I have been very interested to read in the literature that we can marginalize our students and create the "other" by engaging in technology practices that privilege one group over another. Some of this privileging comes because students from depressed economic backgrounds simply do not have computers; this leads to unfamiliarity with a basic understanding of the opportunities computers afford for research into an infinity of fields. In the 1990's President Clinton launched an initiative to provide technology for schools, but the initiative did not reach its full potential because resources went to schools with enriched programs and less disadvantaged students. Those schools where students were already marginalized and which lacked enrichment programs were overlooked in the funneling of resources.

To this point, I have not incorporated technology into my pedagogy, but after being in Dr. Pagnucci's class, Technology and Literacy, I am eager to begin testing the waters. None of the classrooms where I will be teaching five composition classes this semester have computers for students; Since none of the five classrooms where I will be teaching writing have computers for the students, so I will have to set up sites where the students can engage each other. Nevertheless, I am excited about incorporating technology into my teaching.

Specifically, I plan to set up a chat room where students can talk about their writing (their plans, their struggles as they engage in the actual process, and revision ideas). Blogging is a great idea, and Dr. Pagnucci told us how to annotate other students' blogs onto blog, so this will be another one of my goals, -- another way to incorporate writing into the curriculum. Since I am not normally adept at technology, I will ask one of the school's multi-media technicians to help me with these projects.

In the literature I read how one teacher of first-year composition teaches basic commands for Microsoft Word throughout the semester in sync with various functions she asks the students to perform in their writing. Of course, two of the four days she teaches per week are in the computer lab (sigh!). But she incorporates functions such as deleting letters, words, and whole lines, moving blocks of text, etc. Since I am interested in having the students add graphics (and maybe even animation and sound) to their writing, I would teach those functions as well. Additionally, some of the students are computer-savvy, and they could help with the demonstrations and models. A rather breath-taking goal is to build a class webpage where students could add features that interest them, e.g., short stories about cultural traditions, favorite authors, songs, recipes (for my Mexican-American women). etc.

Mid-Way

Half-way through the first session with the greatest tasks lying ahead. I keep reminding myself that there is no other path to take, that the work, the knowledge gained will compensate for the pressure I feel to finish the reading and writing on schedule.
Yesterday, Dr. Pagnucci met with us in the library to show us how to access dissertation and journal resources. Very helpful. Everything is possible with time, but where is the time!

Borderlands

Sunday, June 15, 2008

I have been reading about borderlands, not just the arid Southwest towns that  edge against the Mexican border, dry, desert places like Tijuana and Mexicali in California, and sleepy little towns in Arizona and Texas, but the borderlands we inhabit when what we know comes against what we don't know.  Formed as we are by our socio/cultural/educational backgrounds, we experience changing, shifting identities in the borderlands of the new school, community, career.  Gloria Anzaldua wrote about those places of alienation and tension, places where we change and grow, but always with struggle to assimilate the unfamiliar to that which is known, and in so doing to find a path through the confusion of the wilderness.

Learning the multiple theories of literacy and identity, and reconciling the theories of the proliferation of composition schools of thought is a borderland for me  It takes me out of my comfort zone, from what I know to what I am struggling to grasp.  It forces me, with a sense of desperation, to extend my thinking to places I have not yet visited.    Often when I come in my thinking into these hard places, as inhospitable and alien as the great deserts of the Southwest, I find that I must stay a while and inhabit the these places.  My former wont was to hurry out of them, back to the comfort of what I already knew, but in so doing I lost the joy of entering new areas of understanding, of connecting what was known to what is new.  I must do the work, endure the discomfort, which requires the courage to stay in these places until I understand.   

My IUP Experience

The IUP Experience: IUP is one of those lovely, old-fashioned campuses where brick buildings surround a shady oak grove. It is located in a sleepy little town (Indiana, PA) where people at grocery stores and on campus are startlingly friendly, unlike people in urban areas. The town's greatest claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of Jimmy Stewart, the actor, and who doesn't adore Jimmy! Above the town library the Jimmy Stewart Museum archives a large collection of J.S. memorabilia and plays his films.

I chose IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) for doctoral study because it offers a degree in Composition that can be gotten by aattending classes during a succession of summers on campus. My first summer (2007) was like being hit by a tidal wave, with overwhelming requirements for reading and writing. I had promised myself that I wouldn't compromise sleep, but as the end of classes neared, I edged into sleep hours in order to do the reading. The real crunch came at the end of the second session when I worked all night several nights on my final copy of a paper.

Although the quantity of work makes for excessive stress and loss of sleep, the professors are great, and the topics are mind-expanding. Perhaps a year-round doctoral program would be just as rigorous, and I really am glad that I am in this program because it has informed my teaching and opened my mind to a host of new ideas.

The Dissertation: I envy those people who already know the topic of their dissertation. I've thought about a couple of ideas--one is realted to composition and technology. Students in my writing classes in San Diego are far more literate in the use of technological devices: I-pods, phones, Blackberries, video games-than they are in the mileu of paper and print. What kind of research looks at writing compositions electronically so as to use animation, graphics, sound, etc.?
Another topic I have considered is how to empower Hispanic women to succeed in composition classes. I've observed that often these women are silent in class, and when the first analytical paper is assigned, they drop out. I would like to look at the factors that predispose them to muteness and invisibility in the college classroom and research what might empower them to transcend their cultural constriction. How exciting to be able to help these women succeed in reaching their educational and career goals.

Avatars, Web Pages, and Blogs: Wow! New tools and landscapes. Would love to become proficient enough in Second Life that I could use it in my composition classes. Then, I really would be talking the students' language(s). We could communicate through my character, Marlan Magic, and theirs.

Literacy: My understanding of the definition of literacy has changed substantially since taking this class (Literacy and Technology) and Dr. Hurlbert's class (Theories of Composition). The various texts I've read for both classes have made it clear that literacy encompasses more than just reading and writing, e.g., the ability to read labels or directions on a food package or can, or the knowledge that makes it possible to read street signs or the names of medications and the instructions posted on their containers. Instead, literacy has to do with discourse, and every person has a primary discourse--the one provided by the family into which he or she is born. How is language used in the home? Is it valued? If so, for what purposes? This primary literacy is closely aligned with the culture of the primary discourse and the values, traditions and perspectives of that culture. However, literacy goes beyond one's primary culture.


In the reading "What is Literacy?" James Paul Gee introduces a higher level of literacy, one that is linked to secondary discourse. Gee posits that secondary discourse employs the language and concepts of the workplace, the school, the church, the business, etc. Then, an individual's literacy may be comprised by his/her primary discourse as well as a number of secondary discourses depending on the extent of a person's involvement in various communities outside of the home.


Because these various discourses form the shape of a person's literacy, it is easy to see "literacy as an interactive, interpretive, social phenomenon rather than a static skill possessed or deployed by an individual" (Gee). Literacy, according to Vgotsky, is developed as a socio-cultural phenomenon which arises from interaction and engagement rather than in isolation. Even if one gains increased literacy from books, the reader is engaging with the thoughts and experiences of the writer, who in turn has engaged with the thoughts and experiences of other.

Abstraction/critical thinking: The ability to reflect on a topic, to ask myself what I truly believe about it, and to do the rigorous analysis that informs my own thinking has not come easily. Last summer Nicole pointed me to the book Women's Ways of Knowing, which helped me to understand why reflection, self-knowledge, is so difficult for those of us who grew up in silent worlds. Without that interaction with peers, siblings, or parents that develops reflective ability, the brain becomes more focused on modes of survival--coping measures which employ concrete measures over the reflective. Back in those days, reflection/critical thought was less practical than denial.

Often, when I hear my five grown children converse with one another, I marvel at their analytical skills and insights, so easily gained through many years of free-for-all conversations around the dinner table, which often moved into the living room and into the night. Today, they are confident analysts of political and economic scenes and anything else they feel strongly about.

My redemption in has come somewhat late in life, beginning with work for a Masters degree at San Diego State University and continuing through the spirited and sometimes (verbally) combative discussions in the classes I teach. These students have become the flesh-and-blood siblings I lacked and the single parent so often absent because of the need to provide for me. Through them I have learned to examine an idea, to look at previously-(and often dearly-) held assumptions and revise or discard them when needed. My students have helped me exchange the mantle of the wise-knower for the burlap garment of the seeker of truth, traveling the same road.

Twelve years ago I lived in Huehuetenango, Guatemala where I taught English, grades two through eleven in Colegio Liceo Dieguez Olaverri. The school was four kilometers outside the town, and often after school I rode the local bus (along with live chickens and once a caged raccoon) to market or meanderings around Huehue. The road to town was dirt --lake-like puddles in rainy season and dry, bone-jarring ruts in drier weather.

I sometimes think the road to self-knowledge and critical thought has been like those roads for me.