Diversity Initiative In Composition
Holly Blackford
Assistant Professor -- Department of EnglishThe following is a summary of how teaching assistants and adjuncts were informed of the diversity initiative. I also include examples of how individual instructors implemented my suggestions. As we begin to review possible readers for composition, we are faced with one major debate, articulated at the bottom of page 2. Whatever reader we choose, I intend to create a resource list of multicultural literature and community resources (exhibits, events, programs) from which instructors can choose. I also intend to keep the issue of diversity in the classroom (learning, discussion style, etc.) at the forefront of teacher-training.
Instructors of 99, 101, and 102 were asked to focus at least one unit of their course on diversity. They could choose to emphasize gender, race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, age, disability, multiculturalism, or cultural conflict. Several instructors chose to have their students debate multiculturalism in education. I gave instructors four ideas of how to address diversity in composition:
1. You can assign readings by diverse authors, including a diverse array of voices, experiences, and expressive forms into the course.
- Effect: Instructors report that students who would otherwise remain disenfranchised respond to such readings. For example, Angelique Maute, instructor of 102, taught “Notes of A Native Son” and successfully engaged two African-American students who had not spoken in class before. Emily Beach, instructor of 101, surveyed her students about what kind of poetry they would like to read; several of her Chinese students asked to read Chinese poetry, which she promptly assigned. Her two Chinese students both spoke in class that day and spoke to her after class. This strategy of #1 seems to give minority students authority to engage in the academic setting, but does not seem to as effectively engage the willingness of white students to learn about cultural others.
2. You can assign readings about topics of diversity.
- This is the approach of traditional composition readers. The reader that we are considering for 2003, called American Mosaic, organizes writings by race/ethnicity of writer and gives historical and cultural context. This is quite useful for some students who lack knowledge of historical and cultural context. For example, when I teach Beloved I need to include a hand-out on important dates in slavery and emancipation, or students do not understand why the novel represents an important historical moment. Tess Schaufler, instructor of 101, concurs that students lack basic historical knowledge; many of them asserted that Richard Wright was a slave, born in 1908! However, both Tess Schaufler and Mona Washington, adjunct instructor of 101, resist American Mosaic’s organization of literary works because they feel that calling attention to race alone simplifies and fractionalizes the reading, making students pay attention to only race or only oppression. To complexify discussions of multicultural texts, they ask students to make connections between different works and different forms; for example Schaufler taught “Black Boy” and The Yellow Wallpaper so that her students would not only attend to oppression, but also attend to representations of writing and self, etc. Framing readings by race/ethnicity of writer may also immediately alienate white students. For example, when I teach Little Women I need to give a quiz because my male students often fail to read. In other words, there may be more subtle ways of teaching students a multicultural perspective than announcing each writer or topic as “African-American issue,” “Native-American issue,” etc.
3. You can assign a broad range of materials that will include different genres that different groups might prefer (this is the cultural studies approach to the English course); so, for example, you can incorporate some study of songs, oral culture, visual materials, etc., to accompany written material on that topic. Let’s say you were doing a unit on ethnicity and storytelling, and you had students read Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”—you might then have students go to an exhibit on quilts and write a paper on material culture in their own families and communities. Or, another example: let’s say you were doing a unit on oral versus written text; you could ask students to collect folklore in their own communities and write about the process of turning oral into written text—reflections on the editing process, so to speak.
- This approach has been enormously successful; virtually every instructor has students attending cultural events or exhibits, connecting contemporary culture to traditional literary study, and learning broad views of reading and writing such that they connect their worlds of experience with our worlds of ideas. The reason that novels are particularly effective for teaching composition is that novels bridge concrete and abstract thinking, or immediate and reflective experience, such that students can begin to move between the world of tangible experience and the world of ideas (or letters).
4. You can be sure to assign research and/or writing that capitalizes upon the students’ diverse backgrounds—backgrounds/experiences that then need to be shared with peers.
- For example, Tess Schaufler has assigned her students the task of researching their family backgrounds and investigating their family’s decision to come to America. They have to argue the impact of cultural forces on their family’s decision, along with the cultural significance of national change. Along with the paper the students must distill their main ideas by constructing a quilt panel to represent personally and culturally meaningful symbols of family history. This class quilt will be displayed in The Student Center over the holidays as part of a holiday display. A description of the project will accompany the quilt, demonstrating and celebrating students’ critical reflections upon their own diverse backgrounds. The quilt also speaks to strategy #3, because students are able to incorporate symbols of meaningful personal and cultural material (recipes, maps, photographs, cultural symbols/iconography).
The main debate about how to choose a composition reader and how to frame multicultural readings revolves around the impact of defining readings by race or ethnicity of writer/topic. Does the frame of “diversity” actually enhance or limit the students’ understanding of and arguments about the literature?
Another important approach to diversity, among instructors, is an understanding of diversity in student learning. In my fall class, Practicum in Teaching Writing, we have two classes on diversity with the following readings: N. Chism, J. Cano, and A. Pruitt, “Teaching in a Diverse Environment,” Peter Frederick, “Walking on Eggs: Mastering the Dreaded Diversity Discussion,” Troy Duster, “They’re Taking Over? And Other Myths about Race on Campus,” Jabari Mahiri, “Writing Differences: Struggles for Cultural and Academic Voice,” Shooting for Excellence, Min-zhan Lu, “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle,” Mina P. Shaughnessy, “Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing,” Min-Zhan Lu, “Redefining the Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy: A Critique of the Politics of Linguistic Innocence,” David Bartholomae, “Released into Language: Errors, Expectations, and the Legacy of Mina Shaughnessy,” Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue,” and Dana R. Ferris, “One Size Does not Fit All: Response and Revision Issues for Immigrant Student Writers”
Lastly, the graduate students are doing a research project on diversity, with the following parameters:
Your research proposal is due Oct. 15. The articles that I assigned for November are good places to start. You may define the research question as you wish. You could consider how diversity has been addressed in other universities; you could work on a definition of diversity and consider an innovative curriculum; you could research a particular community of students and discuss their learning difficulties and/or styles; you could look at diversity among writers or literary sources. Your diversity project should have something to do with pedagogy, but it does not have to be specific to teaching writing. For example, you might wish to do field research on a particular ethnic group adjusting to the university environment, focusing on their transition to academic literacy. You might wish to interview your own students after your course’s unit on diversity—gathering their responses and recommendations for course development. The sky is the limit. Your final project will be 20-25 pp., you should review at least 5 sources for a class binder on diversity sources, and you should prepare a 20-minute presentation on your project. The presentation can be collaborative, if your other classmates’ topics intersect with yours.
These projects will be available to us at the end of the semester. Graduate students are approaching the topic in a myriad of ways; most of them are surveying students and looking at the students’ awareness of diversity, motivational factors in learning, differences in learning styles, and collaboration in intercultural classrooms.
Questions or comments can be directed by email to Holly Blackford.
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