You might be asking what a salad bowl has to do with composition but I assure you, it does have a purpose. In fact, I propose that the image of a salad bowl has a very useful purpose as a potential metaphor representing what a classroom should look like. Much of what we do in the classroom is directed towards teaching our students what is good writing and “how to write well” but many in the field of composition are questioning how we approach those aspects of our classrooms.
At this point in our country’s life, we have developed this image of the “melting pot” where all cultures have come together to create the ideal “American”, but what does that really mean? Kris Rutten and Ronald Soetaert wrote on this topic of ideology in their article “Rhetoric, Citizenship, and Cultural Literacy” (2013). They propose that we rethink the connections between education, democracy, and citizenship. Their aim is to build a broader view of contemporary education to encompass a “contextualized” understanding of civic and cultural literacy (Rutten and Soetaert). Literacy and illiteracy (indeed, even those terms) are built upon ideologies. As writing instructors, we then need to teach our students how to negotiate those ideologies to shape their knowledge and attitudes to become informed citizens.
Part of this monumental task of reformation has to begin at the source. Our ideologies, as Americans, are built upon the ideal of the American dream where everyone is the same and accepted. We need to break from that idea (and indeed, we are beginning to see this happen) - we are not a melting pot but rather, we are a salad bowl. Colonialism is a major perpetrator in this struggle we are encountering now in our classrooms.
Victor Villanueva Jr. engaged with the struggle of colonialism and outdated misconceptions of culture in his article “Maybe Colony: And Still Another Critique of the Comp Community” (1997). He did not propose a solution to the issue of how we should address colonial pressure versus a more diverse perspective of culture but he did put out a call asking teachers to rethink how we approach writing and what we pass on to our students because our instruction can perpetuate hurtful ideologies that do not allow for growth and understanding between dissimilar people. Villanueva wrote, “What we need, I’d say, is a greater consciousness of the pervasiveness of the ethnocentricity from which we wish to break away,” (992). Cultural literacy, as described by Rutten and Soetaert, is an integral part of what we need to teach our students when we teach them writing. Villanueva calls for collaborative deliberation for a solution to this ongoing issue in our classrooms.
Colonialism forces an unrealistic similarity upon people which drowns out their cultural differences, it pushes the melting pot metaphor upon cultural minorities to “normalize” their identities to conform to the “American” identity. We are seeing a shift from this deceiving preconception of what it means to be an American in many classrooms with the attempt to allow students to explore their cultures through narratives, yet still we see traces of the past colonialism seeping into their writing practices. Cultural literacy is the key to how we should change this harmful ideology but like Villanueva says, “It’s just that the way has not quite been found,” (997).
Perhaps an approach we can take together as writing teachers to rethink writing pedagogy to be inclusive of cultural differences and to build a beautiful, cohesive salad is to take the advice of Ann Berthoff. In “Learning the Uses of Chaos” (1980), she wrote, “I believe we can best teach the composing process by conceiving of it as a continuum of making meaning, by seeing writing as analogous to all those processes by which we make sense of the world,” (Berthoff 648). We view the world and what happens through the lens of our identity and what has shaped us. Thus colonialism and culture are major parts of how we compose. By forcing students to write using old methodologies that do not allow for personal interpretation and prescribe a set formulaic approach to composing, we are not allowing them to objectively see the world and make sense of it using the tools that they need to actually understand. We are shaped by our culture and the underlying ideologies associated with that culture, and so by not allowing our students to make meaningful connections that integrate their own identities with the way they write, we are hindering their progress and ultimately placing them at a disadvantage.
Like Villanueva, I believe that we need to reevaluate how we teach writing. Berthoff proposes that we engage with chaos. She views chaos as a necessary tool to viewing the world and the writing process because “it creates the need for [...]dialogue,” (Berthoff 650). I think a potential application of her idea of chaos could be an answer, or the kernel of a solution, to how we need to respond to the cultural aspect of composition.
By asking questions in our classrooms that engage in meaningful dialogue between students we can foster a better understanding of where composition instruction needs to go in the future to better acknowledge culture and individual perspective. Personally, I think a good step in finding the solution is to ask questions of our students like those proposed by Berthoff. For example, asking our students “How does it change the meaning if I put it this way?” (Berthoff 650) when they are revising their writing. It is not a solution in and of itself, but rather I think it will yield conversations that will help us, as teachers, work together to find a solution and build an inclusive, cohesive community of writers - a salad bowl if you will. The students will engage in critical thinking that will push the borders of their constricted writing practices to question alternative points of view. In essence, this is what we need to do as writing teachers as well because “the classroom is where theory and practice intersect,” (Rutten and Soetaert).
Works Cited
Berthoff, Ann. “Learning the Uses of Chaos.” The Norton Book of Composition Studies. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980. 647-651. Print.
Rutten, Kris and Ronald Soetaert. “Rhetoric, Citizenship, and Cultural Literacy.” CLCWeb:
Comparative Literature and Culture 15.3 (2013). Web. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2242&context=clcweb
Villanueva Jr., Victor. “Maybe a Colony: And Still Another Critique of the Comp Community.” The Norton Book of Composition Studies. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. 991-998. Print.
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