Teaching Journal XII

Week XII

Week 12 was a short week, but was filled with very interesting readings. I learned that while free writes might be routine now, they are a pretty valuable part of class. Even though my students might not have understood the articles (and might have skimmed, as I suspect), I was still able to get a good discussion on both days.

Wednesday: Instead of starting off with my usual free write exercise, I had my class take the Guardian UK quiz. Before we were able to do that, I had them give me some examples of traditionally feminine/masculine behavior. This went well, and they even included examples from the Flynn reading during this part. The quiz itself actually went better than I expected. I worried that it would take too long, but on some questions, students guessed right after the first sentence or two. We got 5 out of 10. The class agreed that the quiz didn't prove VS Naipul's point--that you can't tell the gender of the writer just by looking at the prose. I also pointed out Nicholas Sparks was one of the authors included and is an example of a male author composing what some might consider feminine writing.
      The downside of the quiz was that starting out with something fun like that meant it was harder to get back into the nitty gritty of discussing the major and minor points of the article. Discussion went best when I asked general questions about feminism, essentialism, social constructionism, etc. I learned that my students didn't really have any preconceptions about feminism like I expected. In fact, they seemed to not know what feminism was. Wow. My one (female) student who has been an outspoken opponent of feminism was absent today, and it really was a shame. I asked if they still feel if women's perspectives are silenced or ignored. Most students shared that they understood there was a point in the past where this happened, but they didn't feel it happened anymore. I asked the females in my class (14 of 18) if they ever felt silenced and they said no. I raised the point that sometimes when women get angry, it's dismissed by saying she's on her period. This is where the gender divide really worked in my favor because all the girls had been told that before. I ended discussion by asking what space Flynn's article leaves for discussing how men are affected by this stereotyping/sexism, but they weren't biting. Today was a pretty good class and I was pleased by how open my students seemed.

Friday: Even though my class was really respectful on Wednesday, I was still worried about our discussion of Delpit and Smitherman. I began by writing Audre Lorde's quote on the board. I thought maybe this quote presented in context with the readings would be too obvious and easy; I first encountered this quote in a WGS class, without context, and it was quite puzzling. But they were still pretty quiet. We ended up just discussing it as a class instead of doing a free write. But I still think it's a good connection to make and will use it again. Our Delpit discussion went alright, with the one uncomfortable moment being when they refused to tell me how Delpit disagreed with Gee. I thought this was obviously the take away from the reading, but what pissed me off was that they wouldn't look in their books. So as they were staring at me blankly, I said "I'll wait" to give them the hint. They know by now nothing pisses me off more than just having their books sitting closed on their desks. From the first day onwards next semester, I'm emphasizing close reading and textual evidence so this doesn't happen ever again. This actually had to happen a few times on Friday, with them not recalling certain points of the reading. They were much more forthcoming with Smitherman, so I chalk it up to them maybe skimming Delpit.
     Before getting into Smitherman, I showed them The Story of English: Black on White episode 6 so they could get a sense of code switching, BE, and why it's still a paramount discourse for them to retain. The video didn't really have the desired affect; some students were openly hostile toward BE--calling it "stupid" or saying they didn't understand why "they" had to talk like that in the first place. Another student responded that black people don't want to use the "master's" language because we've treated them terribly for so long, which I thought was a good point. We did a close reading of the ending before focusing on Smitherman's main point: to ignore superficial grammar features in favor of substance and ideas. I related it to what we do in 1510, and one student said she's really glad we do it that way. I definitely think this is the most relatable part of these two readings for these students. One student said he didn't know why we were doing these readings because he can't relate, so I tried to explain to him that it's important to have sensitivity toward multiple cultures. I tried to get him to admit how important language was for his own identity, so to extend that to people of color. The worst comment of the day came when one student jokingly said she wished there was a black person in our class "so we could ask them stuff." Ugh. Have any of these students ever even met a person of color? I honestly don't know. I tried to give a controlled and non preachy response to that saying imagine how uncomfortable that student would feel to be the token student of color. They all seemed to agree that that kind of thinking (let's just ask the black guy!) isn't a good approach.

Overall, I think both these classes involved some really good discussion. Students seemed to be talking more than ever. I definitely think the more general gender questions during Wednesday's class helped them open up a lot. I'm usually resistant to making it all about them because really, the whole point is that these readings AREN'T about them, but that's a defeating line of thinking.