John,

 

You raise a difficult issue.  Clearly I have a stance, and it’s as necessary and fair to contest its foundations as those of people I with different stances.  The issue, however, is not whether all stances should be contested but how a stance holds up under such examination.  I empathize with my son’s friend because I come from a similar family background, conservative Lutheran rather than Southern Baptist, but both share a strong commitment to 19^th c. biblical literalism.  It took me years of sometimes agonizing thinking to reach a point where I could reconcile my faith with my experience and knowledge, and it required careful exploration and analysis of foundational beliefs.  It has also separated me somewhat from some of my siblings who hold to the stances we grew up with.  So I know both the need to examine and the difficulty and sometimes pain of the experience we are asking our students to undertake.

 

I do hold, however, that an examined stance, one that has developed through critical evaluation, has greater validity than one that has not been examined.  What I am saying is that not all stances are equal, just as not all opinions are equal.  I understand and even respect my son’s friend’s stance, or that of some of my siblings, and certainly acknowledge their right to maintain those stances.  I understand also that those stances form a foundation for moral, ethical, and positive lives.  That’s in part why leading students through such an examination is a serious, troubling, disruptive endeavor—and necessary for their growth.

 

Herb

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Chorazy
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 10:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Holding their interest

 

Herb - it seems your "suggestion" to your son about his friend suggests just as much about your stance(s), and at the same time assumes quite a bit.

 

A good class - be it a Lit or writing class - is a place to explore, discover, define, redefine, and analyze one's identity as well as that of texts and their authors and societies... as long as that process is encouraged for all students of all stances - not just for those who need it more because they hold supposed anti-intellectual positions.

 

Respectfully,

 

John

 

On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 4:37 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Thanks to all of you for one of the most interesting and thoughtfully argued threads we’ve had in a while.

 

I have a question that may be tangential to this topic, or at least a narrower focus.  I should say first that while I have taught both ESL writing and Freshman writing, I am not a writing teacher, and threads like this always leave me with a lot of respect for those who perform these tasks and perform them well.

 

When I’ve taught writing, I’ve often been encouraged to avoid topics like abortion and creationism vs. evolution because it’s so difficult for student writers to separate themselves from the issues and from the social consequences of taking a position.  As an example of this, I had dinner with my oldest son last night, and we got to talking about a good friend of his at work.  She is well educated, well read, and has thoughtful views on a lot of topics.  Evolution came up recently in one of their conversations, and her response was, “Oh, I don’t believe in evolution.  The evidence for it is not very strong.”  My son was surprised at her reaction.  She comes from a Southern Baptist background but is no longer connected to that or any other denomination, so her reasons for rejecting evolution, and she confirms this, are not religious.  I suggested to him that perhaps the reason for her position was a matter of social identity.  Her family and the community she grew up in are devout and accept the biblical creation story literally.  Rejecting evolution is a matter of family identity.  She can become a backslid Baptist, and that’s lamentable, but for her to accept evolution would be to reject her family.

 

In a case like this, a position on evolution or creation or abortion is not an intellectual stance; it’s a matter of cultural and social identity, and that makes it very hard to think critically about it.  I’ve found in UG classes where we deal with dialectology the notion “social class” sometimes gets rejected out of hand as Marxist, and no amount of discussion will shake that position.  This is also one of those defining stances.

 

Is a writing class the place to get students to question such elements of their identity and look at themselves more critically?  How does one go about this?

 

Herb

 

 

--

John Chorazy

English III Honors and Academic

Pequannock Township High School

973.616.6000

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