Discourse and the Student/Teacher Dynamic

Sorry this is a bit late, folks. I couldn't sign in to the blog from my work computer (where I was pretty late last night). It may be some sort of institutional filter or something...who knows. But I can sign on easily here at home...so again, sorry!

Ok, I was really intrigued by the premises in the Brodkey article. First, the transition from basic writing to academic literacy (academic or institutional discourse) is a particular interest of mine, and I was really interested in the ideas not only of power and privilege and identity as features of participating in discourse. And currently I'm taking a course that focuses on critical theory, so again, those questions about power, resistance, and dominant discourse are particularly pertinent.

Those somewhat abstract concepts become absolutely concrete in the excerpts from the literacy letters, starting with Don and Dora. Don is casual and personal and seems to try to create a more equal discursive relationship until Dora shares a sensitive narrative. His response shifts back into formal, teacher-ese, implicitly re-establishing a position of privilege (class? institutional?) when he give his lame answer. Both Don and Rita are glaring in how didactic andjudgmental their discourse becomes when their student partners tentatively step into sensitive territory. Suddenly the students lose their independent identities and become "remedial" students. ("I'm really messing up this letter."). Ellen handles the balance of identities more subtly and graciously, but it is there. Her correspondence was more successful not just because of the gender connection but because they shared a social identity (long marriage, teen-age children). The fact that they could create a discourse in that context created a more comfortable and more coherent interaction.

Though I've not done the letter-writing project with students, the study causes me to reflect on my own interactions with students and how the discourse is colored by our respective social roles as well as the differences in linguistic fluency. To what extent do I unconsciously assert social and institutional privilege that pretty effectively shuts down communication? Is that privilege a problem in a student/teacher dynamic or is it a comfortable model as a construct for that kind of relationship?