Nancy and Richard Fulkerson/21st century

The topic was long and complex as was the article.

The topic might appeal more to a veteran professor; still as an outsider and in spite of my lack of understanding of many terms, I did have some thoughts as well as questions.

I am starting to form an idea of what might be Critical/Cultural studies. I am wondering if ethnic research ( from another article) and Cultural studies mean that people are writing about their own ethnicity and how they or others might be disenfranchised or marginalized in general or also in academia. Liberation would be the theme of this writing, or the unequal power in a classroom.
Dr. Souder admitted that this is true. Perhaps because I don't feel marginalized in this class, it is not an issue here. In my workplace yes, but I don't think I would choose that content to write about in a composition class.

I was surprised to hear the author admit that "no one in contemporary composition theory assumes any epistemology other than a vaguely interactionist constructivism. We rejected "truth" as derivable by deduction from unquestioned first principles."

However, toward the end of the article the author states that,"In rhetorical approach to composition, Epistemologically, adherents believe that values and decisions are reached through dialectic; Rhetorical teachers would not be comfortable with the claim that all truth ( reality) is is a social construct. They grant that evidentiary statements can be true or false. ( ie facts do exist)

I am not sure if I understand the above, but i am thinking that if I had to label myself in all these approaches , I would be a Rhetorical teacher of genre analysis. !?

I kind of understand the content envy on the part of lit-based course as opposed to the cultural studies ( that are not expected to actually teach writing). But what happened to writing across the curriculum. If all contents areas are responsible to be sure that their students write well within that subject, then they all would be teachers of writing in that they give opportunities to wite and their are certain expectations of correctness.

As far as the question, do we try to raise the consciousness of our students in addition or through writing , I think yes! "Helping them evolve as socially just citizens seems overwhelming ," but it's not so difficult to choose a short text or movie clips with a theme of justice and ask them to write in response, using that to help them form an opinion which they will use in a composition. In my class I used the movies Stand and Deliver and the Freedom Riders to encourage them to think outside their world, relate to the the students who also were learning , and to come up with their own opinions through writing. There are dismal statistics about how many teens know nothing about the holocaust.

On the other hand, I agree with the author, Durst, who says most CCS courses seem inappropriate, because, " Reading, analyzing , and discussing the texts upon which their course rests are unlikely to leave room for any actual teaching of writing.

Also, Durst said, teachers dedicated to exposing their own opinions of classism or homophobia could not accept student viewpoints that deny such views.

I experienced this in a theology class, post undergrad. I was taking a few classes out of interest. The professor asked us to write a composition explaining our understanding of one doctrine. It was openly controversial by different authors. I based an excellent paper on sound theologians knowing that my professor did not agree, and I was shocked that he dropped my grade one letter because I didn't accept his point of view.

I also noticed that in Chris Burnham wrote about Expressive pedagogy: the overiding goal is " to foster aesthetic, cognitive, and moral development" not to improve communication or encourage critical thinking. That approach would mean failure of ELL students. One of three standards for ELLs is to obtain English to be able to communicate in all forms.

Again I feel from the little I gather from this article that my approach to composition is Rhetorical knowledge, Critical Thinking, Processes, and Knowledge of Conventions.