Reading Journals

In ENC 5705, I completed weekly reading journals, which discuss the key artifacts included in the course. These journals, displayed below, illustrate not only my familiarity and understanding of the readings but also my perspective and attention to detail. They are more than just summaries of the texts; instead, they focus on a genuine line of inquiry and connections to the broader field of Rhetoric & Composition.

"When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own" by Jacqueline Jones Royster (1996)

First, I find it important to note that Jacqueline Jones Royster is one of the scholars who has built up the field of Rhetoric & Composition; more specifically, she is an academic whom I hope to embody given her established works on the intersections of rhetoric, gender, race, social justice, and cross-cultural discourse.

"When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own" highlights a tension that many individuals experience (particularly those of marginalized identities): when outsiders speak with authority on the experiences and details of their communities. This tension, she emphasizes, causes not just rhetorical harm but an emotional and philosophical disruption; in a way, it is yet another act of imperialism and conquest. Further, when outsiders interpret or speak about a community, it's not just a matter of opinion or incidental disrespect; it's a reflection of deeper systems of power, identity, and worldview. These interpretations carry real weight and consequences (shaping public perception, academic discourse, and policy), even when they're superficial or wrong, particularly for those whose voices are already not heard or acknowledged.

Royster develops these thoughts in-depth through something she refers to as "cross-cultural misconduct", an insightful way to put into words the "type of free touching of the power-less by the power-full" (p. 32). This phrase, as well as the term itself, embodies the sort of casual entitlement that those with power and authority often feel to examine, interpret, and effectively speak over marginalized communities. I particularly appreciate her use of the "no home-training" metaphor, as it draws upon cultural understandings, traditions, and vocabulary to further illustrate her points regarding cross-cultural misconduct. Further, Royster's distinction between "subjects" and "subject matter" illustrates clearly the repeated dehumanization, even in seemingly respectful and well-intentioned lines of inquiry, that those with authority force onto those without. I wanted to end with a quote that I believe gets to the lived reality of many marginalized people, the moving goal post that we are forced to meet all of the time: "I speak, but I can not be heard. Worse, I am heard but I am not believed. Worse yet, I speak but I am not yet believable” (p. 36).

"Teach Writing as a Process Not Product" by Donald M. Murray (1972)

I have been exposed to Murray's work through prior coursework in the program, as well as my employment in the UCF writing center. As a tutor, I am regularly encouraged to remind visitors to the center that writing is an active process that requires critical thinking, reflection, revision, and more. In this way, writing is more than just a polished artifact and thus has more value than just as a product; writing is both an individual and communal process that encourages self-reflection.

Murray points specifically to the autopsy mindset of grading and reviewing, which sees teachers and professors reviewing student work with a red pen in hand, continuously marking and slashing through student work. Instead, Murray suggests that we shift away from grading a "final product" and celebrate the messiness of drafting. Overall, he reframes writing as a creative, living act, not just an academic requirement.

In my opinion, the view of writing as product is heavily tied to (or perhaps stems from) our society's overall emphasis on production, monetary exchange, and external value: what and who are you if not someone who produces something of value? Particularly on the market? This perspective -- or, rather, belief -- clashes in one way or another with writing as self-expression.

Social Justice from "Teachers Talking Writing" by Shane Wood (2022)

In this text, Wood eloquently puts into words something that I have always felt about language, and moreso have always believed about society: everything everywhere is political (and that is to say: rhetorical, subjective, biased) all of the time. Clearly, this extends into the world of writing and teaching, where the norms we reinforce through coursework, grading practices, and overall pedagogical strategies reflect social, political, economic, and cultural hierarchies. I wholeheartedly agree with his overall claim, that "teaching writing should be about investigating how language is perceived, how language is valued, what biases are attached to language, what attitudes are associated with language, and what systems and structures are privileging some linguistic variations/habits and disadvantaging others" (p. 148). As future teachers, we should embrace justice-based approaches that allow us to challenge established norms and biases.

I particularly appreciate the way Wood inquires about exact strategies and actions educators have taken in order to truly embody social justice-based pedagogy. The transcript section details how educators have encouraged students to question notions of standard/normative/White English (Frankie Condon), redefine what makes writing good (Asao B. Inoue), and emphasize the skills and experiences they bring to the classroom (Cecilia Shelton). Largely, these strategies remind me of April Baker-Bell's Linguistic Justice and Aja Martinez's Counterstory; both of these works unpack methodologies for teaching and research that challenge tradition, empower marginalized identities, and represent a disruption in the norms of academia.

"Teaching Antiracist Reading" by Asao B. Inoue (2020)

I'm excited to have finally been assigned a reading by Asao B. Inoue; due to my interest in social justice, I am well aware that his name is commonly cited as a foundational scholar in anti-racism in the world of Rhetoric & Composition. This work in particular does a thorough job of unpacking what it actually means to be anti-racist, and thus what an anti-racist pedagogy should look like in order to be effective.

Although primarily from a scholarly or instruction-based perspective, Inoue puts into words my own belief that everything is rhetorical; more specifically, everything is persuasive, everything is political. In our society and the conditions that come with it, that also means that everything is racist, White supremacist, and otherwise systemically oppressive. That is not to say, of course, that everything is intentionally racist, white supremacist, or otherwise systemically oppressive; rather, as Inoue states, "all institutions and social structures in society are by default racist. Why? Because they have been produced in a racist and White supremacist history" (p. 135). Largely, Inoue puts into pedagogical perspective that politics is power, and power is everywhere; "...there are no neutral, nonracial, or apolitical spaces" (p. 142).

I draw a significant connection between Inoue's acknowledgement that the tendrils of racism, white supremacy, and overt systems of oppression reach all areas of life ("...if reading is a set of language habits that we do and have done, then they are also connected to the material conditions that spawn them. Those material conditions are social and include other systems that are themselves built by race (and racism), class, gender, ableist assumptions, among other biases." (p. 136) to the words of writer, professor, and activist Audre Lorde. In Lorde's work "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," she critiques activists and movements that attempt to utilize the very tools that build and sustain white supremacy to dismantle it. In a more focused context, Lorde was discussing the use of racism and homophobia (particularly the exclusion of queer Black women, like herself) in the feminist movement within attempts to dismantle the patriarchy. To truly dismantle the master's house, then, we must unpack and unlearn the very tools that give way to oppressive systems rather than attempting to use them ourselves and expecting genuine, long-lasting change. The connection, for me, lies in the importance of not only questioning but unpacking tradition and instinct.

"Rhetorical Listening: A Trope for Interpretive Invention and a Code of Cross-Cultural Conduct" by Krista Ratcliffe (2020)

The definition of rhetoric that I have been building on since late high school has primary scholarly foundations in this work by Krista Ratcliffe, particularly through her discussion of "rhetorical listening." Through her explanation, I view rhetorical listening as a strategy employed by the audience to understand the context, intentions, and biases of a text in order to appropriately and effectively participate in genuine discourse (p. 204). My definition, then, is that rhetoric occurs in, or rather is, communication that provides meaning inseparable from nuance; it is the acknowledgment of how communication considers, includes, and embodies the background, purpose, and identification of both the speaker and the audience. This perspective, for example, would acknowledge the choice to use a specific, perhaps culturally relevant metaphor in contrast to one that is universal and standard. This choice impacts the larger text, the intentions of the speaker, and the conclusion the reader garners from the artifact.

Ratcliffe draws a stark distinction between passive listening and rhetorical listening, of which the latter includes an evaluation of the author's identity (perspective, purpose, environment), the perspectives not included in the works (to promote a sense of diplomacy focused on progressing the argument rather than "winning" it), and cross-cultural logics. Largely, I find that when viewed together, the works of Ratcliffe and Royster (specifically, "When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own") do a thorough job of depicting what cross-cultural discourse (and thus, research, policy-making, and decision-making) should look like. Both texts establish listening (in Ratcliffe's case, rhetorical listening) as a tool for social understanding across differences, where listening becomes an active practice that can uncover intersections of identity and power and thus should be used for genuine inquiry and cultural discovery.

"Workin’ Languages: Who We Are Matters in Our Writing" by Sara P. Alvarez, Amy J. Wan, and Eunjeong Lee (2022)

I have never -- and perhaps that is to say: internally, always -- struggled with writing. As someone who has a natural skill of pattern recognition, finding what was considered "good" writing was not something anyone ever had to outright ask me to do. Rather, as Eunjeong notes, it is "the air we breathe; it’s always there, and no one needs to point that out to you" (p. 3-4). Growing up, you didn't have to look far to find what is considered (by teachers, individual schools, and the broader institution of schooling) "good" writing; it's in the artifacts you are assigned to read for homework, the sources you are required to cite in your own writing, or the works available to you at any given time. It's in the Dr. Seuss', E. B. Whites, C.S. Lewis', and the Shakespeares that many of us analyzed before we had a true grasp on much of anything. Surprise to no one, then, that these artifacts, sources, and works largely sound nothing like me; that is to say, look nothing like me. It's not the James Baldwins, Zora Neale Hurstons, Toni Morrisons, or Maya Angelous. Of course, these authors came later (through elective choice, I should mention, and not by required assignment), but I wonder if it was too late? For me, anyway. Easier (harder?) still was mimicking what was "good" writing. The first voice I developed as a writer wasn't entirely my own (I guess Royster would argue that it is indeed my voice, but rather just one of many). Rather, it is the voice of formal academia that taught me what, when, and how to write; it is the objective academic tone that Alvarez et al. writes of (p. 1), that is (and thus values) the me removed from myself. And yet, one of the consistent comments I get on my writing is that my voice is strong and permeates the text from start to finish. Perhaps, then, this is simply a repercussion of wholly adopting the white/standard voice we are taught to begin with. Or, rather, my inability to assess and characterize such a voice as indisputably mine is a symptom of the larger issue of standardization. My experience is one of many, as "judgments on “good” writing extend inequities and negative racial codings in our society... an ideal that centers a “norm” often conceived as white, upper-middle class, “accentless,” and male..." (p. 4).

I am particularly interested in what the text describes as a core responsibility of writing classes, acknowledging that they can't singlehandedly change the inequalities and prejudices that impact writing; they must, however, highlight and challenge the construction of "good" writing and the values they are based on (p 4-5). In my opinion, much of the work of unpacking the inequalities built into writing instruction must begin by unpacking basic concerns like what writing is, what writing should be, and why we do it. Existing literature on writing as a process of reflection, discovery, and thought (see: Donald M. Murray) is an excellent start for this sort of deconstruction, as it directly opposes the production approach that leads to standardization and thus the devaluation of certain kinds of writing/authorship. Much of the content of this text -- particularly the subfocus on translingual teaching practices (p. 5) -- reminds me of writer and professor Keith Gilyard's broader concept of translingualism. As a pedagogical approach that acknowledges language as a social practice and invites students coming from diverse backgrounds to negotiate the rhetorical styles they bring into their writing, translingualism acknowledges all of the historical nuances and connotations of the language we use, particularly as it relates to human interaction. Further, translingualism engages with the tension between the inherent policing of language in classrooms (institutional standards) and students' rights to their own languages.

"Marginalized Students Need to Write about Their Lives: Meaningful Assignments for Analysis and Affirmation" by Nancy Mack

Much of this text, which largely grapples with the ways students of marginalized identities are left out of standard/traditional education and how to address them in an equity or justice-based pedagogy, reminds me of the Counterstory work of Aja Martinez. Martinez combats what Mack calls a "rejection of experience" (which sees that students' firsthand accounts are not a credible topic or type of evidence) by encouraging marginalized individuals to provide a counterstory. From what I have interpreted from my slight exploration of Martinez's text, counterstory is a rhetoric-based methodology that calls for individuals of marginalized identities to call upon their own experiences to counteract the dominant ideologies that impact research.

In my opinion, this methodology (among others) is a great way to begin to unpack the unnecessary and often inaccurate valuing of logic (which is commonly simplified to "objective, scientified, and less personal and emotional") over the personal. There's an assumption that logic is unbiased, objective, as detached from the human as possible, and thus is overtly correct. In contrast, the personal is the human: biased, subjective, emotional, and too unique to be generalized. This conflation of objectivity and "fact" is heavily connected to the prioritization of argumentative writing, as Mack introduces with consideration of state standards, curriculum, and common assignments. These philosophies are based on the idea that argument moves people, that people are swayed by a well-said rebuttal; in reality, emotion moves people, experience moves people. The assignments, approaches, and methodologies introduced in the text push back on this assumption and prioritize student experience in order to emphasize the ways we actually exist in the world.

"Responding to Student Writing" by Nancy Sommers (1982)

To me, this text by teacher and writer Nancy Sommers reiterates the importance of revision. She establishes that revision should not just be an aspect of editing nor something to throw in after rounds of feedback; rather, revision is a core stage of writing that must exist independently and be done by students in a way that preserves their intentions and rhetorical choices. I found specific interest in the text's example comments, which displayed how teachers often provide contradictory feedback and comments that require both editing and revision-based changes. These comments fail to establish that revision takes precedence: it should occur first to allow the student to clarify what they want to say in the ways they want to say it, as opposed to prioritizing teacher perceptions of what students should say (what Sommers calls "appropriation of the text by the teacher"). One vital aspect in improving such teacher feedback requires us to emphasize that editing-based errors are not the end-all be-all when it comes to drafting and improving works. Accordingly, comments/feedback and moments in the classroom should all establish and reinforce orders of importance to certain "errors" (grammar-based mistakes having lesser or rather secondary importance than revision-based ones).

A primary statement from the text that I intend to bring into my own teaching is the following claim regarding traditional teaching comments/feedback: "the processes of revising, editing, and proofreading are collapsed and reduced to a single trivial activity, and the students' misunderstanding of the revision process as a rewording activity is reinforced by their teachers' comments" (p. 151). Largely, then, I intend to ensure that my students engage with all of these writing processes both independently and collectively, allowing them to prioritize what will genuinely improve their work and maintain their intentions, message, and voice.

"Moving beyond the Written Comment: Narrowing the Gap between Response Practice and Research" by Jane Mathison Fife and Peggy O'Neill (2001)

"Moving beyond the Written Comment" connects directly to Nancy Sommer's (1982) "Responding to Student Writing," as summarized and interpreted above. Fife and O'Neill focus on two aspects of teacher feedback on student writing that were not fully addressed in Sommer's work: the importance of connecting comments to classroom context and inviting student metacommentary on their drafts. The text describes the "absence of consideration of pedagogical context," a prominent gap in pedagogical research in which researchers routinely fail to consider the circumstances surrounding teacher feedback, particularly the way feedback connects to, reinforces, draws upon, and interprets classroom experiences.

To me, this sense of researching research is a seemingly effective way to routinely self-check the discipline, to ensure that the work we are constantly doing is not only efficient but truly represents the things that occur in classrooms, assignments, and between teachers and students. Incorporating new research designs, modern genres, and today's teaching strategies are just some aspects we should include in pedagogical research to ensure that we are producing work that reflects the reality of classrooms.

"Pedagogy of the Oppressed" (Chapter 2) by Paulo Freire

There is something uniquely fulfilling, for me, about chapter 2 of Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed." From his discussion of the banking concept of education to his bluntness in naming oppression and oppressors, I deeply appreciate the way he has taken pedagogy that step further. This is not the first time I have read about the perception of students as empty vessels within which teachers are responsible for pouring knowledge and skills ("Diving In" by Shaughnessy comes to mind); however, Freire is the only one who has attached this traditional teaching philosophy, style, and approach to the context in which it was born. The banking concept of education is not something that just happened -- it wasn't born out of a lack of research into the field or a basic misunderstanding -- it is a purposeful and intentional tool through which oppressors are able to maintain an oppressive society. Connecting this to a sense of dehumanization -- as such a pedagogical approach removes the curiosity, critical consciousness, and active nature of humanity -- is such a profound finding!

I find a deep connection between this text and Inoue's Antiracist Reading Pedagogy; Freire's detailing of education as the practice of domination mirrors the six habits of "white language and judgement" depicted by Inoue. As Freire points to isolationism, detachment from the world, dehumanization, and alienation as the repercussions of a banking concept of education, Inoue points to the connected aspects of hyper-individualism, order, and control as habits we all have as a result of living in a white supremacist society (p. 152).

"Engaged Pedagogy" by bell hooks

bell hooks' work in "Engaged Pedagogy" acts as a sort of autobiographical account of Freire's pedagogical assessment, as discussed above in the context of the banking concept of education and engaged pedagogy. hooks' personal testimony adds to much of Freire's work by displaying her own experience with an "assembly-line" approach to education (p. 13), the danger of authoritative teachers (p. 17), and risk-taking in positions of power (p. 21). I was particularly struck by this quote: "To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn... the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin” (p. 13).

hooks (and by attachment, Freire) does monumental work in describing the personal repercussions of having experienced a banking concept of education from both the teacher and student perspectives. I particularly appreciate the discussions of teachers who make their classroom a "mini-kingdom" (p. 17); there is such a wonderful connection here regarding authority, power, and the inherent danger that comes with hoarding it. As potential teachers (who all hopefully aim to dismantle and oppose the banking concept of education), it is vital for us to resist not only hoarding the power that the traditional teaching profession and institution bestows on us, but also avoid employing it in a way that hinders or outright reverses the true learning, development, and exploration of our students.

"Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: A Critical Framework for Centering Communities" by H. Samy Alim, Django Paris, and Casey Philip Wong

Much of my feelings about this text -- and I suppose the broader theory of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) -- reflect many of the things I've explored in my research around students' rights to their own language (SRTOL) and what I've written below regarding the "perpetual but." Largely, yes, of course, we should be teaching students in ways that acknowledge, honor, use, and sustain the cultures and knowledge that they bring to the classroom. How do we do that? What does that actually look like in day-to-day lessons? Additionally, how do we do that in a society that very much devalues those very cultures and knowledge?

This reminds me of a prominent counterargument to SRTOL: how might this sort of work actually withhold preparedness from the very students and cultures we seek to honor? At the same time that this work needs to be done, students still seek upward mobility, higher education, social acceptance, and all of these other aspects of life that currently require some sort of adherence to white, male, otherwise hegemonic standards. As I'm thinking about this, I acknowledge that this is yet another "perpetual but" that stops us from doing justice-based work.

"Embracing the Perpetual ‘But’ in Raciolinguistic Justice Work: When Idealism Meets Practice" by Nicole Gonzales Howell, Kate Navickas, Rachael Shapiro, Shawna Shapiro, and Missy Watson

The "perpetual but" is always something I have known, implicitly, and constantly felt compelled to poke at. As much as we reflect on our assumptions, acknowledge preconceptions, establish pedagogical values, discuss theory, share strategies, and plan, we always seem to fall short of justice (something I consider to also be revolutionary work; in anti-racism, in linguistic justice, in students' rights, in...). To me, it's less a matter of what the "but" is in any given context and scenario and, rather, why it is. By this, I mean that I am well aware of the "but," the various institutional, cultural, and personal boundaries or obstacles to seeking justice (it's inherent, and on purpose, I should note; changes to the system are never easy to make when operating in and living in the system). I just wonder that for those of us already aware of these larger-scale aspects and yet still seeking to accomplish justice in one way or another, why does the "but" continue to hinder us?

I think I'm answering my own question: it continues to hinder us because those obstacles are so purposefully vast, constant, and intertwined. I am constantly torn between knowing that injustice has always been disasterously multidirectional (this directionality is what makes it so difficult, I think, to fully implement justice and thus constantly resupplies us with the "perpetual but") and believing that having that knowledge is not enough of a reason to not do this work.

"Teaching Critical Genre Awareness" by Amy Devitt

While I have generally considered the expectations built into genres and widespread use of them, I never really took the time to unpack the implicit assumptions, standards, and ideologies that work to rhetorically sustain writing genres. Largely, prior classes have asked us to define and describe various genres (meaning to identify and assess the characteristics of a given genre) in the name of identifying affordances and constraints. By reading this piece, I was able to recognize not only additional aspects of genres but also how, exactly, the pedagogical focus solely on affordances and constraints does a disservice to critical genre awareness. At the same time that we are learning about and distinguishing between writing genres, we need to be engaging in critical critique that calls out the ideologies working behind the scenes and empowering students to play with the conventions that make up those same standards.

"Multimodality" Chapter 6 of Teachers Talking Writing

This chapter from TTW introduces an interesting and relevant framing of multimodality. As opposed to simply focusing on the production aspect -- the various modes a given work can include or the affordances/constraints of a given mode of communication -- this chapter discusses multimodality partially from the creative aspect. It emphasizes that multimodality, in which we go beyond the traditional text-based format, reflects the abilities many of us come to class with. For example, students often readily use digital technologies and are active users in the digital landscape; employing multimodality allows students to make use of these skills and tools in a way that is constructive and productive to writing. This chapter of TTW also builds on a text we've read earlier in the semester: "A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures" by the New London Group. Connecting these two texts and the concepts within them reveals the interconnectedness of literacy and modality: being able to produce works in various modes requires distinct types of literacies.

"Teaching Is Accommodation: Universally Designing Composition Classrooms and Syllabi" by Anne-Marie Womack

I am routinely reminded that language is everything (this is to say: framing is everything, communication is everything, rhetoric is everything). The terms and phrases we use to label ideals and processes like accommodation communicate things both intentionally and unintentionally, explicitly and implicitly; they build up not only societal understandings but our entire reality. They also reflect the power structures and normalizing forces that make up our society (I'm thinking Audre Lorde here; when am I not thinking Audre Lorde?). I was particularly struck by the reframing of accommodation as something we do as a reaction to disability and/or the presence of disabled individuals, to something that we have always done, something we regularly do, and something that intentionally excludes given populations at any given time. I wanted to mention here two related quotes from the text: " ...traditional accommodations often occur after the moment of communication has passed and do not challenge the culture of exclusion" and "By definition, 'reasonable' accommodations are retrofits built on the condition that they cannot 'fundamentally alter the nature of' an exclusionary system" (p. 496). These quotes point to the reactive nature of many traditional accommodations as well as the lack of critical critique that occurs even after those traditional accommodations are offered; we've "fixed" a given issue and provided a ramp, gave students more time, offered works in a variety of modes, but we haven't acknowledged, questioned, or challenged the very culture, ideology, and values that caused the creation of an exclusionary work to begin with.

"Historically Black Colleges and Universities" of Teachers Talking Writing

In my exploration into Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), particularly in the context of writing instruction and writing centers (see: Carmen Kynard), it becomes more and more obvious that the barrier to a lot of justice work lies in the conflict between standard and nonstandard, White/dominant and other, and success and failure. In this, I mean that a lot of the standards and markers of success that we see today are what they are (or measured the way they are, or worded the way they are, or implemented the way they are) precisely because it is white (that is to say, non-Black, non-racialized, dominant). A lot of the initial motivations of college-level writing programs, in fact, are the assimilation of non-white students into White standards. So, even if we were to honor and value the traditions, histories, and languages of minoritized people in the everyday actions of our classrooms, they are still measured against a standard that inherently devalues them. This reminds me too of many of the arguments against SRTOL (the idea that students should have the right to their own language in writing) and how they lie in the fact that encouraging students to explore their native dialects and languages may not place adequate focus on the forms of language (SEAE) they will need to succeed in a white supremacist society (I'm getting off track, here, but bear with me). The text itself points to this tendency, stating, "If students want to express themselves in this way, and in a way that is critical and critically rich, how do we help them do that in a way that supports their identities, but also the rhetorical choices they will have to make out in the real world?" (p. 71).

For this reason, I found the following statement from page 62 of the text particularly questionable: "Kedra Laverne James (2013) writes in her dissertation on writing programs and HBCUs, Writing instruction should mirror the goals and founding principles of the institution so that the university and its curriculum coincide rather than contradict each other." Largely, then, if the goal of a given HBCU is to prepare its students for success after they leave the academic landscape, then is their goal not to prepare them for the standards (anti-Black, anti-minority, pro-white, pro-male, etc., etc.) of the outside world? Is this not where a core contradiction occurs to begin with? The text itself points to this conflict through its discussion of traditional teaching approaches that overemphasize grammar and mechanics, which reflect SEAE (p. 63). Is the next step not JUST to acknowledge, recognize, and amplify how HBCUs approach writing instruction (as recommended on p. 64), but to unpack the very standards we all live by and with, then? Should we not be starting completely from scratch: reconsidering what we define writing as, what forms writing can take, and what the given goal (if any) of writing is? One of the interviews of the chapter indicates that they unknowingly put a lot of this pressure on the students, who are the ones to ask questions, push back, and challenge traditional/normative practices.

Overall, I feel like we always stop short of justice; we've been grappling with what "good" writing looks like, yes, but should we even be concerned with evaluating writing to begin with (I wonder how much that hyperfocus on evaluation reflects White, Western society)? And if we aren't evaluating writing at all, what does writing instruction look like? Otherwise, how does replacing standard notions with other categories or concepts (rhythm, cadence, etc., as described on p. 71) simply reproduce many of the same issues we are already having?

"Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI's) of Teachers Talking Writing

I particularly appreciate this chapter's subfocus on dealing with students' prior experiences with writing and writing instruction, particularly as it relates to their unique cultural backgrounds and linguistic capabilities. We need to be continually reminded that we need to do as much unpacking as we do of building; students come into our classrooms with perspectives about writing that may or may not conflict with the aspects of writing we intend to focus on or share. This calls for an environment where students not only feel encouraged and safe to share their experiences and beliefs, but also empowered to take ownership over their own learning and writing.

In looking at what writing instruction can or maybe should look like at institutions with diverse populations, these readings serve to remind us of the dangers of making assumptions about the students we teach. Whether it concerns students' prior academic experiences, cultural backgrounds, values/beliefs, financial struggles/barriers, or a specific purpose/motivation for pursuing higher education, these assumptions limit our ability to adequately serve the student population in all its diversity and variation. Even as we seek to bridge the gap between students' lives at home (and the cultural practices that are inherent there) and the knowledge they gain in academia, we must avoid assuming a sort of homogeneity in those home lives.

I'd love to hear from you.