Section 2
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TOC: The Second-Level Writing Handbook // Section 1 // Section 2 // Section 3 // Section 4 // Section 5 // Section 6 // Section 7 // Section 8
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Section 2: Diversity - "The American Experience"
The second-level writing course should engage students in a critical study of the pluralistic nature of institutions, society, and culture in the United States, with special attention to issues of race, ethnicity, disability, economic class, social class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and politics. In other words, the second-level writing course includes a study of the experience of diversity in the United States of America. Diversity might be best examined within the disciplinary content of your course.
"The American Experience"
All disciplines inform and influence the “American experience.” For example, the architecture of the Wexner Center influences the culture of Ohio State and communicates the values of the institution to the nation. Instructors should consider how their field of study contributes to the “American Experience.”
Studying the “American experience” in disciplinary contexts equips students to negotiate diversity in pluralistic societies. For example, Women’s Studies 367.02 interrogates the developing role of Latina women within the US in order to understand particular circumstances of American treatment of marginalized or minority groups.
Defining Diversity
A working definition of “diversity” can inform your teaching practices as well as your student’s basic knowledge of diversity and their own experiences with diversity issues. We usually consider diversity as things or people that deviate from a perceived majority or standard. But this simple definition is often problematic. For instance, if white men are always the standard from which every other person is compared then there is essentially no way to learn about differences among others or among white men. Also, studying diversity as a bipolar relationship of differences does not critically engage the dynamics of power, politics, culture or society at a meaningful level. Therefore, a study of diversity is not limited to a simple examination of difference.
Though it may seem that the terms “diversity” and “difference” have similar implications and commonalities, current scholarship has focused on their marked distinctions. While the study of diversity seeks to celebrate and affirm cultural differences, studying difference seeks to analyze and critique our emerging diverse American culture. In the classroom, studying diversity often encourages tolerance for marginalized groups. A critique of difference often leads students toward a more complex understanding of the dynamics of power in a plural society. Therefore, the best approaches to the study of diversity should include critical studies of difference.
Addressing Diversity Issues Within Course Content
The challenge for instructors of second-level writing courses is to understand and foreground how race, gender, sex, class, and sexuality, for example, shape society, politics, culture, and the development and history of their discipline. One of the major goals of the instructor should be to highlight the connection between diversity and writing in a particular discipline. Writing and Diversity
A connection between diversity and writing can begin by considering these basic premises:
- Language and discourse is never outside of or apart from our understanding of experience.
- Language actually shapes how we experience, understand, and order reality.
- Language is inextricably connected to ideology and the articulation of identity.
- Writers "perform" social identities through writing.
- "Otherness" in language and discourse is evidence of institutional systems of domination and oppression.
It is important for instructors to have a clear awareness of what criteria contributes to good writing in their discipline. This understanding provides the framework for writing instruction and becomes the discursive medium where the information presented to students is processed, evaluated, and integrated into their overall understanding of diversity. However, good writing in any discipline does not necessarily indicate the presence of a good understanding of diversity or the dynamic relationship of the discipline with American society.
Each discourse (the academic language and conventions associated with a particular discipline) explains society, politics, and culture in various, distinct ways. For example, medical discourses tend to consider the disabled body as pathology, while disability studies discourses consider the disabled body as an alternative body that marks a particular social relationship. Consequently, the ideologies and conclusions of these two fields are the result of very different views of diversity. Therefore, a study of good writing practices can be approached as a study of how language shapes and influences attitudes toward diversity in a particular discipline.
Course Goals and Diversity
Reflecting upon what diversity means to you and your discipline may direct how you apply diversity to your course content and goals. The following heuristic can guide your investigation.
I want my second level writing course to help students...
- Acquire a more accurate or comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter by attending to alternative definitions and diverse perspectives related to content
- Learn and understand the history, traditions, and perspectives of specific groups that comprise the “American Experience” in relation to my course’s content
- Understand and value principles of diversity and equity in American society
- Develop and use skills and strategies to work actively toward a more democratic society
- Critically examine policies, structures, and methods of knowledge-making in my discipline in terms of power, equity, and access
- Use writing as a tool for inquiry and learning within my discipline
- Think in more complex ways about diversity and/or difference in relation to scholarship, methodologies, and epistemologies in my discipline
- Re-conceptualize the content of my discipline through a paradigm shift or through non-dominant perspectives
- Engage in class discussions and interactions which challenge biased views and include diverse perspectives in a climate of respect
- Develop and/or participate in writing projects that are action-oriented, socially-conscious, and/or community-involved
- Learn and practice writing strategies that will sponsor alternative thinking (rhetorical listening, rivaling of perspectives, etc.)
The following questions are designed to help you identify what you most want to accomplish in your class with respect to “writing and diversity” in the American Experience.
How does diversity in the American Experience connect to your course?
- What issues, controversies, conversations, and or debates regarding the American Experience are taken up in your discipline?
- What do you want students to know, do, and/or understand with respect to diversity and the American Experience in your discipline?
- What perspectives or attitudes do you want your students to take away about diversity in relation to your course content?
Who are your students?
- What sorts of backgrounds, attitudes, and understandings do students bring to your course regarding diversity and the American Experience?
- What issues do you face in helping students write and read diversity in your course?
How does “writing diversity” figure into your course?
- What forms of writing do students use in your course (note taking, journals, logs, lab reports, term projects, email correspondence, electronic postings, in-class assessments, memos to group members, minutes of group meetings, and multiple drafts of a paper)?
- How is this writing connected to helping students meet your course goals with respect to diversity in the American Experience?
Including the Study of Diversity in the Classroom
Among the possible approaches for incorporating diversity into a course, two common methods are:
1. Assigning Writing that Reflects Diverse Perspectives
Teaching diversity, though, does not simply have to be accomplished through readings and course content. Students can study and practice diverse ways of writing as well. You may want to consider with your students what kinds of writing your discipline privileges and which it excludes and why. Think about designing writing assignments that provide opportunities for multiple media, genres, and forms for creating disciplinary knowledge. In addition, instructors should be mindful of their assignment objectives. Below is a non-exhaustive list of possible diversity-related goals for writing assignments.
For this project/activity, I ask students for writing that…
- synthesizes multiple perspectives about a diversity issue
- displays understanding of course content
- analyzes and evaluates published texts
- addresses different audiences
- summarizes secondary sources on a particular issue
- narrates or describes their experiences with diversity
- reflects upon their engagement with course content
- analyzes or interprets class dynamics
- imitates disciplinary forms (essay, abstract, lab report)
- gauges student understanding anonymously
- examines “gaps” or “silences” in published research
- is collaboratively authored to represent group understanding
- summarizes research on an issue/group
- helps students examine diverse perspectives & assumptions
- poses a problem, outlining various concerns/constituencies
- articulates solutions to a problem
- applies data to a sample problem or case study
- interprets findings in a disciplinary context.
2. Interrogating Readings from Diverse Perspectives The following list contains ideas and activities that help to facilitate the interrogation of course content from diverse perspectives.
- Read and discuss an article that directly explores the implications of race. Remember that minority race characteristics exist in concert with the characteristics associated with dominant races. Studying dominant race privileges, Caucasian privileges for example, is as important to the understanding of race as understanding masculinity is to the study of feminism.
- Have students draw the author of a particular text the class is reading. Collaboratively discuss students’ choices for how their drawing interprets the text.
- Hold a “town meeting” in class in which students role-play positions of differing stakeholders on a particular issue.
- Create assignments in which students must shift their point of view, writing through another’s voice. Have students draw on multiple academic and nonacademic writing styles and genres for a single assignment or discussion.
- Lead in-class informal writing or discussion that does not require the student to write or speak in “Standard English” or “Academic Discourse.” Compare differences.
The examples given in this section of the handbook are not exhaustive, but are intended to get instructors started on locating diversity issues within their particular discipline. You may also want to consult with The Ohio State University Multicultural Center located at http://multiculturalcenter.osu.edu when deciding how to meet the diversity requirements of the second level writing course.
Bibliography
Benson, C., & Christian S. (2002). Writing to make a difference: Classroom projects for community change. Columbia, NY: Teachers College.
Bruffee, K. (1986). Social construction, language, and the authority of knowledge: A bibliographical essay. College English 48, 773-790.
Flower, L. (2000). Learning to rival: A literate practice for intercultural inquiry. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Moss, B. & Walters, K. (1993). Rethinking diversity: Axes of difference in the writing classroom. In L. Odell (Ed.), Theory and practice in the teaching of writing: Rethinking the discipline. (pp. 132-185). Carbondale: Southern Illinois P.
Ratcliffe, K. (2000). Eavesdropping as rhetorical tactic: History, whiteness, and rhetoric. JAC 20, 87-119. Romano, T. (2000) Blending genre, altering style: Writing multigenre papers. Portsmouth, NH: Boyton/Cook; Heinemann.
