Not so Fast...

I really enjoyed the Brodkey piece since my interview with another teacher often centered on the idea of the narrative. Before the actual study details were revealed, however, I had to get through the first three pages of the article. It's really depressing when you read something three or four times over and still don't get it. Here is one sentence I didn't understand from page 125, "The discursive subject is of particular interest to those of us who teach writing because language and discourse are understood to be complicit in the representation of self and others, rather than the neutral or arbitrary tools of thought and expression that they are in other modern theories not to mention handbooks and rhetorics." There are 54 words in that sentence and I understand each of them, but I don't understand what the writer is trying to convey in that sentence.

Having written that, here are some things I did understand:

On page 126 Brodkey says that ". . . at issue is the unquestioned power of a pedagogical authority that insists that teachers concentrate on form at the expense of content." Of course they do. It's much easier to correct errors in parallelism and fragments than it is to sit down with a student and actually try to help her say what she really wants to say. I think that many English teachers are copy editors and not writing teachers.

When Brodkey talks about unequal subject positions as stereotypes and agents, she says, "Hence, it is at least plausible to expect most, though not all, of those individuals whose subjectivity is the most positively produced by a discourse to defend its discursive practices against change." Here again, I have a problem with Brodkey's diction, but I got this one and it's a no-brainer. People with the most power in these pedagogical little worlds don't want to give it up because it benefits them the most.

When Brodkey starts writing about the actual results in the study, things get very interesting. I too was surprised by the "awkwardness from the teachers" (129) but when I read the examples I understood what she meant. I got really angry when I read the exchange between Rita and Esther. When Esther says that she can only buy a house if she hits the Lotto and Rita responds with , "Do you play the Lotto frequently?" (135) I wanted to pop Rita right in the kisser. She completely refuses to take a step into Esther's personal narrative. The obvious point here is that Esther is taking the control out of Rita's hands and Rita has to reassert herself by redirecting the flow of discourse. I don't know if I agree completely with Brodkey's conclusion that the ". . . Lotto which is not the topic but the comment is transformed into the topic, now in the form of questions about gambling. It's a familiar teacher's gambit for controlling what does and does not count as knowledge" (135). Maybe. I don't know if it's always a matter of control. It might even be about fear. Maybe it's different with adults, but I've had kids get into this area with me and I get really afraid. Another possibility is that teachers are advised so often that there is a line between them and their students that should not be crossed. We could debate this idea for days, but it is a fact, and maybe that's part of Rita's problem. I don't think it's her only problem, but it's a problem. I think a good follow up to this study would have been interviews with the teacher and student participants. Maybe they would not have been honest, but it might have afforded more information (and attitudes) about the roles of student and teacher.

Lauer and Asher
I understood the studies that were presented, but like others in the class, I really got lost with the discussion of the numbers, specifically the correctional matrix and the regression analysis equations. Please help!