We seek to argue our own cause

In Writing Community Change, Jeffrey Grabill talks about the role writing can play for members of a community seeking changes.  It can encourage members of a community to be active participants and decision makers in their community.  However, members are excluded when they lack understanding of the laws that govern them.  This information is however kept inaccessible to the average person in part due to the language in which certain laws are written.  This means, they are also unable to write in a way that is persuasive enough for law makers.

Gabrill discusses the importance of databases for creating change, databases that include demographic information such as community population and birth records.  “If a community needs to make an argument for daycare, better prenatal care, or services and spaces based on population growth, a database like this is useful.”  He argues that members of a community should be allowed the right to view databases and use the information to their advantage.  Unfortunately, many are denied due to a lack of technical knowledge.

     

Changes in security measures make it even harder for people to access certain information.  Data collection has become private so have the production and the distribution of information.  This is done for the supposed protection of society.  The idea is that certain information must be protected because in the wrong hands, it can be catastrophic to society as a whole.  In other words, if terrorists are able to access our information, American lives can be at risk. 

The issue with privatization, is that what the public sees is limited.  Many people can be taken advantaged of and their rights can be violated without them realizing it.  That is a problem.

If the community succeeds in making its wishes known in part through writing, what it wants more off and what it wants eliminated, if it can access databases in order to make compelling and arguments based on facts, history and statistics, changes can occur.

Grabill asks if our writing programs are “concerned with producing thoughtful and effective citizens?” (15)  I would say that most believe that they are.  It is a matter of how the terms “thoughtful” and “effective” are defined by various educational institutions.  For some writing programs, students that are thoughtful and effective are those that are able to compose well written literary response essays that adhere to essay formats and grammatical standards.  However, these are not the definitions that Grabill would ascribe to.  Our writing programs are not what Gabrill believes they should be and there are many reasons for that.  When our writing programs are in colleges, there are structures at work that dictate how our classes are to be taught.  Time is a limiting factor to what can be accomplished in the classroom.  Many instructors are concerned with staying on track to fulfilling all of the requirements outlined in their syllabi.  Also for many students, courses are about getting a grade and moving on to the next one.  Furthermore, not all students would be open to a type of teaching they are not accustomed to.  That is particularly true for students that do not fit the “traditional student” model.

“What is clearly relevant is the need for a new type of civic rhetoric that enables one to work through various indirect exclusions.” (14)

This civic rhetoric is altogether possible.  To achieve what Grabill advocates for, the teaching that happens in classrooms must lead to a transformation in the lives of the students.  The readings we have been assigned in Barabara’s class, Teaching Adults in Diverse Contexts, give me hope.  We have been reading about transformative learning.  In the article “An Update on Transformational Learning” the writer, Lisa Baumgartner reports on a 4-lens approach to transformative learning.  The first lens advocates for learning that is emancipatory.  Referring to Freire, Baumgartner says that transformational learning happens when what is being learned is of importance to the learners’ lives.  When they are taught about “the larger societal structures that oppressed them,” they can be moved to action.

We can teach our students their voices matter.  I have taught many students who come into the classroom with little to no confidence.  The Literacy Review, another book assigned in Barbara’s class is a collection of student writing.  These students are in ESL and basic writing courses.  They were asked to write stories of their lives and these stories were published.  These students were taught that they have something to say and people want to listen.  In Brief Guide for Teaching Adult Learners, the authors offer practical steps to encourage autonomy in the classroom.  Autonomy can lead to empowerment.

Changes in the classroom may not be happening fast enough, but they are happening.  They will continue to take place when more and more teachers and future teachers are learn how to teach their students to understand the infrastructures that oppress them and that they are able to create the change they wish to see in their communities.