Today, my two inquiry questions - (1) how can we change the language use to talk about writing to eliminate the good bad binary and (2) how do we get our students to add "writer" to their identities - finally collided together. While we talked about complicating the definitions and understandings of the word "writer", a lot of people started talking about exploding categorization. They suggested listing genres, qualities of good/bad students, or qualities of good/bad writers and then complicating those categories like we did with the definition of writer. I can use that idea to cross into changing the language in my writing studio (my new name for classroom). We can begin to talk about how writing shifts based on context and is therefore not good or bad, but effective (I need a different word....) in a given context, but not others, for many different reasons. Also, since writing is about idea invention, learning, discovering, inquiring, meaning making and making choices, it shouldn't be labeled as "good" or "bad". There is no "good" or "bad" learning, for example. This is also why I may start using the word "composing" instead of "writing" to expand what students consider as writing, which will hopefully allow them to imagine more choices. I also want to think of different words to use that suggest writing as more meaning making and discovery.
Today also challenged me to think about what I will do if a student refuses to add "writer" to his/her identity. My ideologies tell me that no one is not a writer in some form (partly because everyone does the act of writing and I think of writing as composing, creating and learning). However, a student may not adopt my definition of writer and decide not to identify him/herself with it. I am very glad these questions were posed to me because, once I got over the original "How dare you! Of course they will add it to their identities" reaction and the "Holy crap! It'll be mayhem and I will lose all my students and I'll get fired" reaction, I started to think about third space. I think a student's resisting would be a great conversation piece, whether a student is currently resisting or not. Students (and I) would benefit from analyzing what the benefits or drawbacks would be from adopting the writer identity. It's also a good opportunity to talk about how students do not have to accept ideologies and discuss the outcomes of accepting or not accepting those ideologies.
Your question about what to do when students refuse to identify themselves as we want them too is a valid one. They will need more of a response than "Sure you are" from us. What I will say, I am not sure, but it will have to be demonstrated in more than just words. It will hve to come across in how I treat them and their writing.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you both Megan Rebecca. It seems a big deal to me to make the "space" for people to decide for themselves if they are writers. And to contest even the idea that being a writer is a good idea at all. So, yeah, Megan I see where you are going with third space here... this is the space where questioning the dominant narrative, even when that includes the teacher, becomes visible I think. So third space might be momentary, might be slipping away before you can do much with it... Cuz, here is my big third space question... once we try to do something "with" that at school is it still third space? I hope so, but I'm not sure. I guess I think that we can try to... and in that trying we have to keep complicating and wondering how we might be co-opting the third space and erasing the power differentials... Wow, I am babble-y tonight. See you tomorrow!!
ReplyDeleteThat's some awesome insight, Lacy. I almost wonder at the beauty of not knowing where the boundary lines of third space are because isn't erasing boundaries lines exactly what third space is all about? Also, if the "with" does stop being third space, is that necessarily something we don't want? Since third space is about bringing things together, wouldn't it be desirable for that to become "mainstream"? I feel (in my limited exposure to third space) that the point of third space is to just keep going back, to always push beyond where you are and keep collaborating together. Third space is that wobbling, colaborating, exploring place (is that right?).
ReplyDeleteHi Megan, thanks for keeping this convo going! Okay, I'm with you here, and all the things you are talking about - wobbling, collaborating, exploring- are completely useful and create counter to traditional and hegemonic ways of schooling. Third space could "and" all that by putting pressure on the boundaries that do materially exist. By making those boundaries visible, then yeah, maybe they move? Homi Bhabha in The Location of Culture talks about third space being this place where colonizer meets counter. The important thing here to me is not world meet world, but rather with an emphasis on the hierarchical (and arbitrary) boundaries of colonization. So third space could be a space of also critiquing boundaries. Whatchyathink?
ReplyDeleteSo it's Derrida-ish? I agree that it's about pointing out and analyzing/critiquing/changing boundary lines.
ReplyDeleteCan you explain the different views of third space to me? I read the Moje article that explains that three views. I understand the idea the thrid space is a brigde. I'm just confused about the others.
Megan, Check out chapter two of Lils new book. http://www.amazon.com/Composing-Public-Space-ebook/dp/B00436EZY4 I have it on kindle and havent figured out how to pdf from there yet.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... let's see how I would put Derrida with third space. Derrida is all about making the fissures in meaning visible. He likes to do this by flipping the primacy of binaries and so jacking up the dualistic lines. So... okay he does do this thing of screwing with lines and boundaries. Since he is a post-modernist though he is somewhat less concerned about this in terms of activity and is more about the meaning/language. I think third space is more of a materialist perspective- interested in how language mediates activity, and with particular interest in power. Hmmm... love how you get me thinking!