The issues of gender, race and identity were other major themes for the class, but mainly the second half of the semester.
Race, and antiracist pedagogy came up the most as it was prevalent numerous texts we read this semester.
- Students’ Rights to Their Own Language from CCCC
- Young’s Should Writers Use They Own English?
- James Baldwin’s If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?
- Gloria Anzaldua’s How to Tame a Wild Tongue
Anzaldua’s was assigned in conjunction with silence and rhetorical listening. Half of the class read silence, and the other read listening. I was given listening.
We split into groups based on who read which piece and then taught the topic to the other half of the class. From my understanding of silence, it involved gender- specifically females. Women throughout history, even as far back as biblical times, have been oppressed and silenced, or have chosen to be silent as a response to the male dominant culture. The articled cited two women, one of whom was silenced and the other chose to be silent until the right moment came to share her story of sexual assault. Silence is in fact a tool of rhetoric and if employed at the right time (kairotic moment) it can be extremely powerful and persuasive.
Identity (gender and sexual) was also a topic of discussion. We learned about queer theory, and let me tell you it is not what I was expecting. There is SO much to it. It’s complex and intriguing and invites individuals to think about situations, people and discourses in an entirely new way.
The article on queer theory that we read was primarily focused on pedagogy; teaching queer theory, inviting queer theory into the classroom and the lives of students and teachers alike. What I got from this was that essentially everything is inherently sexual. Not like “let’s have sex with everyone and everything” sexual, but that everyone and everything has a sexuality and a sexual presence. It’s a bit confusing, but in time and after talking about it, it’ll make more sense. I don’t want to spoil your own experience with queer theory though.
Theory and Practice of Writing 