Weekly Featured Writers

Each week, 1-2 people will curate the ideas and writing from our class into a featured blog. We will use these blogs to connect with colleagues outside our course.

Dr. Kim Jaxon

Website: kimjaxon.com/me

Office Hours Fall 2022 by appointment.

Email: kjaxon@csuchico.edu

Category: updates

“The White Man’s Agenda”

“The White Man’s Agenda”

One curious idea I have continued to look into is the historical perpetuation of dominant western culture over those they have been deemed as other. Specifically I am getting at the “White Man’s Agenda” as it is historically rooted in colonization and imperialism. This attitude whether we see it or not is firmly rooted in our institutions and in the very language practices we continue to teach and hold valuable. This very closed and rigid system of thinking has continued to benefit only those that have assimilated and or are privileged in their socioeconomic and cultural standings. Why is it that western language and culture is favored over those that are seen as different or separate? It comes down to control or at least a domination of one society/ cultural over the other. Life is too multifaceted for there to be any one or “right” way of existing as our values differ and are subjective in nature.

The Great Divide is of much interest to me because it seems that many oral traditions and cultures have been substituted for reading and writing ones and so it would be in the benefit of the oppressor to say that literate cultures are more intelligent and somehow “better”. How do we as a western society go about reconciling a history of enslavement, oppression, and domination of “inferior” societies? I would say it would have to start with those that possess the power such as the political and educational realms although it appears that they do not wish to change or relinquish their power. Composition is a curious place to begin with because writing I would say, is not a natural ability and that how we speak and communicate orally, does not resemble the same type of work we do when we write. Language has its downfalls, but it also possesses the possibility of expansion and freedom when it can be used to express oneself. If writing is going to be of use, let it be a route through which creativity flows in the same way someone might paint a picture or play a song. Systemization of writing is kind of absurd if you see language as an expressive art, an extension of someone’s feelings or thoughts. Writing has the potential to be a liberating mode into different ways of thinking and yet we teach students that they must adhere to certain grammatical forms and rules and that they must assimilate into the dull beehive of unexpressive and controlled ways of existing. I also believe that any creative or expressive forms of writing get exchanged very early on for the standardized and rigid form of prose we all too commonly know how to write. And its boring. I had an epiphany the other day as to why I got into creative writing (poetry) and I believe that it was my way of taking back my voice and sense of expression that I had lost within years of indoctrination and schooling.

Language, both written and oral, is our gateway into other people, other ideas, and into how we think and perceive. There is no way that any language is somehow “better” than any other and there is certainly no standardized way of determining whether you’re communicating or expressing yourself the “right” way. It once again comes back to who has the power and how are they keeping their power. One major way is through language. If you force someone else to talk like you and to think like you, then you are in turn diminishing their freedom. You are telling them they must look like this, do it like this, and play by these rules. Well I’m sorry but, evolution and change are inevitable and diversity is what allows for the complexity of life. Our differences are what make us whole within the scope of our experiences. I’m just a little pissed off that the blatant eradication of native cultures and language throughout the world even, has kind of just been swept under the rug. And maybe yes, it could be too late to do much about it now, but it’s just as apparent that we are continuing to blindly perpetuate it.

I’m very curious as to see where reading, writing, and oral communication will evolve into next. Will we evolve out of written language and into some other form? It is really hard to imagine right now, but I already see changes in how people are composing with video. I don’t necessarily see the written word going away anytime soon, but rather I see it changing. The white man’s agenda of social and cultural domination, is hopefully on the way out. However, it is up to us as the people to dissent from our history.

 

Power and Stratification

Power and Stratification

The area of literacy studies already seems so contested and polluted with ideological ideas it makes it a difficult subject to jump into to. Further, those ideological strains often pull heavily on sensitive cultural strings, especially within U.S. society, and playing with them risks reopening old wounds or toying with those still bleeding. However, there may be a necessity to reexamine how we as a society value individual literacies; the status quo has done little more than stratify sectors into cultural/social groupings, whether forced from outside or as an in-group decision, deliberate or not.

Literacy undoubtedly is intertwined with some kind of power; yet, the source is uncertain. Is it innate? Or do we simply ascribe it value? Some have claimed it is an entity in its own right. If that is the case, literacy itself would be the possessor of that power bestowing it onto others, which it obviously cannot do alone as an intangible object. With no will of its own, that power must transfer to or have begun with the wielder – a literate person. This concept gave rise to the ideology that literate people are somehow “better.” An old idea and one I find repugnant, but it does raise the question: Can a person with a particular literacy perform acts that a person without that literacy cannot? Without that literacy, is there no other way?

Moreover, I think one’s literacies, like relics on a shelf, illustrate their social and educational background, factual or assumed. In other words, one’s real or interpreted literacy “sponsors” are outed. Therefore, assumptions are also likely made of the person’s character and promise in a similar fashion as one’s clothes, hair, or choice of tattoos. This returns to the point made earlier regarding the stratification of society. It would seem that there is a naturally occurring impediment built into advanced society structures, which some claim are results of literacy, blocking those without particular literacies from entry where they are used.

Bilingualism in Literacy

Bilingualism in Literacy

The socially embedded nature of literacy is such an enormously large concept and category that it is impossible to fully cover it in one blog post. It is something that can be written about for decades without being entirely understood or explored. So I certainly won’t come to any definitive conclusions here today. What I want to do, instead, is to synthesize the concepts of sponsorship and bilingualism, especially as it pertains to the duty of composition instructors the linguistic heritage of students.

Because literacy sponsors have such a tremendous impact on the literacy practices and events of students, they have to take responsibility for the biases and beliefs that define their views of what literacy is. This might sound like an obvious statement, but as we saw in Moll & Gonzalez and Dyson & Smitherman’s articles, literacy sponsors (i.e. teachers, family members, and media sources) are the elements that influence whether or not students maintain their dialects and culturally embedded language practices. These practices are incredibly valuable, not only to students and their families, but also to our culture (whether we acknowledge it or not). After all, the United States is one of the only countries in the Western world where bilingualism is the exception, not the norm.

I believe it is our responsibility as writing instructors to teach grammar in so far as it relates to fluid thoughts and the presentation of critical thinking. But when a focus on grammar begins to impede a student’s voice it becomes problematic. We can see this through the students who become frustrated and unable to write because they are afraid of making grammar mistakes or afraid of using the wrong words. This happens even at the collegiate level of writing. Therefore, even though understanding the culturally based linguistic practices of students is a skill that can only develop over years of practice and study, we owe it to our students to allow them to express themselves in ways that respect the cultures they come from. We can certainly help them learn how to write in a variety of voices in order to appease the audiences that will demand linguistic conformity, but we can also teach them how to subvert the cultural norms by maintaining their heritage and linguistic voice.

But let’s get to the real talk. As a very white, very monolingual person, in many ways I do not feel qualified to teach bilingual learners how to embrace bidialectalcism. I feel that students would have more to teach me about their dialects and their ability to express ideas than I could ever hope to teach them. I value the research of people like Moll & Gonzalez and Dyson & Smitherman, but I also feel like much of these concepts must be learned from practice, not textbooks. As long as a teacher creates a class where students can embrace their own literacy practices while also learning how to adapt (not assimilate!) to “traditional” linguistic practices, I think students can continue to value and expand their local literacy practices in meaningful ways.

Identifying Literacy

Identifying Literacy

One thing that has stood out to me about literacy is that how little I know about it. As each day passes I find new ways in which literacy is used in my life. In Brandt’s article, Sponsors of Literacy, she discusses how literacy effects individuals in the job market. It is not just the different means and methods that literacy effects the job, but how other individuals can share the tools needed to excel in a particular field. This can be done with the sponsors knowledge or without.

What stood out most to me was Brandt’s conclusion, “I am not advocating that we prepare students more efficiently for the job markets they must enter. What I have tried to suggest is that as we assist and study individuals in pursuit of literacy, we also recognize how literacy is in pursuit of them” (Brandt 183). This passage suggests that we have a broader understanding of literacy. This awareness of how broad literacy is will help students pay more attention to, and then take advantage of what could be to their advantage.

Moll and Gonzalez continued this idea of taking advantage of your surrounding literacies with the concept of “funds of knowledge”. They also recognize the often-overlooked potential of literacy resources right in front of students. This could be anything from knowledge of construction or even a second language. If individuals are made aware of how vast and beneficial different forms of literacy are, then they can use them to their advantage. They can make sponsors of not just teachers or supervisors at work, but also family and people in their community.

In my own experience, I also started noticing areas within my job that I would have never thought could be considered literacy. Usually it was a simple task, but important enough to be taught at fire academy’s. For example, when I back an engine up to turn around, I give a set of hand signals to the driver. A nonverbal form of communication that was put in place because of accidents that had happened in the past. These simple hand gestures prevent damage to not only an expensive vehicle, but to other property and more importantly, human safety. It seems like almost daily that I am recognizing tasks in my life that I hadn’t previously thought were a form of literacy.

Literacy and Institutions

Literacy and Institutions

One of the concepts that has resonated with me is the idea of personal literacies. Before this class I had always thought of literacy in the traditional sense of simply referring to reading and writing. However after doing the pilot study and reading the assigned texts I could see that simple answer, while much more palatable than the truth, was not at all representative of reality. The idea that people can have personal literacies if both fascinating and exceedingly problematic. While it is fascinating that people can function with society with diametrically opposed literacies it is incredibly problematic from an institutional standpoint.

In the manner that they currently function the institutions that facilitate the development of literacy, at least in the great divide sense of the term, primarily schools, work with the proclaimed goal of creating literacy for the betterment of society and the members of it they are bequeathing their knowledge thereupon. This sounds lovely on the surface as the notion of a society where everyone can communicate effectively is relatively pleasant. However, given that there is no one way that dominates how individuals best acquire the various literacies that they do within a life time, the idea of forcing a singular “ideal” literacy upon the masses in one fixed way becomes incredibly problematic. Though founded under (likely) noble intentions, the institutions that facilitate the development of this sterilized, uniform, “best” literacy end up causing more harm than they do good. Further they reinforce the status quo and maintain that the current balance of socioeconomic power remains stable and stagnant. This is clearly problematic but so is the version of our society that completely lacks these institutions.

At this point these institutions are so integral to the structure and regulation of our society that it is difficult to imagine what it would look like without them. By this I mean that our society, as well as many western societies, has used these institutions as a means to shape society at large’s ideal citizen that it would be the fall of our society as it currently looks if they were to disappear, though this honestly might be a good thing (pretty sure there was something along the lines of institutions shaping citizens into cogs in an Althusser reading but I’m not positive). These institutions, in an ideal world, clearly need alteration in order to accommodate a wider socioeconomic background and to address a larger variety of literacies. However, in terms of facilitating this sort of change at the scale necessary of a country like the United States the sheer amount of infrastructure and curriculum that would have to be altered and paid for is shocking, and given the American citizen’s typical reactions to tax increases unfeasible. Not to mention that the institutions would have to accommodate 10s of millions of individuals all needing different forms of instruction, a beautiful idea but one that does not seem remotely practical. All this to say that literacy seems deeply tied to the institutions that facilitate it and altering that structure or finding a more effective and encompassing way to facilitate different literacies seems like an incredibly complex and volatile problem.

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