Composition and Rhetoric discussion

I am behind on my reading schedule. I'm still working on Rhetoric of Remediation, but I'm also looking froward to Peckham's book.

For right now I'm just copying/pasting the discussion prompt from last month - not much has changed. Feel free to jump in!

Post quotations that are interesting, observations, questions, or maybe even notes from your reading. Main point: your post doesn't have to be a mini essay, devastating critique, or illuminating insight. Anything is fair game. If the conversation is going in a direction that you find uninteresting (and listen, if I'm involved in the conversation, that's more than likely the case) take us in a new direction.

Also, please continue to suggest books for our reading list. If you want to make changes to the monthly reading schedule, please let me know. It's not fixed in stone. I'm happy to move stuff around to accommodate research schedules, classes...etc.

I just got this book, and will begin reading it this weekend. It looks really interesting.

Update:

I hope this message finds you all well.

My semester got the best of me - as semesters, on occasion, tend to do.

Because I'm lagging behind, I've decided to extend the conversation about Peckham's book through December. I hope that I am not disrupting anyone's reading schedules. I also hope this extension opens up more opportunities for folks to contribute.

Cheers to everyone this November. Best wishes and happy reading!

"Escape from the patronizing attitude naturalized through the educational industry is, I argue, a prerequisite for an authentic Freirean pedagogy. But far too many critical teachers have difficulty stepping outside the assumption that they know and their student's don't" (13).

also

"We don't learn when we run around patting each other on the back" (15).

I finished Peckham's book last night and I want to say that I appreciated his even-handed critique of the problems that (sometimes) occur with critical pedagogy, including, of course, the alienation of working class students. As a person that struggles with--yet continues to work with--critical pedagogy, I found this to be a valuable review of many of the pitfalls and "blunders" that can happen.

A few problems:

1) I know his books wasn't an exercise in sociology, but I found myself wanting more of a nuanced take on the terms "working class" and even "middle class." How is he defining working class, for example?

2) On a related note, I found some of his "Working class students read like this……Middle class students read like this" analysis almost like a bad stand up routine. It seems difficult if not impossible to generalize how entire social classes read/write. For example, in my (anecdotal) experiences, I have found reactions to my variation on critical pedagogy to be unpredictable from class to class and semester to semester. Some "working class" students enjoy themselves and learn while more "middle class" students are alienated and sometimes it's the opposite and sometimes there's a mix. I have never found it so easily demarcated.

3) Peckham often falls back on the argument that critical pedagogy is teaching political viewpoints, not writing skills. But I would like to see him acknowledge some of the pedagogies that successfully combine the politics of *writing* (not just political positions in general) with writing skills instruction. Say, for example, translingual critical pedagogies that investigate the ways politics directly affect students writing.

4) When it's all said and done, the book really amounts to a Lit Review and critique of previous literature on critical pedagogy without offering much of an alternative pedagogy. I know this is one of the more common critiques of scholarship that sometimes irritates me so I'm not sure how I feel about stating it, but this one more than most, I think, really did not carve out a pathway toward something new or different or better.

5) I would also like to see him talk about what he liked so much about Ira Shor's pedagogy. He mentions this in passing a few times as a great example of a pedagogue that treats his well, never gets into that. As a fan of Shor's work, I would have liked to have seen some more about this.

Not to be too hard on Peckham. I did enjoy the book and found many of his critiques of critical pedagogies spot on and often too close for comfort.

Anyone else? Bueller……..Bueller………...