Writing critically with and from multiple, informed sources is perhaps the single, most common trademark for the kind of writing and thinking that is expected of you in the academy. However, this does NOT mean:
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that you write about things you don’t care about,
that you write as if you sound like an encyclopedia/wikipedia, that you omit your own voice and perspective, that you cannot be creative and energetic, that you must sound like the type of person who might wear wool/plaid jackets with suede patches on the elbows in order to be taken seriously, that you cannot be everything that makes up your multiple selves, that you cannot be Hip Hop, R&B, Soul, Bomba, Dancehall, Soca, Metal, Bachata, EDM, or Rock-N-Roll, that you cannot have some fun with it! |
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You do not give up who you are to be an academic writer; on the contrary, you take who are even MORE seriously. Those are the kinds of academic writers we will read in this class; those are the kinds of academic writers we are striving to become. These are models and trailblazers worth following.
One of the greatest compliments that you can receive in African American culture--- especially for artists likes cooks and musicians--- is to be someone who can put some stank on it! If we really listen and hear what this expression means, then we can arrive at some alternatives to the kinds of texts that schools usually teach and promote.
Putting some stank on your writing is not about following the rules and delivering a nice, tidy, clean product to a teacher. It is about a kind of risk-taking, full bodied-ness, and flair that you have with your craft that comes from showing your audience the fullness of our energy and person.
Now this is not to say that everyone will like your writing, but that's not your goal. When you write, you are not acting as a domestic servant who caters to everyone and makes them comfortable. Let's take the opening of this webpage--- all the stuff before the dividing line above. When I first Included those words on my syllabus, I was VERY unsupported in the place where I work. The person/people who had a problem with my words and my vibe ain't my concern though so I ain't erase or delete nuthin. I am saying what I mean and meaning what I say... I even made a video (at the above right) to go with my thoughts here despite the naysayers.
It's your time now. Write for real audiences... for real purposes and impact... and put some stank on it!
Putting some stank on your writing is not about following the rules and delivering a nice, tidy, clean product to a teacher. It is about a kind of risk-taking, full bodied-ness, and flair that you have with your craft that comes from showing your audience the fullness of our energy and person.
Now this is not to say that everyone will like your writing, but that's not your goal. When you write, you are not acting as a domestic servant who caters to everyone and makes them comfortable. Let's take the opening of this webpage--- all the stuff before the dividing line above. When I first Included those words on my syllabus, I was VERY unsupported in the place where I work. The person/people who had a problem with my words and my vibe ain't my concern though so I ain't erase or delete nuthin. I am saying what I mean and meaning what I say... I even made a video (at the above right) to go with my thoughts here despite the naysayers.
It's your time now. Write for real audiences... for real purposes and impact... and put some stank on it!
Carmen's Ph.D. advisor, John Mayher, always displayed this cartoon on his office door. It seemed too good not to share it here!
Here's a story that might drive things home a bit more. In spring 2015, I asked my (first year college) students a question I wanted to hear their thoughts on at the end of the semester: what was the best piece of writing that you did this schoolyear (in any class) and why do you call that your best? The students' answers astounded me, particularly the way in which those students most interested in social justice (and I mean social justice as a process and life commitment, not a graded school assignment) answered so fundamentally differently.
Those students who I would most call activist and conscious talked about what they learned about the world and themselves; how they had committed to social justice issues more than ever before; why they saw themselves as people who had creative and/or political agency to change the world, help their families, and/or write in a way that reached and impacted people. Some of them even wrote this final reflective essay as a letter to their mothers explaining their gratitude and respect or as a letter to a younger version of themselves explaining all that they would soon become if they could just survive that current, ugly moment. It would have brought tears to your eyes.
But then there were those others students in the "special" cohort... I was bored... and disgusted. A large number of them talked about assignments where the teacher changed every word, gave them a new research topic when the teacher did not like the topic they had selected, told them what arguments to make, corrected every single mistake, drew arrows all over their papers showing them where each new paragraph and idea should go. For these students, successful writing was when you got your paper back from the teacher and there were no markings on it. No one talked about any ideas, content, or dispositions they had learned or developed. No one even talked about writing as a process other than collecting teachers' corrections and finally receiving an A after correcting (always called "correcting," NOT revising). The crazy thing is that I have heard other professors call that kind of teaching: providing students with DETAILED FEEDBACK. That's not feedback. When someone takes over and owns YOUR ideas, that does not help you. When I told my own family about this--- family members who have never gone to college and some, not even to high school--- they were perplexed: why is it that when high school teachers give students the answers to state tests, they are arrested while college professors can tell students exactly what to say and how to say it and no one even thinks that's a form of teacher-cheating? It was a good question to me. I tell you these stories because if you are expecting a teacher to correct your writing for you, you are in the wrong class! I comment to big ideas and ideals as a reader, not microscopic language units. There will come a time when we write public/digital, edited texts where we will look at the form and the surface issues, but that won't be the entire driving force of writing in this class.
There are two kinds of teacher approaches to writing that happen most often in college classrooms: 1) the tricky examiner: when a teacher gives you an essay to write but it's really more like a quiz or an exam because the teacher just goes through it to see if you have a thesis statement and if you got the facts and information correct (a multiple choice exam would be more suitable for this exam-approach but this teacher likes to be able to say he assigns essays); 2) the hunter in the woods: when a teacher, like the one in my above example, goes hunting through your writing, guns blazing, looking for any stir or rattle that he thinks should not be there and then SHOOTS it down. Neither of these is the approach to writing in this class so make sure you understand this fact UP FRONT!
Those students who I would most call activist and conscious talked about what they learned about the world and themselves; how they had committed to social justice issues more than ever before; why they saw themselves as people who had creative and/or political agency to change the world, help their families, and/or write in a way that reached and impacted people. Some of them even wrote this final reflective essay as a letter to their mothers explaining their gratitude and respect or as a letter to a younger version of themselves explaining all that they would soon become if they could just survive that current, ugly moment. It would have brought tears to your eyes.
But then there were those others students in the "special" cohort... I was bored... and disgusted. A large number of them talked about assignments where the teacher changed every word, gave them a new research topic when the teacher did not like the topic they had selected, told them what arguments to make, corrected every single mistake, drew arrows all over their papers showing them where each new paragraph and idea should go. For these students, successful writing was when you got your paper back from the teacher and there were no markings on it. No one talked about any ideas, content, or dispositions they had learned or developed. No one even talked about writing as a process other than collecting teachers' corrections and finally receiving an A after correcting (always called "correcting," NOT revising). The crazy thing is that I have heard other professors call that kind of teaching: providing students with DETAILED FEEDBACK. That's not feedback. When someone takes over and owns YOUR ideas, that does not help you. When I told my own family about this--- family members who have never gone to college and some, not even to high school--- they were perplexed: why is it that when high school teachers give students the answers to state tests, they are arrested while college professors can tell students exactly what to say and how to say it and no one even thinks that's a form of teacher-cheating? It was a good question to me. I tell you these stories because if you are expecting a teacher to correct your writing for you, you are in the wrong class! I comment to big ideas and ideals as a reader, not microscopic language units. There will come a time when we write public/digital, edited texts where we will look at the form and the surface issues, but that won't be the entire driving force of writing in this class.
There are two kinds of teacher approaches to writing that happen most often in college classrooms: 1) the tricky examiner: when a teacher gives you an essay to write but it's really more like a quiz or an exam because the teacher just goes through it to see if you have a thesis statement and if you got the facts and information correct (a multiple choice exam would be more suitable for this exam-approach but this teacher likes to be able to say he assigns essays); 2) the hunter in the woods: when a teacher, like the one in my above example, goes hunting through your writing, guns blazing, looking for any stir or rattle that he thinks should not be there and then SHOOTS it down. Neither of these is the approach to writing in this class so make sure you understand this fact UP FRONT!
