The American liberal educational system promotes the self. English as a language, as a rhetoric, as a culture - also promotes the self. The self is a necessary construct for power/dominance/authority resistance. When you learn English, you're learning a particular brand of individualism, and no one said it should be easy. If your socio-cultural norms make assertive writing difficult, you'll be at a disadvantage from other students. And if you were raised by a family of poets, you might have a hard time in math classes. You're a bright kid, you'll figure it out. If I write in a loud voice in China, I'd get corrected for it. And they'd be right for doing it.
If we can call the opposing view of voice in writing as collective, group-oriented, and interdependent, why do we accept that as a culture and resist attempts to change it? Why do we not call Freire's oppressive homeland his culture and leave it alone?
Voice in writing is a beautifully ambiguous metaphor - and that's why it works. Voice means whatever the student wants it to mean. It could mean style, it could mean distance, it could mean audience effect. Promoting voice does not mean you're ignoring the multiple voices that go into a text. It does not mean you are ignoring the social element. But it does mean a student will have to try on a different hat.
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Ok,let me see if I get you (and I know you'll have no problem setting me straight if I've misinterpreted you). Your viewpoint is that students are going to face times when they have to adapt to different expectations, as expressed in your example of how a child of poets might have a hard time with Math which is something less abstract and the opposite of poetry which is less logic based and formulaic (depending on how one views poetry I guess). So, what do you think we could do as teachers to help our students "try on different hats" without going through the struggle of "being themselves" in their writing voice but not the selves that they personally identify themselves as. When I ask this, I'm thinking of the student Shen who talked about how his American teachers kept encouraging him to be himself in his writing but they were actually (in my view) telling him what they thought his "real" "authentic" self should sound like. Personally, I don't really know exactly how I feel about the whole situation. As a student, I would say that I have had to adopt quite a few different "voices" to move successfully through the world of higher education. If I traveled to another country, I would expect them to try to conform me to the norms explicit and implicit to that culture. Is it right? wrong? good? bad? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteI think I understand your question - when we ask students to write in their "authentic" self, aren't we really just asking them to write like other English speakers write, regardless of what that true self might sound? Sure we are, and that's fine.
ReplyDeleteWhen we're learning a language, we're learning the culture and rhetoric of that language. I'd even go so far as to say we're learning/developing another personality. The hat that we really want them to try on is a fairly prototypical English hat. Voice pedagogy assumes that they will, at some point, blend their native rhetoric with English, and that hybrid will be both palatable to native English speakers as well as unique (in the same way that American culture is a hybrid of other world cultures but still unified with a common bond of individuality).
Thanks for responding.
intriguing dialogue. I wonder if there is such a thing called an "authentic self". How do we define self in the writing? Maybe as Kat said we (academic writers both L1 and L2) really are developing multiple voices in order to shuttle between different disciplinary discourses.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your diaogue. Let's keep debating on this in class.
I think the voice from John's and Kat's perspective is similar to discourse community. If we need to adopt the voice successfully to move on, I believe it means that we have actually "acculturate" our writing to fit the acceptable conventions.
ReplyDeleteA similar standpoint that came to my mind is the fact that as teachers we have to be trained or at least be aware of these differences in terms of learners' cultural background and language socialization processes and how compatible or incompatible they are with the school requirements. We also have to reflect on how to transform such habitus in our learners and help them develop habitus that will help them succeed in their education.
ReplyDeleteLearners too have their share. Learners are not passive recipient. Consciousness raising is one important tool that teachers can set forth to develop and foster in their learners. This applies to voice, critical thinking and so forth.