I-writing : the politics and practice of teaching first-person writing / Karen Surman Paley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Paley, Karen Surman, 1947-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching.

English language.

English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching--Political aspects.

English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching--Social aspects.

First person narrative--Study and teaching (Higher).

First person narrative.

Bias-free language--Study and teaching (Higher).

Bias-free language.

Report writing--Study and teaching (Higher).

Report writing.

Creative writing (Higher education).

Physical Description:

xvi, 236 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, [2001]

Summary:

In this ethnographic study of the teaching of writing, Karen Surman Paley reveals the social significance of first-person writing and the limitations of a popular taxonomy of composition studies. Paley looks critically at the way social constructionists have created an "Other" in the field of composition studies and named it "expressivist".

Paley demonstrates the complexity of approaches to teaching writing through an ethnographic study of two composition faculty at Boston College, a program that some would say is "expressivist". She prompts her colleagues to consider how family experiences shape the way students feel about and treat people of races, religions, genders, and sexual preferences other than their own. Finally, she suggests to the field of composition that practitioners spend less time shoring up taxonomies of the field and more time sharing pedagogies.

Contents:

Introduction: The Birth of Critical Consciousness 1

1. The Social Construction of "Expressivist" Pedagogy 7

2. In Situ: The Political Elbow 35

3. Ethnography: A Postmodern Way of Seeing the World 43

4. Confronting Bias in Student Texts 56

5. "I'm Just Really Struggling in This Class": Facing Student Self-Doubt 88

6. Developing Voice, Developing Agency 125

7. "African Americans Have This Slang": Grammar, Dialect, and Racism 139

8. The Personal in Social Constructionist Pedagogy: A Visit to the Classroom of Patricia Bizzell 173

Conclusion: Responding Responsibly to Personal Narratives 196.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-228) and index.

ISBN:

0809323508

0809323516

OCLC:

43864437