Marback, Richard. "Speaking of the City and Literacies of Place in Composition Studies." City Comp: Identities, Spaces, Practices. Albany: State U of New York P, 2003. 141-155.
Marback theorizes our relationship with cities when we do civic work. We write cities and also represent cities, which do not necessarily have a voice of their own (drawing on Beauregard and the literature of urban planning). But we need to balance "the force of rhetoric against of the weight of material conditions" (142). Marback sees ideology--"a space between subject and object" (143)--as the domain for achieving this balance. We analyze objects (like cities) and speak for them and represent them but we place too much faith in "discursive intervention" (145) and not enough emphasis on material conditions. 'Rhetoric' blinds us to the realities of the 'material.' So we should find "the provocative ground of place making, where actions, attititudes, objects, spaces, values, and words intertwine" (147). He cites Detroit's own Heidelberg art installation as an examle of place-making's potential. The H. project intervenes in civic debates about Detroit and also changes the conversation in affirmative, creative ways. Juxtaposition of art, rhetoric, public debate, and Detroit's realities. "...all is not language" (148). The H. writes the city and intervenes in its materiality.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Grabill, b
Grabill, Jeffrey T. "The Written City: Urban Planning, Computer Networks, and Civic Literacies." City Comp: Identities, Spaces, Practices. Ed. Bruce McComiskey and Cynthia Ryan. Albany: State U of New York P, 2003. 128-140.
Grabill argues that effective engagement with civic life happens "not necessary on our terms" (128) through an outreach program but rather through broader, sustained efforts that include rhetoric and writing as part of the initiative (128-129). Do a larger needs-assessment project that foregrounds and places first and foremost the needs of communities/agencies and THEN bring in writing program to help out in that effort (135). 'Literacy' shouldn't be an end in and of itself but rather there needs to be a bigger picture of activism or job training or some such concrete end.
Grabill furthers the work begun in his book and also Mathieu's argument to stop making it all about the university personnel (faculty and students) and start putting agencies, their needs, their positionalities, first. In part a critique of a careerist orientation among ASL professionals.
Grabill argues that effective engagement with civic life happens "not necessary on our terms" (128) through an outreach program but rather through broader, sustained efforts that include rhetoric and writing as part of the initiative (128-129). Do a larger needs-assessment project that foregrounds and places first and foremost the needs of communities/agencies and THEN bring in writing program to help out in that effort (135). 'Literacy' shouldn't be an end in and of itself but rather there needs to be a bigger picture of activism or job training or some such concrete end.
Grabill furthers the work begun in his book and also Mathieu's argument to stop making it all about the university personnel (faculty and students) and start putting agencies, their needs, their positionalities, first. In part a critique of a careerist orientation among ASL professionals.
Cooper and Julier
Cooper, David D., and Laura Julier. "Democratic Conversations: Civic Literacy and Service-Learning in the American Grains." Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service Learning in Composition. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner et al. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education, 1997. 79-94.
Cooper and Julier report on experiences with American Thought and Language first-year seminars at Michigan State. They designate special sections as asl sections, themed around 'public life in America' guided by three principles: 1) rhetorical lessons of real-world facilitate good writing pedagogy, 2) project-based writing at sites fosters "higher-order academic discourse skills," and 3) juxtaposing academic lessons and projects advanced civic education (82).
They write, "This particular line of philosophical inquiry and practical pedagogy views the writing classroom, in short, as a moral and civic venue, a place where moral sensibility, critical literacy, and the arts of public discourse, leavened by reflective and connected learning, develop hand-in-hand" (83). They worry that information overload has damaged public life to the point that it's become "anemic" (85). ASL goes beyond critique and gets students thinking about complicated, messy "solutions" to problems (92).
Cooper and Julier report on experiences with American Thought and Language first-year seminars at Michigan State. They designate special sections as asl sections, themed around 'public life in America' guided by three principles: 1) rhetorical lessons of real-world facilitate good writing pedagogy, 2) project-based writing at sites fosters "higher-order academic discourse skills," and 3) juxtaposing academic lessons and projects advanced civic education (82).
They write, "This particular line of philosophical inquiry and practical pedagogy views the writing classroom, in short, as a moral and civic venue, a place where moral sensibility, critical literacy, and the arts of public discourse, leavened by reflective and connected learning, develop hand-in-hand" (83). They worry that information overload has damaged public life to the point that it's become "anemic" (85). ASL goes beyond critique and gets students thinking about complicated, messy "solutions" to problems (92).
Heilker
Heilker, Paul. "Rhetoric Made Real: Civic Discourse and Writing Beyond the Curriculum." Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service Learning in Composition. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner et al. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education, 1997. 71-77.
Go beyond the classroom to give students real rhetorical situation and also "to understand writing as social action" (71). Rhetorical understanding happens when students do real writing projects at agencies. Give them choice to avoid indoctrinating with a particular political position and transcend the warm-up model of student writing: "calisthentics before the big game" (76).
Go beyond the classroom to give students real rhetorical situation and also "to understand writing as social action" (71). Rhetorical understanding happens when students do real writing projects at agencies. Give them choice to avoid indoctrinating with a particular political position and transcend the warm-up model of student writing: "calisthentics before the big game" (76).
Herzberg
Herzberg, Bruce. "Community Service and Critical Teaching." Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service Learning in Composition. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner et al. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education, 1997. 57-69. (Rpt. CCC 1994)
Reports on project-based ASL at Bentley College and finds that "service learning generates a social conscience" (58)--but that oftentimes middle-class student response is personal and rooted in charity, as opposed to stemming from a contextual, activist, or justice-based approach to social change: "I don't believe that questions about social structures, ideology, and social justice are automatically raised by community service. From my own experience, I am quite sure they are not" (59). He finds that students recognize systemic injustice in texts (Mike Rose, Jonathan Kozol) more easily than in their own lived experiences at work sites, but that slowly, a deeper understanding of social structures became part of student repertoire. ASL can help universities be "radically democratic institutions, with the goal not only of making individual students more successful but also of making better citizens, citizens in the strongest sense of those who take responsibility for communal welfare. These efforts belong int he composition class because of the rhetorical as well as the practical nature of citizenship and social transformation" (66).
Reports on project-based ASL at Bentley College and finds that "service learning generates a social conscience" (58)--but that oftentimes middle-class student response is personal and rooted in charity, as opposed to stemming from a contextual, activist, or justice-based approach to social change: "I don't believe that questions about social structures, ideology, and social justice are automatically raised by community service. From my own experience, I am quite sure they are not" (59). He finds that students recognize systemic injustice in texts (Mike Rose, Jonathan Kozol) more easily than in their own lived experiences at work sites, but that slowly, a deeper understanding of social structures became part of student repertoire. ASL can help universities be "radically democratic institutions, with the goal not only of making individual students more successful but also of making better citizens, citizens in the strongest sense of those who take responsibility for communal welfare. These efforts belong int he composition class because of the rhetorical as well as the practical nature of citizenship and social transformation" (66).
Bacon
Bacon, Nora. "Community Service Writing: Problems, Challenges, Questions." Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service Learning in Composition. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner et al. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education, 1997. 39-55.
Bacon discusses the work of the Community Service Writing (CSW) program at Stanford and San Fran State U, finding that students were largely enthusiastic and engaged and at times deepened and changed their political beliefs about given issues. Bacon finds that students "were functioning not as students but as writers" (42), thanks to ASL providing a real rhetorical situation (no longer writing just for the teaacher). She expresses concern that writing for agencies can sometimes foster authenticity or voice--since now students are writing for the agency instead of themselves. One way to deal in part with this problematic is to provide students with choice in what agency they serve (45). Bacon is also concerned about evaluating the genres that stem from ASL partnerships but advocates inviting site supervisors to assess; she worries, though, that this potentially can compromise the teacher's authority.
Many of the assumptions and ideas here (the emphasis on students and institutions) are critiqued in much of the later ASL scholarship (Matthieu, Grabill, much of Ellen Cushman's work). Bacon doesn't deal with the problematic of burdening sites with more work and she certainly doesn't foreground preferential option.
Bacon discusses the work of the Community Service Writing (CSW) program at Stanford and San Fran State U, finding that students were largely enthusiastic and engaged and at times deepened and changed their political beliefs about given issues. Bacon finds that students "were functioning not as students but as writers" (42), thanks to ASL providing a real rhetorical situation (no longer writing just for the teaacher). She expresses concern that writing for agencies can sometimes foster authenticity or voice--since now students are writing for the agency instead of themselves. One way to deal in part with this problematic is to provide students with choice in what agency they serve (45). Bacon is also concerned about evaluating the genres that stem from ASL partnerships but advocates inviting site supervisors to assess; she worries, though, that this potentially can compromise the teacher's authority.
Many of the assumptions and ideas here (the emphasis on students and institutions) are critiqued in much of the later ASL scholarship (Matthieu, Grabill, much of Ellen Cushman's work). Bacon doesn't deal with the problematic of burdening sites with more work and she certainly doesn't foreground preferential option.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Grabill
Grabill, Jeffrey T. Community Literacy Programs and the Politics of Change. Albany: State U of New York P, 2001.
Grabill's book is primarily a theorizing of the concept of literacy (grounded in his work with a community lit agency in Georgia), so it's less useful to my project. But Grabill offers an interesting discussion of institutions and argues for a version of institutional change and institutional action that gives preferential option for the poor (borrowing Catholic social teaching heavily).
Literacy, Grabill says, only has meaning in the context of specific, local institutions. Moreso than an abstraction like 'literacy,' institutions "are written, and if they are written, they can be rewritten" (8). Hence, concrete social change happens at the level of the (concrete) institution. Civic engagement efforts need "a critical rhetoric." Grabill writes, "This rhetoric is a situated procedure committed to participatory decision making within communitities and institutions that gives preferential option to the least powerful" (64).
Such efforts should involve interventions in the ways communities and institutions intersect (88). Specifically, practitioners of civic engagement work (ASL, etc.) need to revise their notions of "community" away from a homogenizing project. The danger of the word 'community' is that it is singular and potentially monolithic. Instead, make a committment to "difference" and "to naming those differences that mark one as less powerful" (91). He goes on: "I want to suggest that the committment to others is a committment to collective action and difference. I see no other way" (91).
On preferential option: "The reasons for preferential treatment are rather simple in principle yet terribly complex in practice. Recall that the ethical and political justification of democratic processes depends on there being free and equal participation. Once we acknowledge that decision-making processes aren't free and equal--and they never are--then it is necessary to think carefully about how they can approach that ideal" (123). Preferential option, in other words, gives the culture a closer approximation to the "ideal" of justice. You admit inequality and take affirmative steps to achieve equality. So with ASL work, the agency gets preferential option--over university, faculty member, career, student, and student need. (150-151).
Grabill's book is primarily a theorizing of the concept of literacy (grounded in his work with a community lit agency in Georgia), so it's less useful to my project. But Grabill offers an interesting discussion of institutions and argues for a version of institutional change and institutional action that gives preferential option for the poor (borrowing Catholic social teaching heavily).
Literacy, Grabill says, only has meaning in the context of specific, local institutions. Moreso than an abstraction like 'literacy,' institutions "are written, and if they are written, they can be rewritten" (8). Hence, concrete social change happens at the level of the (concrete) institution. Civic engagement efforts need "a critical rhetoric." Grabill writes, "This rhetoric is a situated procedure committed to participatory decision making within communitities and institutions that gives preferential option to the least powerful" (64).
Such efforts should involve interventions in the ways communities and institutions intersect (88). Specifically, practitioners of civic engagement work (ASL, etc.) need to revise their notions of "community" away from a homogenizing project. The danger of the word 'community' is that it is singular and potentially monolithic. Instead, make a committment to "difference" and "to naming those differences that mark one as less powerful" (91). He goes on: "I want to suggest that the committment to others is a committment to collective action and difference. I see no other way" (91).
On preferential option: "The reasons for preferential treatment are rather simple in principle yet terribly complex in practice. Recall that the ethical and political justification of democratic processes depends on there being free and equal participation. Once we acknowledge that decision-making processes aren't free and equal--and they never are--then it is necessary to think carefully about how they can approach that ideal" (123). Preferential option, in other words, gives the culture a closer approximation to the "ideal" of justice. You admit inequality and take affirmative steps to achieve equality. So with ASL work, the agency gets preferential option--over university, faculty member, career, student, and student need. (150-151).
Friday, July 27, 2007
Mathieu
Mathieu, Paula. Tactics of Hope: The Public Turn in English Composition. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook and Heinemann, 2005.
Matthieu defines street (her preferred term in lieu of community, worksite, etc.) as places off campus that have unique spatial politics and rhetorical practices. The term is racially coded but at least reminds us of problematic assumptions unlike empty signifiers like "site of service." She proposes TACTICS as preferred practices for engaging with the street--preferred, that is, over "strategic logics," the university's usual way of engaging. She writes, "A strategic orientation seeks to control spaces and create institutional relationships with an 'other' in the community" (xiv). STRATEGIES include dynamics like a search for stability, control, sustainability, and "measurable student outcomes" (xiv). She also calls this a "problem orientation," essentially a deficit model where the academics fix that which is broken. "The goal," she writes, "of charity or a problem orientation is to decrease the prevalence of a given problem. It often involves strategic initatives and long-term plans" (xix). Her notion largely comes from de Certeau (Practice of Everyday Life), who sees strategies as official actions, sanctioned by state appartuses, creating stability.
TACTICS, on the other hand, are rhetorical, project-based (often small in scope), locally/collaboratively defined, changing, "grounded in both time and place" (xv), and most crucially involve "hope." "...this approach seeks tactical uses of time and resources to celebrate, encourage, or develop those aspects of a body that are already working" (xix). Thus, "hope." Mathieu says, "I find this tactical orientation both exciting and deeply humbling, one that is grounded in hope but in a critical manifestation of hope, one that is based in action and proceeds with eyes open" (xix). Here, too, she relies on de Certeau, who sees tactics as temporal responses to uncontroled situations.
Mathieu reviews evidence of comp's social turn--such as service learning and place-based writing pedagogies and various versions of public intellectualism, situating these trends within Dewey, Freire, liberation theology, marxism, and British cultural studies. She argues that the corporatiziation of the university has led many institutions to push movement to the street, which they can market and use as branding opportunities. But she also sees a more genuine hope: "This desire to be a connected agent in the world, active in ways other than as a consumer (see Mathieu 1999), is a healthy hope, one shared by many faculty and students" (14). And also, "...we seek to overcome feelings of cynicism about our ability to be relevant in the world and embrace some form of optimism" (14).
"To hope, then, is to look critically at one's present condition, assess what is missing, and then long for and work for a not-yet reality, a future anticipated. It is grounded in imaginative acts and projects, including art and writing, as vehicles for invoking a better future" (19). She turns to a homeless activist whose writing is timely, always evolving, part of an ongoing attempt to provoke, anger, and make people laugh. The immediate outcome is not always known or demonstrable. This is a TACTIC. The Streetwise paper (a homeless periodical), similarly, foregounds the act of writing together as an end in itself. Finally, Not Your Mama's Bus Tour, was about the performance itself (the outcome was unpredictable). According to Mathieu, we ought to resist the transactional notion that civic writing must immediately do something (50).
Her next example: her own Literatures of Homelessness courses. "It is imperative to get beyond the initial blush of satisfaction in doing communally or socially engaged work and ask the difficult questions that follow" (60). She says that civic engagement courses (ASL, etc.) must invite significant collaboration from community partners (they should never be an afterthought) who the institution should compensate and value and stem from personal relationships with them, not careerist moves on the part of faculty. The classes should involve small interventions (tactical projects) in local situations, but with an eye on global context. She sums up, "Consider what a project orientation instead of a problem orientation allows you and your students to accomplish. Projects should begin with community needs and not merely seek out places to serve" (82).
Finally, Mathieu shares horror stories that revolve around students and faculty not respecting the time of agencies: breaking appointments, failing to sustain involvement at a site, etc. She claims these problematic practices stem from top-down, institutionalized service learning projects...initiatives that don't stem from a community need but rather an institution trying to market itself or an academic doing a sanctioned, pre-fab experiment. Tactical, personal, unofficial, grassroots projects are better, she says. She tells stories of Howard Zinn, Diana George, and Sandra Andrews, whose civic engagement illustrates the value of tactical intervention.
Matthieu defines street (her preferred term in lieu of community, worksite, etc.) as places off campus that have unique spatial politics and rhetorical practices. The term is racially coded but at least reminds us of problematic assumptions unlike empty signifiers like "site of service." She proposes TACTICS as preferred practices for engaging with the street--preferred, that is, over "strategic logics," the university's usual way of engaging. She writes, "A strategic orientation seeks to control spaces and create institutional relationships with an 'other' in the community" (xiv). STRATEGIES include dynamics like a search for stability, control, sustainability, and "measurable student outcomes" (xiv). She also calls this a "problem orientation," essentially a deficit model where the academics fix that which is broken. "The goal," she writes, "of charity or a problem orientation is to decrease the prevalence of a given problem. It often involves strategic initatives and long-term plans" (xix). Her notion largely comes from de Certeau (Practice of Everyday Life), who sees strategies as official actions, sanctioned by state appartuses, creating stability.
TACTICS, on the other hand, are rhetorical, project-based (often small in scope), locally/collaboratively defined, changing, "grounded in both time and place" (xv), and most crucially involve "hope." "...this approach seeks tactical uses of time and resources to celebrate, encourage, or develop those aspects of a body that are already working" (xix). Thus, "hope." Mathieu says, "I find this tactical orientation both exciting and deeply humbling, one that is grounded in hope but in a critical manifestation of hope, one that is based in action and proceeds with eyes open" (xix). Here, too, she relies on de Certeau, who sees tactics as temporal responses to uncontroled situations.
Mathieu reviews evidence of comp's social turn--such as service learning and place-based writing pedagogies and various versions of public intellectualism, situating these trends within Dewey, Freire, liberation theology, marxism, and British cultural studies. She argues that the corporatiziation of the university has led many institutions to push movement to the street, which they can market and use as branding opportunities. But she also sees a more genuine hope: "This desire to be a connected agent in the world, active in ways other than as a consumer (see Mathieu 1999), is a healthy hope, one shared by many faculty and students" (14). And also, "...we seek to overcome feelings of cynicism about our ability to be relevant in the world and embrace some form of optimism" (14).
"To hope, then, is to look critically at one's present condition, assess what is missing, and then long for and work for a not-yet reality, a future anticipated. It is grounded in imaginative acts and projects, including art and writing, as vehicles for invoking a better future" (19). She turns to a homeless activist whose writing is timely, always evolving, part of an ongoing attempt to provoke, anger, and make people laugh. The immediate outcome is not always known or demonstrable. This is a TACTIC. The Streetwise paper (a homeless periodical), similarly, foregounds the act of writing together as an end in itself. Finally, Not Your Mama's Bus Tour, was about the performance itself (the outcome was unpredictable). According to Mathieu, we ought to resist the transactional notion that civic writing must immediately do something (50).
Her next example: her own Literatures of Homelessness courses. "It is imperative to get beyond the initial blush of satisfaction in doing communally or socially engaged work and ask the difficult questions that follow" (60). She says that civic engagement courses (ASL, etc.) must invite significant collaboration from community partners (they should never be an afterthought) who the institution should compensate and value and stem from personal relationships with them, not careerist moves on the part of faculty. The classes should involve small interventions (tactical projects) in local situations, but with an eye on global context. She sums up, "Consider what a project orientation instead of a problem orientation allows you and your students to accomplish. Projects should begin with community needs and not merely seek out places to serve" (82).
Finally, Mathieu shares horror stories that revolve around students and faculty not respecting the time of agencies: breaking appointments, failing to sustain involvement at a site, etc. She claims these problematic practices stem from top-down, institutionalized service learning projects...initiatives that don't stem from a community need but rather an institution trying to market itself or an academic doing a sanctioned, pre-fab experiment. Tactical, personal, unofficial, grassroots projects are better, she says. She tells stories of Howard Zinn, Diana George, and Sandra Andrews, whose civic engagement illustrates the value of tactical intervention.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Amare and Grettano
Amare, Nicole, and Teresa Grettano. "Writing Outreach as Community Engagement." Writing Program Administration 30 (2007): 57-74.
Amare and Grettano describe a campus initiative called Writing Outreach, a free writing-center-type service for students, faculty, staff, as well as community members, framing the project as an alternative to service learning that isn't course-based and doesn't require significant time committments on the part of students. The project creates a space where various agents interact, not to mention write, with one another. They write, "Our goal is to continue to provide a space where this alternative to traditional service learning can occur, wher the faculty perform the service and the participants--students and community members alike--learn about writing and community engagement partially from us but mostly from each other" (63). They try to avoid problematic relationships between campus-community (e.g., university representative as savior of neighborhood) because all the agents mingle with one another in a more equitable, albeit campus, setting. Even moreso, they revise definition of "community" to include campus, instead of the troubling 'us and them' trope.
Amare and Grettano describe a campus initiative called Writing Outreach, a free writing-center-type service for students, faculty, staff, as well as community members, framing the project as an alternative to service learning that isn't course-based and doesn't require significant time committments on the part of students. The project creates a space where various agents interact, not to mention write, with one another. They write, "Our goal is to continue to provide a space where this alternative to traditional service learning can occur, wher the faculty perform the service and the participants--students and community members alike--learn about writing and community engagement partially from us but mostly from each other" (63). They try to avoid problematic relationships between campus-community (e.g., university representative as savior of neighborhood) because all the agents mingle with one another in a more equitable, albeit campus, setting. Even moreso, they revise definition of "community" to include campus, instead of the troubling 'us and them' trope.
Mutnick
Mutnick, Deborah. "Inscribing the World: Lessons from an Oral History Project in Brooklyn." College Composition and Communication 58 (2007): 626-647.
Mutnick describes an outreach initiative--"Our Legacies: Who We Are, Where We're From"--that gathered oral histories and visual celebrations (photo-essays and the like) of her child's school building, which was celebrating its centennial. She's interested in rhetorical work/pedagogy that engages and revitalizes a public sphere, pointing to Habermas's notion that the march of capitalism essentially destroyed/privatized the public sphere. Mutnick sees the existence of "counterpublics" (various voices, including those of dissent) as hopeful, and argues that civic places are constructed by the interplay of these voices and material reality.
The oral histories and story circles comprise a material rhetoric in that they reveal material realities, conflict, and a "bottom up" narrative/s. Individual stories run the risk of fostering status quo liberalism, but projects like this contextualize with social history and allow for competing/dissenting voices. In this way, the project transcends liberalism and becomes a person-in-place, individual-in-context pedagogy. Civic engagement, in Mutnick's project, means "inquiry into meaningfulness of place, infused always with the identities of those who pass through" (643).
Mutnick describes an outreach initiative--"Our Legacies: Who We Are, Where We're From"--that gathered oral histories and visual celebrations (photo-essays and the like) of her child's school building, which was celebrating its centennial. She's interested in rhetorical work/pedagogy that engages and revitalizes a public sphere, pointing to Habermas's notion that the march of capitalism essentially destroyed/privatized the public sphere. Mutnick sees the existence of "counterpublics" (various voices, including those of dissent) as hopeful, and argues that civic places are constructed by the interplay of these voices and material reality.
The oral histories and story circles comprise a material rhetoric in that they reveal material realities, conflict, and a "bottom up" narrative/s. Individual stories run the risk of fostering status quo liberalism, but projects like this contextualize with social history and allow for competing/dissenting voices. In this way, the project transcends liberalism and becomes a person-in-place, individual-in-context pedagogy. Civic engagement, in Mutnick's project, means "inquiry into meaningfulness of place, infused always with the identities of those who pass through" (643).
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