my entire reading, however, by Wysocki's term "new media texts" and her further explanation of it.

Wysocki describes "new media texts" as "those that have been made by composers who are aware of the range of materialities of texts and who then highlight the materiality...Such composers design texts that make as overtly visible as possible the values they embody."  She goes on to describe this as a new and innovative idea.    Wysocki does not make a distinction whether these are texts with "new media" or "new texts" that incorporate media.  Either way, her explanation of the term seems to ignore a rich past of texts (none of which are considered "childish," like the children's books that she uses as an example of texts that incorporate pictures) that include "media."  What about Dickens' numerous novels that include drawings of specific scenes in the text?  Or the travel guides of the 18th and early 19th century that included pictures of certain key places in the route, so that travelers would know which important places to stop and look at?  We could go back even further and talk about the illuminated manuscripts that were so popular during the Middle Ages and even the Renaissance.  It is not a "new" idea to incorporate photos or other visual elements in texts, visual elements that mean something and are supposed to be read with the texts.  While this may (or may not, as I don't know too much about this) be absent from what is considered "academic" writing, it has certainly not be absent from these other, important writings in history.  And, we must remember that Wysocki does not limit her explanation to purely academic writing - she talks about novels, too.

While I found some of the assignment outlines helpful for information on how to incorporate media into writing assignments, it is hard for me to get past the fact that no one mentions this tradition of texts that incorporate media.  If Wysocki had done so, then she could have made the distinction between this tradition and the "new media texts" - which would in turn have helped my own understanding of her argument.  Even if academia is resistant to the incorporation of media into texts, we just can't say that writers have not effectively done so in the past.

From Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens
http://charlesdickenspage.com/characters/harmon_boffins_wilfer-stone.gif

Fear of the Unknown

The other day I tried to create a blog. On Blogger, they have templates that makes set up easy, or so I thought. As I cycled through the drop down menu and the virtual paint swatches, I began to overreact. I started to wonder what the colors I was choosing were saying about me. I started to feel like the template was limiting my creativity because I wanted one line of text to go underneath another and it was not working out. After first backscaping to the custom mode and then going back to template after I realized that the customization was just a more confusing version of the template, I compromised my vision. It wasn't what I wanted, but it was functional. Then, I saw an option to add a picture at the top, so I selected a picture and dropped it into the upload box, and walla...the picture ate my whole header. According to Wysocki, my blog would not qualify as a "new media text" because I failed to grasp "the range of materialities of texts and...highlight the materiality." I don't know if I want to call my blog "old media" because I think Wysocki definition of new media is actually the definition of self-reflexive media which is not limited to post-modernity or even modernity and is probably simply a characteristic of writing (and other stuff) that can be played up or down. So, if it is a characteristic of writing why don't I oppose Wysocki's definition as just overwritten nonsense? Because Wysocki's new media requires awareness out of its composers. In other words, though my half finished blog clearly points at its own materiality, because I naively thought that my vision could be imaged on the screen without having learned about my medium, I am not one of the composers of which the editor speaks.

Questions: How much do you need to know? Is this blog post new-media in a way that my blog was not?

Anxiety about the learning curve that new technologies will present me and my students makes me have second thoughts about my idea for the multi-modal project. I am inspired by several educators who I think are creating "new media texts." Popular Youtubers like Vihart and Ze Frank are using the new thingness of online video to create fascinating educational content at the same time that educational TV seems to be really focusing there efforts on making fun of Southerns and other country Others. I would like my students to work together to create an online video that tropes off of these videos, but I really have no idea how to do this myself. Part of me wants to try and learn together, and the other part of me knows that there is a good chance that people are just going to get frustrated and I will fall flat on my face. What do you nu-meteors think? Can you teach new-media if your not a new-media expert?

Heads in the Sand

Prior to this program, I spent the past two years employed by Saint Louis University’s Department of Communication.  My primary responsibility was to instruct students in Final Cut Pro, iMovie, Sountrack Pro—you know communication technology, or in Selfe’s case, visual literacy.  This was a job because the existing Communication—I’ll say it again in case you missed it—Communication faculty didn’t want to learn it themselves.  The thought was that though this was useful information for students to learn, certain faculty members who had spent so long not knowing this stuff—ardent “book readers” and not the Kindle kind either—they shouldn’t be bothered to learn it now.  Though I am thankful that their apathy provided me with a paying job and health insurance, I don’t think Selfe would be all too keen with their pedagogical philosophy of avoiding visual literacy largely because of its inconvenience. 

Perhaps it’s unfair to characterize SLU’s entire department as ostriches with their heads in the sand—it was only the ones without tenure.  Faculty without tenure either knew these systems or worked to learn them, employing them with their students, trying innovative projects out much to their students’ delight.  However, once a professor received tenure at SLU, he had no incentive to change his ways.  If he had been straight theory, no tech all his career, he wasn’t changing it now for anyone.  Even if it made him a dinosaur, he was a dinosaur with tenure.  I think many, if not all, of Selfe’s assignments would be worthwhile to employing within a Communication department.   However, many of these tenured professors who refuse to adopt new theories or technology will retire soon and will be replaced by professors who at least understand this technology, if not ones who understand and it desire to continue learning.  I don’t know how indicative this is of most colleges or just SLU, so if it’s just SLU, shh!  That might be a secret and maybe I shouldn’t have told it. 

In her article “Toward New Media Texts: Taking up the Challenges of Visual Literacy” Selfe encourages teachers to employ a combination of alphabetical and visual literacy to ease the transition to teaching visual literacy, or even using these assignments to learn the technology themselves, “co-learning” them along with their students.  I don’t see many tenure track professors going out on a limb to do that.  They’d have to admit to their students that they didn’t know the material.   Visual essay and Visual argument could work because it only partially relies on technology, and uneasy faculty could assign poster board and photograph material without much effort of their parts.  Stuff like designing a webpage is way out for them.  But past this I think you’d be pushing it for any professor who has no incentive to change. 

As far as incorporating these practices/ assignments into English 1000, because that’s the first thing we think of anytime we read a pedagogy article, I think some aspects could be shared.  I love the idea of using film analysis.  If the point of the class is to teach students how to write then there is an obvious benefit from having them write about things they’re interested in.  I’m not suggesting that all movies are better than books, or visa-versa for that matter, but when considering 18-yr-old freshman, I think they’re more inclined to watch a movie than read a book—just a generality, I know, but an apt one I think. 

But as far as having them design web pages and employing other forms of multi-media, I’m voting no.  If English 1000 were a film theory course or even a literature seminar, then I’d be all for it.  I’d probably enjoy grading “papers” more.  But as this is a composition course, then the one and most crucial requirement is that they write, a lot.  It’s been said to death how it’s impossible to truly teach composition in a semester, so I can’t imagine a way to squeeze in web design workshops.  

Materialitäten subjektiver Unsinn: A short reading of Wysocki

a text-collage by me, the dead author

 

 

Wysocki presents an interesting text. I cannot agree more with her general premises. In fact, as my last assignment attempted, I tried to engage these “materialities” in ways that would allow for both investigation and appreciation. I plan on using “new media” heavily in the classroom. I enjoyed the reinforcement of my pedagogical intuitions when she discusses actual ‘activities.’ I will not, however, require college students to purchase crayons for my class. I also doubt I will use the term “scavenger hunt” or ask two students to hold a pencil together and write. But it’s good to try new things. I sympathize.

What I am critical of is Wysocki’s supporting texts. I think these are drawn in from disparate sources and what I get from this is more sentiment than praxis.  For example, Bruce Horner’s “materiality of writing” may, as he says, refer to “global relations of power." Of course we can extend it to Nietzsche’s idea and say “the materialities of writing can refer to the ‘infinite sexual potency of the universe’” if we wanted to go that far. I’m not sure how broad the focus should be. There is a possibility of over-stating the claim in order to ‘scare’ young, politically impressionable compositionists into taking their task too seriously. Perhaps it is also a sense of trying to feel important—feel that we’re more than mere writing teachers but are scholar-warriors fighting against discourses of imperialism that have nested in the materials of what would otherwise be an ideal post-structural consciousness, imbued with all the virtues of communitarian identity and no trace of bourgeois boogeymen.  

Do YOU really accept this claim: “We can only see ourselves through the texts we make and give others” (18)?

She quotes Stuart Hall, writing that “your identity is also in part becoming through the writing” (20). Can this, though, be said of any activity one engages in? Is writing such a privileged activity? I think in textual cultures such as ours perhaps it does hold some privilege. But let’s not get over-excited. Also, it seems to me the assumption that identity is a posteriori is rather unfounded and debatable—another dogma of literary-scholar-culture. It is the assumption that you can be anything, anybody. The problem is: no matter who you are you are still yourself. Your experience implies an experiencer. If you have agency, as Wysocki insists, then there is a self that chooses its fashioning. But this self can not be a choice and must exist a priori regarding experience. I really don’t want to get into a tiresome dismantling of Wysocki’s implicit claims. I just think they're over-stated and tread on territory endless philosophers have plowed for centuries with greater yield than platitudes of post-structural 'discourse.'

 

 

talking in class and talking with faculty

Today, I observed Naomi Clark's English 1000 class. The class was divided into half this week since they had turned in their final copy of a paper. During today's class, each student read two pages of his/her work out loud and gave complimentary comments to the other students. I thought this was a great idea. bell hooks writes, "I have students write short paragraphs that they read aloud so that we all have a chance to hear unique perspectives and we are all given an opportunity to pause and listen to one another" (186). This activity does several things: it allows students to celebrate his/her work, it allows a student to celebrate other classmates' works, and it creates an opportunity to shift the authority and power to the students. And while the papers they were presenting weren't personal or unique, the students' presentations gave them all a chance to regard each other as scholars and authorities.

hooks also recognizes that a lot of these "uncomfortable" discussions need to happen with the faculty and staff first before a real change can happen in the classroom. This reminded me of when the former school I worked at had gone a few months into the school year without having that type of discussion with the staff.  Turns out, our goal of creating an specifically focused pedagogy wasn't being implemented since so many of the teachers had different understandings of race and class in the classroom. The discussion lasted several hours and many people had stormed out of the room during a few tense moments. And while things were not resolved at the end of the day, we had begun to come to a mutual understanding of our role in the classrooms. The discussion still persists (I assume), and because of this on-going conversation, I think the students in the classroom benefit.

Knowing Is Half the Battle

Perhaps one of the greatest hurdles to get over in terms of racism is admitting the presence of racism.  My feeling is that my generation of immediate peers who will become my future colleagues (certainly not everyone within my generation) has been imbued with enough cultural conscience and empathy through the 80’s, 90’s and early millennium to understand that racism has no place anywhere, the university level very much included.  But that’s just the problem.  That’s how I feel, but that’s not necessarily the case.  Forms of racism may indeed exist in my pedagogy without my knowledge.  When Hooks points out all the old guard professors at Oberlin who refuse to acknowledge racism in their classrooms--how they teach, what they teach--it’s easy for me to objectively chastise them for their ignorance; however, I went to a liberal arts school very similar to Oberlin, cast in the same small Midwestern mold, and as I look back, I honestly can’t fathom racism on my campus.  I can’t imagine any students feeling uncomfortable to contribute for any reason in any of my previous classes.  I can’t imagine any student staying quiet if they did feel uncomfortable.  But that doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen and that as people, and especially as educators, we shouldn’t be aware of it.

Hooks suggests building a community (focusing on the positive), rather than concentrating on building a safe space (focusing on the preventative or negative) (Hooks 40).  I agree.  I felt this should be the goal of any classroom, particularly one where peer review is administered, and I feel this is a great way to create understanding and avoid ignorance.  Hooks also mentions some “concrete strategies” that math and science faculty at Oberlin had to be more inclusive (38), but doesn’t list any of them.  I’d love to hear some of them.

I can’t say that I completely agree with Hooks personal assessment of class at the university level.  Though I don’t doubt hers, and surely others’, experiences with classism at schools like Stanford, I found that I had a different experience at my small liberal arts school and I can only speak from my experiences.  My family is low-middle class and it was only because of a sizable scholarship that I could attend school there.  While some students were like me, others were wealthier and attended without scholarships.  Some were wealthy and had scholarships.  Some were lower class than I and had better scholarships.  At my school, I would say it was admirable if you were working class but intelligent enough to receive the necessary scholarship to attend.  I can't say I ever felt any pressure to act out of my class or that any of my values, experiences, or ideas were judged.  I didn't feel that I was pressured to judge others.  Those who were of higher classes and had to in essence pay for their educations (or whose parents had to pay for it) were looked upon less favorably.  Maybe this was just substituting classism for intellectualism and it's no better.  Maybe that was only at my school, and maybe that was only my impression, but that’s all I have to go on in terms of my views of class on college campuses.  I'd like to look at this as not naiveté but optimism for the future.

Middle class knockoff

I spent my time as an undergraduate at a small, private, and very expensive college.  At $50,000 a year and rising, not many working-class families could afford attending PC without incurring massive amounts of debt.  That being said, when one of those "working-class kids" came to the campus on scholarship, they stood out like a sore thumb.  In a sea of NorthFace jackets, leggings, and Ugg boots, that one person not wearing the status quo apparel would be immediately noted and outcast.  How to combat this issue?  Assimilation.  By her second semester there, that working-class student would be wearing the full NorthFace/leggings/Uggs attire and no longer be living on the margins of campus life.  What is my point here, you ask?  Hooks notes that class issues are largely ignored in the classroom - well, they are largely ignored in everyday experiences, too.  And by ignored, here, I mean that hardly anyone notices them because those working-class subjects are forced to ignore the issues and become a middle-class facsimile, often in order to survive.

It  angers me that we spend so much time thinking about race matters and often, by doing so, completely neglect the issues of class, which are sometimes greater if not intricately connected to those of race.  I think this is evident in hooks' focus in her two chapters - while in the chapter on race she offers concrete ways for teachers to understand the issue and incorporate it into their classrooms, the same courtesy is not given to class.  This could be because the discussion has already taken place in the previous chapter, but I can't help but wonder nonetheless whether class is as actively discussed in those workshops.  The reason for this, most likely, is because it is much easier for those of a different class to pass of as middle class (I can imagine that it would be hard for an African-American to pass off as white, other than in mannerisms).  I think that this is all the more reason to reach out in an even greater way to those students "under" the middle class, so that they don't get lost and feel forced to be something that they are not.

I remember the first time that I actually admitted that I was not "middle-class" in the way that most of the other students at PC were.  I was in an Introduction to Sociology class, and all of the students had to write down their class on a piece of paper and hand it into the professor, who then turned the results into a tally on the board.  The purpose of the assignment was to show the astonishing majority of the students in the classroom who associated themselves with the middle class, and that we, as Americans, tend to view ourselves as that class whether we really are or not.  Surprisingly, though, I found myself itching not to be associated with them, and I boldly and confidently wrote down "working class" on the sheet of paper.  That was in the second semester of my junior year, and it was the first time I had stopped trying to be a part of the middle class.

I read an article once about working class law school students who passed themselves off as middle class (mostly by silencing themselves, as hooks describes) throughout their time there, and were so much more successful than those who did not attempt to pass themselves off in the same way.  Societal norms work against those of a lower class, and it is so easy for those same students to become lost in the classroom, trying to pass themselves off as something that they are not.  So, in response to hooks article, I ask that we do not ignore class issues in the classroom, even though they may be harder to notice.  Don't let those students get lost in the sea - let them speak, and let their experiences be heard.

Talking about Race

Ryan evoked the "racism of postmodernism" in his post. Admittedly, that is not terminology that I understand, so I will evoke an equally confusing term from sociology--abstract liberalism. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva uses abstract liberalism to talk about the way that many people that oppose affirmative action use the principals of the "equal opportunity" to oppose affirmative action, that is they take away all of the context so they can use the same argument that liberals use in favor of affirmative action to oppose it. Are you uncomfortable with the political tone of sociology, yet? Well, bell hooks other educators that approach teaching from conflict theories of sociology do not care, and I tend to agree with them even if it makes me feel uncomfortable. 

One of the key elements of abstract liberalism is the use of colorblindness, known less ambiguously as colorblind racism. Ryan makes some apt points about bell hooks rather typical orientalizing of the mind/body problem, I think that was a case of her being to abstract about that issue, being an abstract anti-Cartesian. I think in an effort to de-center mind/body dualism see got off her point about race. As teachers, especially in America, we cannot ignore the racial make up of our class and the racial history (and present) of this country. In other words, to simplify what bell hooks is try to seminar to her colleagues if you really care about having a classroom where everyone feels free to contribute TALK ABOUT RACE. 

Exactly, how to do that effectively is something that I have not yet learned. bell hooks talks about learning "codes," so if you ask her she might say something like it takes time and attention. How successful I could be a interpreting those "codes," I can't say for sure. One thing that I struggle with but was reinforced by the first chapter was to avoid temptation to address people as "native informants." Getting non-white students on issues of race is that much harder when every class is dominant by middle class white students with most of the more than willing to conciliate instead of confront the issue. Do you think that bell hooks strategy to get everyone to talk will necessarily result in real conversations about race and class? Is it our role as teachers to make sure these conversations happen and, if so, how do we do it?

no status quo

            If places like Tuskagee College and Lincoln University can be described as historically Black, the University of Missouri (and the overwhelming majority of educational institutions) can be just as accurately described as historically White, male and upper-class. Of course, no one calls MU or other universities that because white bourgeois norms are generally accepted as the neutral/positive status quo – not as dominant or hegemonic. If you ever hear me complain about the journalism school here (of which I am an alumna), my biggest critique is of this “status quo is neutral” mentality that the journalism professors and students overwhelming fail to discuss. It’s a real problem that results in lots of poorly written, dull, classist, heterosexist, et. al. news articles that lack diversity and any element of critical thinking.

To some extent, this mode of thinking and its accompanying classroom dynamics exist throughout the university setting. I’m really glad we’re attempting to critically engage ideas of diversity and classroom dynamics, but this forum of an online discussion board provides, at least for me, a limited space in which to discuss somewhat taboo topics that are hard to discuss openly. I’d much rather talk about the influence of race and class prejudice aloud with my colleagues than post them on a message board that’s open to the public, because I think people can be more honest and candid when their words aren’t searchable; I hope future class time allows for that discussion.

That said, I think hooks brings up some great points about the normalizing of bourgeois social and academic norms. Her realization that class is “more than just a question of money, that it shaped values, attitudes, social relations, and the biases that informed the way knowledge would be given and received,” echoes thoughts I’ve had over the past year, especially since beginning graduate school (hooks 178). The unspoken expectation of classroom dynamics is definitely one of reserved bourgeois norms of only speaking when asked or politely volunteering to speak. I acknowledge that this is learning on the white man’s terms, and that’s not fair, but how can an instructor maintain a dynamic where everyone’s voice is heard? Some people are understandably silenced by rigid bourgeois norms of communication because they feel their way of speaking will be met with hostility; others are silenced when fellow students overtalk or interrupt them, because interrupting can feel like a devaluing of that person’s thoughts. Damn – what can a balanced dynamic look like?