[Teaching_Composition] Ideology

[Doug Downs]

Chris doesn't exactly need props, but he gets them anyway for this --
clearly articulated (and drawing the really delightful irony that so
often those suspicious of any kind of de-centered teacher are the ones
fearing the teacher has too much power) and really good food for thought
on an issue (modes of instruction) we haven't talked much about yet this
month.  

Cheers -
Doug


Dr. Doug Downs
Asst. Professor, Composition & Rhetoric
Writing Program Coordinator
Dept. of English and Literature
Utah Valley State College
800 W University Pkwy, Orem UT 84058
LA 114w
801-863-8572

>>> "Chris Anson" <chris_anson@ncsu.edu> 10/8/2006 5:22 PM >>>
In some ways, I think the issue of ideology in the teaching of  
writing is about finding balance. Students often want to know what we 

think, and I've always felt it's OK for us to reveal certain beliefs  
as long as we're not insisting that students adopt them. As a  
director of one of the largest composition programs in the country  
(at the time), I routinely observed classes of relatively  
inexperienced teachers in which students were studying subjects and  
reading essays that were designed to  get them to adopt particular  
political and ideological positions.  It was clear to me that the  
course was driven by these goals, if tacitly, and that performance  
was measured in terms of how readily students adopted the  
preestablished positions (in one case, a teacher refused to grade the 

paper of a student purely on the basis of her position on an issue,  
because the teacher felt so strongly about it). Right or left,  
conservative or liberal, or all things between, that sort of teaching 

is highly problematic. I think Hairston was trying to caution us not  
to fall into that trap, though her alternatives were  too sterile for 

some of us. I much prefer a class in which students wrestle with  
different positions on issues and try to see those issues in more  
complex, nuanced ways. That sort of analysis helps them to develop  
less dualistic and simplistic attitudes toward just about everything  
of importance in their social, academic, and political lives. I'd  
much rather that a discussion go on in that way without me--with me  
on the sidelines--than for me to be calling all the shots and trying  
to lead students in one direction. We just need to be sure that we  
orchestrate it all in a way that complicates what we look at.

Which brings up another matter concerning ideology: pedagogical  
method (such as lecture mode vs. discussion/active learning/problem- 
solving/small group modes). The most egregious cases of ideological  
"brainwashing" I've seen occurred when the teacher's dominant (maybe  
only) instructional method was to lecture at students, especially  
about how to interpret a reading or about what positions to take on  
certain topics. In a lecture, unless we're willing to present all  
sides of an issue, we need to choose how to represent something, and  
that involves a certain process of selection, even bias. When I  
lecture about African American English in a language/linguistics  
course, for example, I usually follow a "progressive" position  
generally endorsed by sociolinguists--a position in which I first  
talk neutrally about the features of the dialect, its range, and its  
history, and then, shifting toward the social issues, argue that we  
should understand AAE as one of many American dialects and treat it  
as legitimate--as acceptable from a social and community-based  
perspective, and no less "bad" or "wrong" than other regional and  
social dialects spoken by non-African Americans. But when I ask  
students to talk about the dialect in a small-group activity and  
large-group follow-up, I'm not about to tell them what to think. I  
may hope that they end up seeing the complexities, recognizing any  
prejudices they hold, and understanding something more about  
attitudes toward different dialects, but I can't require it. I may be 

wrong in this hunch--but In leading a good discussion about African  
American English, I'm probably less likely to present a strongly  
biased perspective; or, at the least, there is discursive space for  
alternative views that I might not create in my own lecture on the  
topic.

Conservative backlash against what's perceived to be the "liberal"  
agendas of faculty in higher education has probably come about  
because the mode _thought_ to be in effect is a presentational mode  
(ironically, many conservative critics of education object to active  
learning methods and small-group work, which allow students to  
express multiple views). They imagine, in other words, that authority 

figures (and weilders of grades) are standing in front of the class  
proselytizing their values and insisting students adopt them (i.e.,  
parrot them back in papers and on exams). If such critics come into a 

classroom where even a highly charged political issue is discussed  
completely openly, in a spirit of negotiation and critical analysis,  
they may back away from accusations of bias. In other words, the  
solution to the entire controversy of Bill's module may be not in  
having an equal number of teachers representing different positions  
on a political or ideological spectrum, but in encouraging teaching  
methods that leave less room for a teacher's own biases to dominate,  
and give more room for students to express and examine their own  
beliefs collectively, in a forum that openly examines issues relevant 

to the course's subject matter.





-- 
Chris M. Anson [Web site]
Professor of English
Director, Campus Writing and Speaking Program
Box 8105, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC  27695-8105
(919) 513-4080