So, reading Lunsford and Anzaldua this week I was reminded how it seems like so commonly postmodern theory does not align with traditional compositional theory.
I tried something different for this week: I made a short comic strip, probably not funny and not that interesting, but nonetheless it highlights the main thing I was thinking about after reading this week's readings.
Click link to go to comic strip:
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Perhaps "power remains centered" and has not been dethroned or "decentered" because modernism is merely in a state of crisis. In other words, we are not "post" (i.e. beyond) modernism in the classroom--or in the world--that still gives out grades, or that is architecturally designed to center power. Pomo is not a mere description of the state of things, it's more of a rhetorical question.
ReplyDeleteI actually don't pull my hair out when students are unable to reproduce EAE in their papers. For starters, it's hard to get a grip on my hair anyway.
ReplyDeleteBut this strip reminded me of one of my core pedagogical ethics: it's my job to teach them how to produce this dialect when the need arises. If students aren't able to produce it, I have to work on developing their ability to do so.
There's a post on the Twitter feed, Shitmydadsays, which I find kairotically relevant here: "A parent's only as good as their dumbest kid. If one wins a Nobel Prize but the other gets robbed by a hooker, you failed."
Translating that to the classroom, if 25 kids are able to produce EAE at will, and maybe a few of them go on to publish papers or become professors, that's great. But if one student is unable to produce a passing portfolio, then I've failed.
Destabilizing power structures is, pretty much, what we like to do most in the humanities; when we, as English majors, do this with language, that makes us happy (and hopefully makes for long careers). We like to poke the bear, and we pass this hobby on to our students. But students must also learn when *not* to poke the bear--just as we do when we censor ourselves with EAE for conferences, publications, or even the occasional seminar paper/project.