Critical Literacy in 'White Ethnic' Classrooms: When Empowered Writing Reveals Class.
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| Title: | Critical Literacy in 'White Ethnic' Classrooms: When Empowered Writing Reveals Class. |
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| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Hourigan, Maureen M. |
| Peer Reviewed: | N |
| Page Count: | 18 |
| Publication Date: | 1998 |
| Document Type: | Reports - Descriptive Speeches/Meeting Papers |
| Descriptors: | Academic Discourse, Basic Writing, Grammar, Higher Education, Lower Class, Socioeconomic Influences, Student Attitudes, Student Empowerment, Teaching Methods, Writing Assignments, Writing Attitudes |
| Geographic Terms: | U.S.; Ohio |
| Abstract: | A basic writing course instructor attempted to facilitate her students' survival in the academy by demystifying writing conventions while teaching them how to analyze discourses about literacy, especially in relation to cultural and economic forces. Students were asked to design an ideal basic writing course as a final journal assignment. Instruction in the institutionalized definition of "good writing" was what they wanted most. The "empowering" assignments the instructor had considered successful (letters to the editor, demanding crackdowns on drug-infested housing projects, for example) had no place. Students' responses from the following semester helped the instructor to realize that her students felt that a mastery of sophisticated grammar constructions would guarantee their place in the middle class, while the "real world" writing she required, supported as it was by examples from their own lives, identified them as lower class economically, an identity they cared not to confront. Three student essays are attached. (RS) |
| Notes: | Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (49th, Chicago, IL, April 1-4, 1998). |
| Journal Code: | RIEAPR1999 |
| Entry Date: | 1999 |
| Accession Number: | ED424578 |
| Database: | ERIC |
| Abstract: | A basic writing course instructor attempted to facilitate her students' survival in the academy by demystifying writing conventions while teaching them how to analyze discourses about literacy, especially in relation to cultural and economic forces. Students were asked to design an ideal basic writing course as a final journal assignment. Instruction in the institutionalized definition of "good writing" was what they wanted most. The "empowering" assignments the instructor had considered successful (letters to the editor, demanding crackdowns on drug-infested housing projects, for example) had no place. Students' responses from the following semester helped the instructor to realize that her students felt that a mastery of sophisticated grammar constructions would guarantee their place in the middle class, while the "real world" writing she required, supported as it was by examples from their own lives, identified them as lower class economically, an identity they cared not to confront. Three student essays are attached. (RS) |
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