Issues of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Identity in the Comp Classroom

As teachers, how should we be prepared to deal with issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and identity in our classrooms and in our one-on-one interactions with students?  How can we create teaching units that help students explore these issues?

I think the best way to deal with issues of race, ethnicity, gender and identity in the classroom is not complicated, but might be difficult: teachers should interact and engage with students as individuals. These students have already had many years of educational experience in the “system,” where they are no more than a number, or a type, or a list of deficiencies. If we can find a way to interact and engage with students on a personal, one-on-one way, then maybe we can help them find their own strength and confidence as they start to navigate the world of academia.

There are some things that we, as composition instructors, should keep in mind. First, that students have multiple identities and that their home identity may not integrate well in an academic setting. They might have to create a new identity for themselves for success  in college, and family and friends at home might not value this new identity. In fact, they might find it threatening, foreign or disloyal to the home culture. Some students might not have a supportive homelife.

For myself and my classes, I plan to use my love of language and language diversity to deal with these issues.  A large part of my class is going to be related to linguistic diversity and language prejudice. I would like to not only help my students build good academic writing and communication skills, but also help them to uncover, analyze and become aware of their own linguistic prejudices, as well as those of American society. I will have a unit on discourse communities and how our language might change as we move among the linguistic communities that we are part of.

Englishes

As composition teachers, how should we understand and deal with the complex issue of “Standard English”?  How should we understand and deal with the complex issue of bilingualism?  How should we understand deal with the complex issue of “Non-native speakers”?  

In the composition classroom, there is a tension between teaching “standard English” and honoring and respecting students’ home languages or dialects. On the one hand, we want to set our students up for success. It is a tough world out there, and they will be judged by how they speak and write, even if it is unfair and based on linguistic prejudice. If we don’t do that, we will not be preparing them for college level coursework, much less professional life after college. Professors, perhaps more than employers or co-workers, have expectations about students’ writing abilities and styles; if our students do not fulfill those expectations, they will not get good grades or be successful.

On the other hand, we don’t want to perpetuate the myth of “standard English” or of standard ideology. We don’t want to continue the years of oppression that our students might have felt throughout their years of education to this point; we don’t want them to resist us or perceive us as oppressors. We want to help our students be successful, and to be successful, self confidence and self actualization are important qualities.

I don’t think it’s feasible to avoid teaching “standard English.” I think the best way to deal with this dilemma is to present the idea of dialects, discourse communities, audience and context. What is appropriate in one context (in the parking lot with their friends) is not appropriate in another context (in the classroom or at a job interview) and vice versa. It’s important to let them know that no dialect is better than any other, and in fact in some cases “standard English” or academic English is inappropriate. If we have to deal with an aggressive person in front of the supermarket, academic English is not appropriate. If I am lost in an strange urban neighborhood, if I use academic English to ask directions, I may be seen as a target or victim. It is not only about vocabulary and sentence structure, but can be about body language and tone. Similarly, if I use “street” language in a college class, I might be seen as uneducated, underprepared, lazy or even stupid—by those who hold such prejudices.  By truly showing students that everyone uses many different registers and discourse styles, we can avoid the trap of standard ideology. We can avoid telling students, “OK, your dialect is just as good as ‘standard’ English, but you have to learn ‘standard’ English anyway if you want to succeed.” Instead, we can tell them that by mastering academic English, they will have another discourse style to add to their repertoire.

Of course the difficulty of this position is still that students who speak non-standard dialects might feel that they are selling out or giving in to an oppressive system. This is a real problem. Let’s face it, education changes us. We might not fit in with our old group or even our family after being remade in the image of academia. I’m not sure how to deal with this problem.

There is another dilemma in the ESL classroom. In the composition classroom, it is fine to let students use their home or community dialect to build community and comfort in the classroom. In an ESL classroom, this becomes more problematic because students would be speaking other languages. For some students, the only interaction with English might be in the classroom; if their classmates speak to them in their native language, they might be missing out on important contact or practice time.

Usually, what I do in this situation is to gently remind English learners to speak English in the classroom (not during breaks, by the way). I have noticed two responses to this reminder. Some students appreciate the reminder and switch into English with no problem (other than the problems related to speaking in a foreign language); other students shut down and stop talking, and don’t make eye contact. Alternatively, they might sweetly say, “oh, sorry,” and continue speaking their native language when the instructor moves away. That is to say, for some students, speaking English in the classroom is nothing more than changing languages, but for other students, a reminder to speak English can be oppressive. I was noticing this happening more with younger students at first, and thought it might be a generational thing, but then realized that the students who reacted the most strongly to my requests to speak English were the ones who went to high school in the US. The older or younger students showed no sign that an English only rule impinged on their identity. It was the students who had gone through the system, who had been told implicitly or explicitly that their language was not good enough. This was a surprise to me at first, but was able to come to an understanding of what was underlying their resistance thanks to the theoretical reading we had done in this class and others.Thi is actually a sad situation, where students resist against English language oppression in an ESL class, much less my ESL class where I had always hoped students would feel safe to try new things, to take linguistic, educational and personal risks with new ways of expressing themselves.

I don’t have a set strategy for this problem yet, though I try to make sure students know that I value their language. Sometimes some tension is dissipated when they realize that I am a Spanish learner, and that I am not putting myself above them or trying to define what is good or bad in terms of language. Sometimes it is enough for them to know that I am on their side, that I am there to help them with their language skills and not to judge them. Interestingly, though, this is often best communicated through actions and attitudes rather than words.

Success and Failure in First Year Composition

As composition teachers, how should we make sense of the successes and failures of our dialect speakers, our new immigrants, and our immigrant heritage students?  What factors (home, school, community, etc) might promote success and failure?  And how as teachers can we foster success? 

In the composition classroom, our dialect speakers, new immigrants, and immigrant heritage students face (and have faced) many challenges. They may have encountered institutionalized racism in their previous educational experiences, in the form of standardized testing, unsympathetic teachers, negative attitudes about their personal variety of language, and even ridicule in the classroom from other students or worse, teachers. They may have experienced many years of subtle or obvious oppression in their classrooms, where their teachers have repeatedly told them that their variety of English is no good. They may have experienced a conflict between their family and their teachers , where the two sides have conflicting expectations and values. They might be a product of generations of oppression, and might be rebelling against this oppression by digging in with their home identity and community dialect, refusing to conform to standards that they see as unjust and foreign.

           

We can do many things to help these students; the most important, I think, is to show them (don’t just say) that we are on their side. That we are invested in their success, and that we respect them as individuals. Because we respect them, we won’t lower standards or otherwise condescend to them, but rather we will keep high standards and do our best to help them achieve those high expectations. The second important piece to helping our students succeed is to be aware of whence they have come. We have to be sensitive to their needs, and know that when we experience rebellious attitudes in class, our students might not be rebelling against us personally, but rather the system that they perceive us as a part of. If they identify school as a system of oppression, we have to convince our students that they are safe in our classroom. That their presence is valued, and that their backgrounds and varieties of language are respected. We can show them this through everyday interaction. Our students will be very tuned in to the way we speak to them, and will be very aware of any condescension in the way we treat them.  Lastly, we should give students readings written by good role models, people who have successfully navigated the educational waters and understand the conflict that these students might be experiencing every day.

I have seen this in action here at SFSU with one of my tutees. W is an African American twenty-something, and she is taking an FYC course for the second time. The first day of class, her instructor announced to the class (according to W) that he did not care if anybody asked questions or made comments in class, because he loved the subjects he was talking about, and could talk about them all day all by himself. W was turned off immediately. I think she felt that the instructor had shut the students out of the class and that he said that they were not important. She decided that she did not like the instructor and I think she is not motivated to do any work for him. I think one of the ways she is expressing her distaste is by not engaging100%  in the class or the assignments. She has said that she wants to take the class credit/no credit, get the no credit, and take the class over in the summer at a community college. Now I don’t really know what happened in her class, or how the instructor makes her feel, but it’s clear that he missed his chance to pull her in and get her to engage in the class and in some deeper learning about herself and the world. This has been a good lesson to me, one that I hope will allow me to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

These articles have a lot in common even though some focus on AAVE speakers and some focus on bilingual Spanish/English speakers. One clear thread running through all the papers is we, as teachers, should not expect to have speakers of “Standard English,” or a privileged variety of English, in our classrooms. When we do have speakers of other dialects or languages in our classrooms, we should not assume that they all have the same backgrounds, skill sets, or problems.

Another thread that goes through all of the articles is that they all want to debunk mistaken attitudes that composition scholars and instructors might have.

• Don't think that all composition students speak a "previliged variety of English," even if it seems that way in the Composition literature.
• Don’t think that written English is the same as, or even really affects spoken English
•  Don’t think that Standard English is necessary for success in the workplace or the classroom
•  Don’t think that learning to write academic English is just learning a new dialect. It is much more complicated and deep than that, and can entail making over one’s identity.
• Don’t think that students who are reluctant to learn Standard English are stupid or unprepared. They might have reasons that are related to community, identity, power and oppression.
•  Don’t think that a student who is engaged with and enthusiastic about learning academic English will do so in one semester. It is a long process and they might never speak/write it at a native level.
•   Don’t think that all bilingual students have the same issues or skills.
•  Don’t think that bilingual English learners have the same issues as those who are bilingual and speak English fluently.

Synthesizing Matsuda and Valdés

Valdés seems to have introduced these ideas to the composition community, and then Matsuda extended that discussion and focused on one aspect of what Valdés  introduced.  Specifically, Valdés made the point that there is not just one kind of bilingual student, and that each kind probably has different needs. Matsuda discusses one of the reasons bilingual students had not been focused on in the literature: there exists a myth of linguistic homogeneity, where compositionists assumed that their students are monolingual speakers of “standard” English. Because the scholars conceived of students in that way, they unintentionally left out students who spoke other languages or dialects. Similarly, assessment tests excluded non-native speakers from “regular” composition classes, relegating those students to basic skills courses or ESL courses.

As teachers, it would be useful to remember that, according to Valdés, functional bilingual students tend to make idiomatic errors, as well as the same kinds of errors that basic skills student might make.  If we can keep this in mind when reading student papers, we might have a better idea of how to help the students who make this kind of error.

Valdés raises so many question, discusses so many directions that we should go as researchers, that it would be impossible to list them all here. Well, not impossible, but it would take a lot of space. I think one clear take away point from both authors is the idea that we as instructors should not make assumptions about our students. We should not assume that they are all SE speakers. We should not assume that all bilingual speakers are the same, have the same problems, or should be dealt with in the same way in the classroom. 

Matsuda and Valdés

Matsuda

The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in US College Composition

This is a theoretical/historical piece that argues that despite the known demographics of the United States, composition instructors expect that their students will be speakers of a privileged variety of English. As an example, most composition studies assume that the students are all monolingual English speakers. Some important ideas introduced in this paper:

·         Myth of linguistic homogeneity: the tacit and widespread acceptance of the dominant image of comp students as native speakers of a privileged variety of English

·         Linguistic containment: quarantining from higher education students who have not mastered this privileged variety of English

·         Long term implication of linguistic containment: perpetuation of the myth of linguistic homogeneity, as those students are not allowed in the classroom

Example: proficiency tests for composition placement; even if direct assessment of writing is used for placement, raters giving disproportionate weight to language differences. These placement practices reify the myth by making it seem as if language differences can be effectively removed from the comp classroom.

“Teachers overwhelmed by the presence of language differences tell students to “proofread more carefully” or “go to the writing center”; those who are not native speakers of dominant varieties of English are being held accountable for what is not being taught.” (640)

I have seen this happen even at SFSU!

Valdés

Bilingual Minorities and Language Issues in Writing

This is a theoretical piece that criticizes the composition field for not being sensitive to the needs of bilingual students, and especially for conflating all the different kinds of bilingual students into one category. Actually, there are at least 4 kinds of bilinguals, as defined by Valdés:

Incipient: ESL learners / Functional: can function in L2

Elective: learn an L2 for fun / Circumstantial: learn an L2 to live; they must learn it, for school or work

This study discusses all of them, but focuses on functional circumstantial bilinguals.

Adult functional learners may become native-like in several areas, especially verbally, but they will have some “learner like” abilities, or may have learned an “imperfect” variety of English in their home community.

Functional bilinguals may be put into ESL courses with the incipient learners, but this will likely not help, as functional bilinguals errors are probably fossilized. Also, they usually make idiomatic errors (preposition, word form errors in idioms)and have a  “non-phonological accent.”

“Bilinguals who are native-like in their fluency may be most unnative-like in their selection and in their use of conventionalized language. Problems of selection or idiomaticity are particularly salient in written language.” Otherwise, their language will be almost native-like. At the same time, they will probably make the same errors that native speaker basic skills students would make.

Learning how to write in a second language may involve much more than simply learning how to avoid interference from the first language

Writing of minority bilinguals should be studied independently of the writing of mainstream individuals

The author goes on to suggest areas where more study is needed, such as if there is such a thing as an expert bilingual writer, and if there is, how does s/he write? Is there  a certain length of exposure to a written language necessary (L1 or L2) before benefits are reflected in a student’s writing? How do bilinguals revise? What is the sequence in which their skills develop? What is the influence of background factors on their writing? Etc.  

Synthesis: "Standard" English?

“Critical Thoughts on Teaching Standard English”

Speicher and Bielanski.  Curriculum Inquiry. 2000 (147-169)

“Dilemmas of Identity: Oral and Written Literacies in the Making of a Basic Writing Student”

Cook-Gumperz, Anthropology and Education Quarterly 1993

“Dissin’ the Standard: Ebonics as Guerilla Warfare at Capital High”

Fordham, Anthropology and Education Quarterly 1999

These readings, taken all together explain why speakers of non-standard dialects might choose to no speak a standard dialect even though they might be able.

• ·         First, what is “standard?” No one has defined  (can define?) it.  More than that, standard written English is another dialect in itself.
• ·         Students of non-standard dialects have to learn not only the dialect, but a way to re-imagine themselves and how they can fit into a new discourse community.
• ·         Often, many features of a spoken dialect (standard or not) do not have written counterparts, and so are impossible to express in written English (or at least SWE)
• ·         The reasons for students to resist using SE are historical and based on power, oppression, community, and pride.

These articles also question the idea that using SE is necessary for success.  It depends on one’s definition of success, and  in what community one wants to be successful.  To be successful at Capital High, students had to come up with very complicated ways to navigate social and educational expectations