syllabus
calendar
blackboard
student.email resources

last.updated 11.15.11

 

Multilingual Rhetorics

Purpose

 The philosophy underlying current traditional pedagogies articulate language as a vehicle for clearly communicating one's observations. Thus the belief is that there is a right language. This supports curricula and policies that are based upon a standard language that all students should be expected to use without error. The readings for this week challenge these notions of standards and use linguistic and historical evidence to demonstrate that there is a lot of diversity within English language's use. While this does not necessarily mean that standard language production should not be a part of the writing class curricula, it does mean that instructors and administrators should question why they uphold such standards.

Before Class

Workshop–Discourse Communities

George, Jamie, and Jennifer will lead a workshop on discourse communities

CCCC Statement on Student's Right to their Own Language

We affirm the students' right to their own patterns and varieties of language-the dialects of their nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style. Language scholars long ago denied that the myth of a standard American dialect has any validity. The claim that any one dialect is unacceptable amounts to an attempt of one social group to exert its dominance over another. Such a claim leads to false advice for speakers and writers' and immoral advice for humans. A nation proud of its-diverse heritage and its cultural and racial variety will preserve its heritage of dialects. We affirm strongly that teachers must have the experiences and training that will enable them to respect diversity and uphold the right of students to their own language.

Video – Jin, "Learn Chinese"

Class Activity – Teaching English Comp Students to Learn Chinese

As a class, we will discuss the questions:

  • Should the composition classroom be more multilingual in its approach?
  • If so, how do we make it so?
  • As a way to start thinking about the second question, think about how you might use some of these readings for today's class in a Downs & Wardle approach to the course.
  • How might you use a cultural artifact, like Jin's "Speak Chinese," to teach all students about how they can use multilingual rhetorics (note that this is not just the reception/analysis of a text, but also getting students to think about composing/production) to convey a desired argument to generate a desired end?
  • How is doing this an application of Mao's argument?
  • How might you use this video (or a similar one) with a Downs and Wardle approach?

Discussion – World Rhetorics

  • How questions, comments and/or concerns do you have about the readings for this week?
  • What similarities do you see between Ma'at and traditional western rhetoric? Where do you see differences? What would a pedagogy based upon Ma'at look like? Do you see evidence of Ma'at in the way that your African-American students compose for your classes? What about other students? Do you see Pennell's pedagogical suggestions addressing the Ma'at rhetoric?
  • What is Kaplan's argument? What is Kaplan pushing against? How might Kaplan's observations be pedagogically useful? How might they be theoretically problematic?
  • Contrastive rhetoric is never used in Mao's article. However, do you think that this article can be placed in the same conversation with Kaplan's. If so, how? If not, why not?