Activist Teaching and Research
The largely general conversation surrounding issues of cultural, social, and gendered individuality that various essays in Under Construction: Working at the Intersections of Composition Theory, Research, and Practice have been concerned with, specifically the ways in which these questions of the construction of identity have real implications within the academy and the writing classroom, seems to be grounded in a more specific and practical context in Gail Y. Okawa’s essay “Coming (in)to Consciousness: One Asian American Teacher’s Journey into Activist Teaching and Research”. Okawa’s essay seems to have actual suggestions for pedagogical awareness and approaches for teaching writing to students with backgrounds that differ from the more “mainstream” university population. This essay was particularly interesting in that we very rarely get to hear contributions to this kind of conversation, concerning sensitivity to student individuality in the composition classroom, from a scholar who is actually a self proclaimed “teacher of color” (283). I doubt that the notion of using teaching as a platform for “activism” is something that is readily considered in discussions of critical composition pedagogies, or in considerations concerning research, so her take on the issue creates an interestingly new direction for thinking about implications for the writing classroom.
Relevant to this notion that Okawa develops about activist teaching is her discussion of the effectiveness of autobiographical narrative as a writing medium (282). She says of this specific medium, “I believe such writing provides a means of resistance to the isolation and objectification typical of the academy. As a way of accessing subjective knowledge and experience while simultaneously becoming the representation of that knowledge and experience, teacher narrative has the potential for both personal and social value” (282). Interestingly, the importance of student background has expanded to include the importance of the background and experiences of the teacher in the composition classroom. Rarely have I read composition theory written in the style of an autobiography. It is usually expected that critical scholarship will be presented in the scholastic prose style typical of conferences and journals. The revisiting of the autobiographical medium is, I think, a very interesting aspect of Okawa’s essay; and allows for expanded definitions of what “good” writing can be.
