Freshman Composition as a Middle-Class Enterprise

Bloom, Lynn Z.

doi:10.2307/378392

Cited by 32 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Lester Faigley (1992) shows how instructors often elicit from students and reward them for producing personal narratives that display a reflective middle-class perspective, one that "asks for a construction of experience in a particular dramatic form" and that "requires the capacity to identify critical disjunctive moments that trigger self-reflective growth" (p. 121). And Lynn Bloom (1996) argues that critical thinking is a middle-class value. Likewise, Ryden's (2002) research shows that "trends in process writing pedagogies have lent themselves to the adaptation of a form that celebrates an evolving, reflective, public private self" (p. 87).…”

Section: Chapter Four Social Class Biases In the Literacy Narrative Amentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That students invoke this cultural master narrative that literacy equals success comes as no surprise. Such a notion has been around in our culture since the founding of the United States and is propagated through the autobiographical writing of people from diverse classes, including Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Richard Rodriguez, and Maxine Hong Kingston (Bloom, 1996). The literacy-equals-success/upward mobility story typically "depict[s] immigrants, ethnic and racial minorities, poor and working-class youth rising in status, income, reputation, and self-esteem through the practice of these middle-class virtues" (Bloom,p.…”

Section: Chapter Four Social Class Biases In the Literacy Narrative Amentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, instructors are likely to read student narratives with a moralizing tendency (Bloom, 1996;Newkirk, 1997;Ryden, 2002), inclined to, according to Judith Summerfield (1996) asking them for a definition, but by seeing how they respond to reflection when they observe it in student texts. Making sure that students understand our goals and our definitions of reflection will help ensure that unstated criteria are revealed to students.…”

Section: Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Why would they want to critique this middle-class perspective in the same schooling context where the ideals and values were originally taught and promoted? Lynn Bloom (1996) argues that stories that equate literacy with success "embody what American education has historically been dedicated to-not putting the 'finishing' veneer on an elite class, but enabling the transformation and mobility of lives across boundaries, from the margins to the mainstreams of success and assimilation on middle-class terms" (p. 668). In a society in which working-class students begin at a disadvantage, this notion that learning literacy will bring success carries a powerful punch.…”

Section: Chapter Four Social Class Biases In the Literacy Narrative Amentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instructors tend to read student narratives with a moralizing tendency 18 (Bloom, 1996;Newkirk, 1997;Ryden, 2002), or as Judith Summerfield (1996) puts it, we tend to "conflate text with life" (p.158). Thus, when we read narratives of upward mobility, or any narrative for that matter, we do not necessarily remember that students are performing these narratives and their selves in the process (Newkirk, 1997).…”

Section: Chapter Four Social Class Biases In the Literacy Narrative Amentioning

confidence: 99%

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Implicit response : instructor values and social class in the literacy narrative assignment.

Alexander

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I offer special thanks to my students. The joy I find in teaching comes from the fact that teaching at its best is a dialectical activity-the learning always flows both ways.Thanks to the students I taught at Abilene Christian University, the University of demonstrates that the focus of instructor assignments on description and other narrative elements is perhaps misdirected. Two other features also carried cultural capital with instructors but to a lesser extent than argumentative moves: literary elements, including vivid description and metaphoric language, and appeals to shared values. Instructors were more likely to flesh out the connections for students when value-appeals were present, vii particularly ones that promote middle-class perspectives. This finding is problematic because students from more privileged socioeconomic and educational backgrounds seemed more able to invoke these shared values, which thus suggests that working-class students' texts were seen as less reflective, and hence, were less successful in fulfilling the goals of the assignment. These results lend some empirical support to claims that the literacy narrative assignment reinforces middle-class perspectives; as such, it may not be as beneficial for marginalized groups of students as advocates of personal writing have asserted. This research suggests educators should be more aware of class assumptions that may influence how they respond to student writing.I conclude by presenting recommendations on how writing instructors can more effectively teach literacy narratives, including more clearly articulating their goals for the assignment and how they will assess these goals in student writing. By emphasizing what instructors really want, both high school and college writing instructors can make writing assignments more equitable and begin to defend against their own social-class biases in the classroom.

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Section: Chapter Four Social Class Biases In the Literacy Narrative Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Chapter Four Social Class Biases In the Literacy Narrative Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Goalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Chapter Four Social Class Biases In the Literacy Narrative Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Chapter Four Social Class Biases In the Literacy Narrative Amentioning

confidence: 99%

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Implicit response : instructor values and social class in the literacy narrative assignment.

Alexander

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Pedagogy of Validation: Autobiographical Reading and Writing Courses for First-Year, Low-Income Students

2021

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Valuing the Resources of Infrastructure: Beyond From-Scratch and Off-the-Shelf Technology Options for Electronic Portfolio Assessment in First-Year Writing

Dunn¹,

Luke²,

Nassar³

2013

Computers and Composition

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Freshman Composition as a Middle-Class Enterprise

Cited by 32 publications

References 14 publications

Implicit response : instructor values and social class in the literacy narrative assignment.

Implicit response : instructor values and social class in the literacy narrative assignment.

Pedagogy of Validation: Autobiographical Reading and Writing Courses for First-Year, Low-Income Students

Valuing the Resources of Infrastructure: Beyond From-Scratch and Off-the-Shelf Technology Options for Electronic Portfolio Assessment in First-Year Writing

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