Emancipatory Movements in Composition: The Rhetoric of Possibility

CHAPTER FIVE

If there’s one thing I hate discussing, it’s narcissism and all that gender shit. It seems every semester I have a class where we get into this big argument about this crap, arguing’s not going to change it, feminists should just shave their legs and pits and get over it. Sorry, I just really detest this subject. —Anonymous Student, Expository Writing Class, Listserv, 1998 The liberatory pedagogies of neosophistic rhetoric, cultural studies, feminism, and postcolonial studies have indelibly altered the composition classroom, creating a theoretical and pedagogical environment that undeniably promulgates a leftist political agenda. Those of us who are trained in rhetoric and composition have been taught to view the teaching of writing as a political act, an opportunity to teach students how to first “see” the world, next encourage them to consider various epistemological assumptions, and then have them research and write from this pluralistic, liberal perspective. The mission of rhetoric and composition, like 83 CHAPTER FIVE Emancipatory Politics and Composition: The Pedagogy of Liberatory Writing Instruction other disciplines in the humanities, is to teach students a secular, humanistic perspective, and it seems that there are three distinct ideological assumptions disseminated in the theory and pedagogy of rhetoric and composition: 1. We must instruct students how to think critically, directing them in their ability to discern and recognize the dominant ideological forces in place which naturalize their (and our) understanding of the world. The goal is to make them conscious , if they are not already, that class, race, and gender do matter, and in fact inform and construct the way we think about literature and writing. Furthermore, writing instruction becomes a process of disruption, subverting ideological systems , all in an attempt to help students become aware that knowledge and the acquisition of literacy is a political act. 2. Such consciousness will invariably lead to a praxis of social action, where students will view themselves as agents for social change and attempt to redress social inequity outside the boundaries of the classroom. 3. Education must always have, at its core, an ethical dimension , taking into account both students’ lives and their literacy practices. While it is evident that all three of these assumptions are based on the premise of emancipation, what I would like to examine in this closing chapter is how this ideological perspective of emancipation has become the trope of choice for writing instruction , and I will attempt to assess if this position is truly useful in teaching rhetoric and composition. Moreover, composition and rhetoric’s absorption of the four emanicipatory movements that I explore in this book makes clear that the goals of writing instruction are designed not merely to inform, but also to liberate. But the obvious question, and the one that I would like to more fully explore, is whom are we liberating and from what? RADICAL PEDAGOGY: EXPORTING FREIRE Radical pedagogy, as noted in Chapter Two, stems from the work of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed 84 Emancipatory Movements in Composition has been the impetus for inclusion of critical pedagogical practices in composition classrooms. In the Afterword of Ira Shor’s Freire for the Classroom, Freire suggests, It is my basic conviction that a teacher must be fully cognizant of the political nature of his/her practice and assume responsibility for this rather than denying it. . . . [A] progressive position requires democratic practice where authority never becomes authoritarianism, and where authority is never so reduced that it disappears in a climate of irresponsibility and license. (173) It was Freire’s contention that those who are illiterate must indeed learn how to read and write and gain basic literacy skills, but they must also be taught to have a critical understanding of politics. For progressive teachers, pedagogy implies that the learners enter into the discourse of the teacher. Freire believed that education manifests itself into two extremes—as liberating or domesticating —and in order for education to be liberating it must be critical and reflexive. Freire’s pedagogy seemed particularly well suited for liberal education. And in the late 1970s, when collaborative writing and peer tutoring began making inroads in the composition classroom , Ira Shor, drawing from Freire’s work, argued that teachers should examine the way in which language can either assist or impede what Freire called the “communion” between teacher and student. Education, when not practiced through a critical position , becomes a form of...