Foucault, Selfe, and Ohmann

Describe how Foucault can help us engage with the issues that Ohmann and Selfe raise and/or describe how Foucault can help us with the issues we've discussed so far in 597. In sum, use Foucault as a lens and see where it gets you.

Many things came to mind this week, but Ann Petry’s novel, The Street, is what I thought about most while reading Tuesday’s articles. The protagonist, Lutie, laments throughout the novel “If only I could get a leg up.” It’s a naturalist novel, and I see it as one that has been and continues to be the story for so many people. This “leg up” that Lutie refers to is her inability to pull up her bootstraps, no matter how hard she tries. In a world with changing technologies, she had to resort to extreme measures for her family (which did not prove to be successful for her). I will not regale you with the intricacies of that novel, but my point is that access has always been an issue for those who are not afforded particular opportunities. Cynthia Selfe’s discussion of access to materials is quite lucid as she provides a thorough critique of what counts as literacy in society. She paraphrases Graff as saying “official literacies usually function in a conservative, and reproductive fashion --- in favor of dominant groups and in support of an existing class based system (103). Selfe goes on to say that “the national project to expand technological literacy has not served to reduce illiteracy … rather, it has simply changed the official criteria for both ‘literate’ and illiterate’ individuals, while retaining the basic ratio of both groups” (103). Ohmann concurs with Selfe as he talks about the history of the words literacy and illiteracy, noting that they had a “global and qualitative meaning ---well read and civilized, or the reverse --- rather than indicating a line that divided those who could read and write from those who could not” (20). Thus, history tells us that being well-read was the same a being civilized. So if someone simply read what was available to them, what did that make them? Although the definitions have changed (rather slightly), the fact is that this issue is one of binaries, literate or illiterate, which creates problems that have and will continue to hinder and perpetuate class systems, as was the case with Lutie.

So, there is a real divide that continues to grow with this notion of new literacy, technological literacy. The fact is that division, marginalization, hegemony, power, and social hierarchies have always been around. Foucault in "The Eye of Power" mentions that “power is quite different from and more complicated, dense and pervasive than a set of laws or a state apparatus. It’s impossible to get the development of productive forces characteristic of capitalism if you don’t at the same time have the apparatuses of power” (158). Here again, is this notion of access. So, like Foucault, Selfe and Banks, I see a real divide that did not just start with technology, but serves as the same mechanism that has worked to keep hegemony in place. What we have here is just a remodeled panopiticon used as a “privileged place for experiences on men, and for analyzing the complete certainty the transformations that may be attained from them” (Panopticism 204). This “gaze” is able to watch society and we, as scholars write about the truths that we see. After the damage is done, however, there is always hindsight that says, that was wrong. But, for example, the hundreds of men who were unknowingly injected with syphilis had already suffered and died. My point is that the damage is often realized when it is too late. Now that we have "discovered" that many students are being left behind, what can we do about the students that did not have access to information? In that same vein, what can we do about binaries as the definition of literacy changes as technology changes?

Foucault reinforces that there are problems all around us, not just in academia. However, reading him in conjunction with Selfe and Ohmann did provide a nice sounding board that reaffirms the need for larger view of the past as to understand how structures and teachings are re-inscribed in different ways. As I commented last week, I think that Selfe’s approach is one that is very radical, almost grassroots type of political action. As teachers, she calls on us to appreciate the many literacies that our students bring to the table. We must also be able to show them how to compose in different modalities to best convey their literacy (if that is what they choose) to be able to compete in an changing society. Reading Foucault, at the same time, with Selfe and Ohmann, raises many questions for me, too. How do we change perceptions of what constitutes literacy? How can we, as teachers, provide a space that does not reinforce hierarchies (especially if those hierarchies are the basis of our own profession)? How can teaching with technology work to reinforce Bentham’s panopticon? How do we counter this idea of surveillance, especially if we are involved in writing, recording, and publishing within and out of new media?

My Relationship to Computer Technology

Describe your relationship to computer technology as a student, as a teacher, and as a human being in the world. What do you use it for? Do you find it necessary? A hindrance? 2) How does Wysocki define "new media" and how do you see this connecting with your notions of teaching with technology? (or do you?)

“technologies can affect writers’ thinking processes in real ways”(qtd. in Wysocki 11)

My first interaction with a computer was at 10 years old when our town library switched from card catalogs to computer card catalogs. Instead of thumbing through the cards at the high risk of getting a paper cut, the computer provided a huge screen with large green type that helped readers find books. As a young student, I thought that the computer was grand as I saw it as a means to make information easier to find.In the 8th grade, I took a class called Computer Discovery. It was essentially a typing class and we learned how the computer was the new aged type writer; this use for the computer proved to be better than the typewriter because if there was an error, we could erase and redo it before printing. It was this class that showed me how computers could be used to produce papers that we had for other classes. (I can still hear Ms. Gunn’s voice “hands on the home row keys, everyone”). So, as time passed, I began to type papers in WordPad and eventually Word, (although I just recently began to actually compose in a Word document. I still write outlines and initial thoughts with pen and paper). By the time I was in 11th grade, I was teaching a typing class at school to adults in the community.

So, from an early age, computers were about getting things done for me; they were used to type and find resources that may have been needed. In my senior year of high school, I was introduced to e-mail, instant messaging, and even a bit of gaming (solitaire, checkers online) which opened the door to a whole new world of communicative possibilities. Since high school, I have taken more computer classes that have broaden my understanding of what computers are capable of. I’ve joined social networking sites (which I use mainly as a virtual address book), I’ve blogged for classes (I have yet to move to the personal blogging), and I use the computer for research. As a teacher, I have used the WebCT/E-Learning/ Angel sites, blogging, YouTube videos, and research/search engines. My thoughts about “New Media” then are ones that, I dare say, echo and in some ways, extend what Wysocki mentions in Writing New Media.

Wysocki defines new media while simultaneously leaving room for teachers to bring their own beliefs and “ways of knowing” to teach students in the classroom; thus, she vies that new media is not just about analyzing the media itself, but about helping students see how belief systems inform the material that is used (6). She notes “new media needs to be informed by what writing teachers know, precisely because writing teachers focus specifically on texts and how situated people (learn how to) use them and make things happen” (5). Thus, as teachers, we are teaching students to not only engage new media, but to bring their own skills to the table to transform how that mode is received.

For me, this notion of materiality in writing with and for technology, then, becomes even more important because “writing teachers can thus fill a large gap in current scholarship on new media” (7) by teaching materiality and the ways in which modes of technology change our “thinking processes in real ways” (qtd. in Wysocki 11). This change in thinking can not only help students see different perspectives, but it can also help both teachers and students understand how beliefs and the physical medium work together to create meaning.

Ultimately, my thoughts about teaching with technology coincide with this idea of materiality. As I think about my position, particularly as a 402 (Technical and Professional Writing) instructor, this notion of materiality becomes even more important as students are learning, creating, composing, and writing in different spaces, some digital and some not. Wysocki tells us that it is important "that whoever produces the text and whoever consumes it understand ... that the various materialities of a text contribute to how it, like it's producers and consumers, is read and understood" (15). I think that in order to do justice to our classes, we must teach in a way that shows students how they are apart of the conversation. To me, this notion of materiality is one approach.

And so as I think back to my first experiences with technology, I realize that much has changed in that I am definitely more engaged with writing with and in "new media". I also realize that I have been practicing and teaching what Horner calls materiality in many ways. To extend Wysocki's ideas, I think that because computer technology is and continues to change, there has to be more effort to to keep teachers abreast of the many technologies that can inform our classrooms. It's one thing to suggests new approaches, but it's another thing to make those approaches come to life. Until that day comes when teachers are able to view new appraoaches and decided whether or not to adopt them (because there are economic issues at play that will not fund workshops), teachers must continue to use what they have access to, to the best of their abilities, as to teach students how to engage in materiality.

What is my role as an instructor?

Describe your job as a writing instructor? Specifically, what skills do you feel your students should learn? Why? Does this mesh with Yancey's call? How or how not?

As a writing instructor at WSU, I have taught English 101, 402, and now 105. I work to help students understand the importance of audience, purpose, and context (s) for writing so that they may be able to survive any situation. I work on critical thinking, understanding genre, and documentation as well (just to name a few). I feel that my students should learn that writing is not something that happens in a vacuum, but that it is a type of communication that can appear in many forms.

I want students to learn the many different types of writing that is available to them; I also want them to think about how they would compose in these different environments. Yancey points out that most of what students know about online apparatuses is what they learn outside of the classroom. I seem to think that this is a good thing because when that medium is brought into the class, students are familiar and more eager to participate. Moreover, I think that using a medium like twitter could serve as an example of how writing in different venues can be empowering and just as important as any other form of communication. Yancey notes that technology has impacted how we see and understand literacy, "technology changes literacy: that's the kind of transformation we are seeing now with regard to writers." Yancey's idea speaks to a need for more classrooms to employ more mediums that students can readily identify. I think that this is where genre studies is most important. It may be helpful to analyze a music video, a restaurant menu, or even a business card to show students how writing can connect to many aspects of a career. I am not saying that teachers should completely redo their course calenders, but I do think that using "low technology" could provide new mediums for students to analyze.

My thoughts about being an instructor go along with Yancey's call, particularly when she states that, "writer's in the 21st century self-organize into what seem to be overlapping technologically driven circles, what we might call a series of newly imagined communities, communities that cross boarders of all kinds -- nation state, class, gender, ethnicity" (301). However, I do not think that this idea cannot happen overnight. We have to be realistic about what actually happens and what can transpire in the classroom.