1. In what ways do you see Bitzer's rhetorical situation operating pedagogically? And how do you see the address of the rhetorical situation fitting into the/your personal writing process?
2. Almost all of us are of a non-privileged subjectivity (for example, I am queer). That said, almost all of us are of a subjectivity that is privileged (for example, I am white and born into a working/middle class family). Therefore, almost all of us have the potential to marginalize and disrupt people's "sense of order and rightness." With the classroom being a particularly rich contact zone, how do incorporate discussion of privilege in our writing classrooms, and as instructors, how do we uplift the voices of marginalized groups we do not identify with without tokenizing their experiences (like Rosyer's "authentic voice" experiece)? Additionally: What does the active listening Royster discusses look like in the classroom?
I think one of the most important things we can do (regarding your second question) is to always let everyone speak for themselves--their own concerns, cares, history etc, even if it's not necessarily as nice a picture as we want it to be. Very often marginalized people have to be performative in a way to fit into the system. For example, a black writer needing to say the "right" and "acceptable" things about the black experience that are palatable to a largely liberal middle to upper class white audience.
ReplyDeleteWe all have to sit through the uncomfortable stuff, though, if we don't just want it to be a performance