RSA 2012

This is the paper I delivered at this year’s RSA conference in Philly. It is largely influenced by the article I wrote for Praxis.

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“Disability and the Multiliteracy Center: Reframing the Rhetorical Space of the Writing Center”

If you’ve worked in, visited, or even heard about writing centers, you can likely imagine the typical writing center space: often located in a basement, often a bit too small. If well funded, there are a few computers or even an entire lab. There are tables and chairs, clustered to create conversation spaces. The arrangement often reflects the standard model: talk. Consultant and student discuss the students’ concerns and goals, one of them reads the student’s text aloud, then they discuss the text together. This is standard practice, but two factors complicate this model: disability and multiliteracy.

Spaces that privilege the read-aloud model also privilege the able-bodied student—a student who speaks and hears, who can sit and focus for 30- or 60-minute sessions, who learns best through dialogue. In the early 2000s, the New London Group recognized and articulated multiliteracies as an opportunity to move beyond the limitations of print- and word-based literacies, to value other modes of communication, such as the visual, aural, gestural, spatial, and multimodal (28). Kress argues that these modes are embodied, that “[h]uman bodies have a wide range of means of engagement with the world” that occur in various and multiple ways. Writing centers that support these multimodalities are reframed as multiliteracy centers, spaces that David Sheridan argues…

• are equal to the diversity of semiotic options composers have in the 21st century;
• are staffed by consultants who have the rhetorical, pedagogical, and technical capacities to support this diversity; and
• facilitate the competent and critically reflective use of technologies and other material, institutional, and cultural resources. (“Introduction” 6-7)

In 2000, John Trimbur observed that writing centers were starting to support oral presentations, online tutorials, and workshops in evaluating web resources (30). Trimbur argues that this multiliterate shift is an opportunity and “a challenge to develop more equitable social futures by redistributing the means of communication” (30). I want to emphasize these “equitable social futures” because as writing center spaces shift, it’s important to consider rhetorical implications from a disability perspective: how the physical spaces change, what social practices occur within them, and which bodies can access them. For this talk, then, I want to address the following questions: How is disability currently framed in writing center discourse? How do shifts to multiliteracy centers work to reframe disability? What role does the physical space of the multiliteracy center play in shaping both rhetorical practices and constructions of disability?

How is disability currently framed in writing center discourse?

Like the first-year composition classroom, writing centers must potentially serve all university students regardless of their disciplines, expertise, or abilities. As the number of students with disabilities increase, whether their disabilities are (un)documented or (in)visible, writing centers must be better prepared to serve them. Writing centers haven’t historically supported students with disabilities, despite emphases on individualized instruction, alternative pedagogies, and creating inclusive spaces where students feel comfortable. Indeed, students with disabilities are often treated differently within these spaces. This rhetorical construction of disability as Other can be seen most clearly in writing center scholarship.

The two main models of disability are the medical and the social. The medical model defines disability in terms of individual deficit that requires some sort of rehabilitation (Little). Within writing center discourse, this often coincides with a “remediation” model of tutoring that constructs students with disabilities as individuals who need “cured” of their bad writing. Often, the medical model manifests in notions that students with disabilities cannot be served—or remediated—within these spaces, that they are somehow beyond the expertise or qualifications of tutors. This can be seen in the scholarship from the mid-1980s, such as “How Do Others Deal with Such Special People?” and “Understanding the Dyslexic Writer,” and from the 1990s, such as “Apprenticed to Failure: Learning from the Students We Can’t Help.” Such scholarship constructs disability as something that cannot be addressed within the writing center, what Tanya Titchkosky calls a “you can’t accommodate everybody” attitude that sees particular bodies as “‘naturally’ a problem for some spaces” (35). Generally, though, few current writing center conversations situate disability this clearly into a medical model.

This could suggest a social turn. The social model defines disability as a “social construction in which disability results from the interaction of impairment and the social, political, spatial, architectural and cultural environment” (Little). Yet despite the great work done by writing center scholars such as Jean Kiedaisch & Sue Dinitz about universal design, and Rebecca Day Babcock’s careful qualitative work with deaf students, writing center conversations are not quite at this social level. Many still retain remnants of the medical model through a focus on individual deficit. Heavily influenced by Shannon Walter’s articulation of an “impairment-specific” model that targets particular disabilities and creates particular solutions (429), I see writing centers operating within an accommodation model—a well intentioned approach to disability that seeks to meet students’ needs yet still rhetorically constructs disability as something different that is particular to individual students rather than to writing spaces and practices.

A classic example of the accommodation model is Julie Neff’s anthologized essay, “Learning Disabilities and the Writing Center,” a resource used by both directors and tutors. Here, Neff writes, “Although learning-disabled students come to the writing center with a variety of special needs, they have one thing in common: they need more specific help than other students” (382). This specific help comes in the form of treating students with LD as “the intelligent, resourceful persons they are” (382) yet asking them “seemingly obvious” and “simple” questions (385) to trigger ideas. This cues tutors that they need to treat students with disabilities differently from “normal” learners. This is emphasized by the fact that the essay begins with a medical discussion of the causes of LD and a translation of medical knowledge to proposed practice. Though Neff is well intentioned, convinced that writing centers can meet the needs of students with disabilities, she relies on medical discourse and stereotypes to support that point.

This historical framing of scholarship speaks to larger representations and conversations, showing how the WC community values (or doesn’t) disability. What the overview shows—that conversations are largely focused on targeting and accommodating particular disabilities rather than changing systemic practices—is as important as what’s left unsaid. Absent in these discussions about disability is the role of space. Nathalie Singh-Corcoran and Amin Emika write that “No conversation is more pervasive [in WC discourse] than writing center space: where a center is located, what a center should look like, what a center should feel like, what should happen in the space, and what should be the uses of the space.” Yet, conversations about disability and space don’t intersect. There’s a lack of discourse of how space functions rhetorically to grant or deny access to particular bodies, how space accommodates needs, and how space is deeply interconnected with accessible practices.

How do shifts to multiliteracy centers work to reframe disability, and how do these new spaces shape both rhetorical practices and constructions of disability?

A writing center, or a multiliteracy center, is a social space. Henri Lefebvre proposes a useful spatial theory for thinking about this space—a conceptual triad consisting of spatial practice (or perceived space), representations of space (or conceptualized space), and representational space (or lived space). This triad is important not only for understanding how space and practice are connected, but also for thinking about disability’s construction within the space. For example, if the writing center is conceived as a space that values able-bodied practices, then students with disabilities will be perceived as radically different from other students and will be represented differently, Othered. If, however, a multiliteracy center is conceived as a space intended to support a diverse range of composing and learning needs, and all students are perceived as having a variety of abilities, then students with disabilities will be represented within the larger context of twenty-first-century learners with diverse needs.

Let’s return to that original image of a writing center: a one-room center with chairs and tables clustered to support talk, to support able bodies and able-bodied forms of communication. What happens to this social space when it becomes a multiliteracy center? James Inman argues that multiliteracy spaces must be inclusive to print, oral, audio, video, and webtext composing and multiple interactions with texts (24). At the end of his chapter on space, Inman turns to disability, writing, “A final, but vital, consideration should be the accessibility of any zoned space for individuals with disabilities. In this pursuit, the idea is not just to make spaces minimally accessible, but instead to consider how the disabled may be able to most fully participate in the uses for which the spaces were designed” (Inman 27). Here, Inman conceives of disability as integral to spatial considerations, yet the brief mention at the end of the chapter represents disability as a rhetorical afterthought instead of a leading concern of spatial equality.

Syracuse University Writing Center, individual cubicles in the front room

Spatial equality necessitates a removal of features that could disable users from interacting within that space. Bertram Bruce and Maureen Hogan note that physical environments construct disability because, as tools, technologies, and practices become naturalized, people who cannot use them are represented as disabled (297). This aligns with Lefebvre’s theory. If we think of chairs as a natural part of the writing center environment, then they disable students who are unable to use them (Hitt 3). Similarly, Cathy Davidson argues that we are more likely to label a student as LD if she is unresponsive to our dominant pedagogical practices (10). If we think of talk and the read-aloud model as standard practices, then, students who don’t engage with them are disabled. The shift toward multiliteracy centers presents an opportunity to place disability and space in conversation and to more fully consider what accessible spaces look like.

When a multiliteracy center creates spaces for different composing practices, it becomes more accessible to students with disabilities and to a wide range of diverse learners and composers. Multiple and flexible spaces create more possibilities for all students. For example…

• Cubicles designed for small group work could also benefit students with ADD who may be distracted in larger settings or students with autism-spectrum disorders who may prefer to be in less populated spaces.
• Computers stations benefit students working on multimodal projects while also benefiting students who use or prefer technologies to communicate.
• Spaces with manipulatives that students can physically arrange encourage brainstorming, aiding kinesthetic learners or students who need to move or play to stay focused.
• Whiteboards and areas where students can storyboard can also help students brainstorm and visually map their ideas, which can be useful for visual learners and students with LD who may struggle with writing and need an opportunity to visually develop and connect their ideas.
• Finally, spaces with mobile furniture to encourage collaborative work can be useful for students with physical disabilities who may have difficulty navigating a center where the furniture is grounded and grouped closer together.

Syracuse University Writing Center, main room with tables for consulting, computer stations, and chairs arranged for collaborative work

What does this mean for our one-room writing center with tables and chairs? A shift in space that better conceives of different learning and composing needs. For some centers, this means a total redesign to support multiple rooms and new technologies. As Sheridan reminds us, though, sometimes a center doesn’t have the funds, resources, or space to build a center from scratch, and it’s important to recognize that a center doesn’t need to change completely to implement accessible practices (Hitt 3). What makes a multiliteracy center accessible is not necessarily the space, but a dialogue between space and practice.

Conclusion

Lefebvre reminds us that the physical spaces we inhabit affect our actions within those spaces; in turn, our actions and social practices impact those spaces. When we talk about practice, then, we should also be talking about space. And when we talk about either of these, we should be talking about accessibility. Just because a multiliteracy center has multiple rooms and resources and supports multiple and flexible practices does not mean that the center will be accessible to all students. Even within these spaces, explicit conversations about disability are necessary to ensure that the needs of all students are met. Such conversations must move away from historical and current conversations about disability that target particular disabilities, identifying characteristics and assuming that students with disabilities are a homogenous group that must be treated a particular way. Instead, multiliteracy encourages us to think more inclusively about students’ learning and composing needs, to recognize that all students can benefit from engaging with texts in different ways in different contexts. All students have a variety of rhetorical, intellectual, and physical abilities, and multiliteracy centers must be ready to adapt not only their physical spaces and practices, but also the way they construct disability and the needs of all learners (Hitt 6).

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Works cited info is available upon request.

 

Computers & Writing 2012

This is the paper I delivered at this year’s C&W conference at NCSU.

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“Unlearning Accommodation: Universal Design for Learning and Multimodal Pedagogies”

Disability diagnoses are steadily rising. According to the CDC, one in six children has a developmental disability, such as autism, ADD/ADHD, cerebral palsy, or an intellectual disability (Boyle et al.). And in her 2010 report, “Accommodating College Students with Learning Disabilities,” Melana Zyla Vickers claims that 2% of college students have a documented learning disability, which doesn’t include students with intellectual disabilities, autism, or other severe diagnoses (3). Of course, this also excludes undocumented disabilities. It is estimated that only half of college students report their disabilities, and many forego accommodations for fear that they will be treated differently by their instructors and peers (Walters 427). These numbers have significant implications for the composition classrooms that must serve all university students regardless of their disciplines, expertise, or abilities.

At the same time, these numbers may not be particularly significant other than to indicate what Cathy Davidson argues is an increase in labels. We are more likely to label a student as learning disabled (LD) if she doesn’t fit into our educational system or doesn’t respond to our pedagogical practices (10). Davidson asks, “What if bad writing is a product of the form of writing required in school—the term paper—and not necessarily intrinsic to a student’s natural writing style or thought process?” (101). This question points to an interesting tension: What if our writing pedagogies, and not our students, are at fault? What if, instead of limiting our classroom practices and providing accommodations for students who can’t succeed within those limitations, we create more accessible writing pedagogies? Can a multimodal pedagogy ensure this accessibility?

In many ways, a multimodal pedagogy supports accessible practices through its attention to multiplicity in various modes and media and in its focus on flexibility in processes and products. Disability studies also offers a valuable lens for supporting pedagogical accessibility: Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Adapted from Universal Design (UD), the idea that all spaces must be physically accessible to all people, UDL focuses on creating equitable and flexible pedagogies for all learners. I offer UDL as an opportunity to include disability as a critical modality and to unlearn current notions of disability and accommodation, which position disability as an individual issue, ignoring larger pedagogical inaccessibility. UDL offers a framework for identifying such inaccessible practices and crafting multimodal pedagogies that do more than offer a retrofitted model of accommodation.

Unlearning Accommodation

Jay Dolmage writes, “For all students to have access to those things composition has to offer—literate ‘skills,’ a voice, the words to write the world—we must ensure that disability is recognized and respected” (15, emphasis added). Others, too, have called for recognizing dis/ability as an academic inquiry. Brenda Jo Brueggemann argues that comp classrooms have a “long, proud history of making the invisible visible and of examining how language both reflects and supports notions of Other” (370). James Wilson and Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson argue that disability is both a social construction and a critical modality (301), arguing for including not just disability but also disability studies. As writing instructors, we work to develop students’ critical thinking and writing, and according to Margaret Price, pedagogies that incorporate DS are necessarily critical because the DS discipline is founded on the critique of social and political assumptions (57). Incorporating Disability Studies into our multimodal pedagogies is a step toward increasing accessibility and respecting disability.

Respecting disability requires moving away from the ideas that disability is a student deficit and that university-sanctioned accommodations are the only support for students with disabilities. These notions position students as subjects who must be “cured” of their individual deficits in order to succeed within our classrooms. Linda White argues that this understanding of disability as an individualized issue allows education systems to frame disability as an “unexpected” failure that doesn’t require systemic change (726). While accommodations are important for providing students with academic support, the accommodation process emphasizes disability as something that students must take responsibility to support.

• First, the student must self-disclose, pay for a diagnosis, and follow up with documentation.
• Then, an administrator or committee decides whether she qualifies for services.
• If so, a coordinator meets with the student to discuss and determine services.
• The office then sends the student’s relevant professor(s) a note for accommodations needed on a certain day or certain period of time.

Even if a student successfully acquires accommodations, Kimber Barber Fendley and Chris Hamel remind us that accommodations rarely apply to writing classes:

1. Accommodations attend predominantly to product-based changes.
2. They are top-down policies that are the same nationwide, which means they often can’t take particular student needs into consideration.
3. They do not explicitly support the work promoted within comp classrooms.
4. And, as mentioned, accommodations require student-initiated change—emphasizing the idea that disability is an individual matter. (528-29)

Then, there is the reminder that most college students don’t request accommodations, so many students don’t even have this basic level of support.

The question remains: How can we meet the needs of all students without relying solely on accommodations for some? Linda White argues that including DS in our pedagogical considerations, in crafting assignments and assessments, can allow us to examine “whether teaching practices that require accommodations are really necessary” (728). Not without its own faults, I offer UDL as an opportunity to include DS in our pedagogies. UDL does not replace accommodations because, even in a universally designed class, some students will need more specific support. However, a multimodal pedagogy that applies the principles of UDL better recognizes and supports students’ different physical abilities, types of knowledge, and modes of learning. Then when students do request accommodations, it’s not an Othering process because a universally designed class acknowledges the different learning and composing needs of all students.

The Three Principles of UDL

The National Center of UDL’s website states, “UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone—not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs” (CAST). Such curricular practices are equally important overlaps to multimodal writing pedagogies. For the rest of this talk, I want to focus on these overlaps between UDL’s three principles—multiple means of representation, action and expression, and engagement—and three multimodal practices: teaching, composing, and learning.

Principle 1: Multiple Means of Representation via cast.org

The first principle of UDL is Multiple Means of Representation, which is useful for thinking about teaching and how we share information with students. The guidelines for this first principle are 1) to provide options for perception, 2) to provide options for language, mathematic expressions, and symbols; and 3) to provide options for comprehension. Here I see perception and comprehension as very interconnected concepts that we can apply to the multimodal classroom.

To reduce barriers to learning, it’s important to provide the same information through different modalities. Even in a multimodal classroom, it’s easy to default to talking as the major mode of communication. Students can perceive the same information in a number of different ways, and it can be useful both to share those perceptions and to switch up the privileged modality. One way to do this is a class blog where different students take notes and post them on the blog in whatever mode they think is most useful—textual, visual, etc. This provides students with the opportunity to perceive the information differently while also aiding in comprehension. The CAST website states, “The purpose of education is not to make information accessible, but rather to teach learners how to transform accessible information into useable knowledge.” Our practices are inaccessible if students can’t take that information and usefully apply it. Providing time to supply background knowledge and to demonstrate or model new modes is important for ensuring that all students have equal opportunities to create knowledge with the information we share.

Principle 2: Multiple Means of Action & Expression via cast.org

The second principle, Multiple Means of Action and Expression, emphasizes this creation of knowledge through students’ composing processes. Multiple means of action and expression include 1) providing options for physical action, 2) providing options for expression and communication, and 3) providing options for executive functions. This principle links directly to the work that happens within multimodal composition classrooms, and it provides an opportunity to reflect on what exactly we mean when we say “multimodal.”

Pedagogies that encourage the use of technology to compose and learn create opportunities for students who don’t engage with traditional teaching and composing practices, but they also exclude students who don’t have the tech savvy to think rhetorically about how to use technology to create meaning. They also exclude students who may benefit from physical engagement. Because of this, it’s important to remember that multimodal pedagogies do not necessitate digital tools and media, even though both multimodality and UDL often rely on technology. Jody Shipka, for example, has argued for a broader understanding of multimodality that includes print and digital texts, performances, photographs, and intact or repurposed objects (300). This understanding is more accessible: if students want to compose essays, collages, videos, or webtexts, these all fit within the framework of multimodal pedagogies.

This broadening of multimodality emphasizes that we cannot just simply shift from one mode to another. Sometimes, multimodal pedagogies replace alphabetic print and textual practices with a particular modality, such as sound or visuals. I worry, though, that such one-to-one replacements are not truly multimodal or accessible. CAST warns against offering only one mode or media because “it is important for all learners to learn composition, not just writing, and to learn the optimal medium for any particular content of expression and audience.” Allowing students to choose from a wide range of modalities—rather than delineating one—provides more options for students who may not have access to particular modalities. It also allows students to develop a wider range of expression and to make more informed decisions about using particular modalities in particular rhetorical contexts.

Principle 3: Multiple Means of Engagement via cast.org

This development of critical skills leads to UDL’s third and final principle: Multiple Means of Engagement, which connects to students’ different approaches to learning and processing information. This last principle’s guidelines are 1) to provide options for recruiting interest, 2) options for sustaining effort and persistence, and 3) options for self-regulation. Interest, in particular, can teach us a lot about unlearning perceptions of disability, and I return to Davidson who claims that students are failing because school doesn’t interest them. As an example, she cites ADD: “ADD almost never applies to all activities, only those in which the child is not interested. This isn’t a disability (a fixed biological or cognitive condition) but a disposition (susceptible to change depending on the environment). Keep the kids interested and ADD goes away” (80). This echoes the idea that students are labeled as failures or as LD if they don’t respond to our pedagogies. We live in a world with multiple modes—digital, non-digital, and always embodied—and our pedagogies must reflect that if we want to engage students.

Multimodality can help to increase interest by supporting students’ values in both individual and collaborative contexts. Students can often pursue their own topics in comp courses, but, as I’m sure we all know, that isn’t always enough to sustain interest. Multimodality adds an extra element to interest, encouraging autonomy and value through choices in mode and media. If a student has personal interests in music, she can focus on music as a content inquiry and make a music video or recording for her project. When students’ values are supported and students are given responsibility for their own learning, they can learn more about the rhetorical choices of processes and methodologies, technologies and materials, and how product(s) will be delivered and received by an audience (Shipka 287).

Finally, supporting students’ values allows us to better support differences. Here, I think again of Davidson and “collaboration by difference,” which entails a level of unlearning, of seeing opportunities for collaboration when others may see shortcomings of difference. Davidson writes, “Collaboration by difference respects and rewards different forms and levels of expertise, perspective, culture, age, ability, and insight, treating difference not as a deficit but as a point of distinction” (100). Positioning difference as deficit risks students’ disengagement from the class. Collaboration by difference, however, recognizes that all students have particular strengths and expertise that add value to their group and, ultimately, to the class.

UDL and multimodality have a lot of intersectional value. I see UDL’s potential for incorporating Disability Studies into the composition classroom, not only as a critical modality, but as a way to recognize that all students have particular abilities and needs. I see opportunities for extending the great work that many multimodal composition instructors already do to further reduce learning barriers. Finally, I see potential for beginning to unlearn some of the limitations of accommodation—not the good work that accommodations do to support students—but the constraints that accommodation policies place on this support and the individual stigma that they often associate to disability.

 

The Accessible University: Applying UD and UDL to Writing Environments

For my dis/ability class, we were asked to create personal philosophy statements that incorporate concepts from the class readings with our ideas about inclusive education. Because I’m not a K-12 instructor like most of the people in the class, I decided to frame my response in terms of accessibility and thought I would share the highlights of that response here:

• When we talk about education, we must account for both classroom spaces and flexible pedagogical practices, denormalizing our ideas not only about students but also about teaching, learning, and composing practices.

• First-year composition curricula and writing centers would benefit from adopting principles of Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning to create the most accessible learning environments possible.

• Universal Design (UD) is a spatial theory that emphasizes the importance for all spaces to be as accessible for the widest range of people possible, regardless of bodily differences.

• Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a way to apply equitable and flexible curricular principles to writing pedagogies. UDL’s principles—multiple means of representation, of actions and expression, of engagement—necessitate writing practices that provide students with more opportunities for learning.
  

  "Universal Design": http://ecobrooklyn.com/green-contracting-universal-design/

• Writing centers are historically spaces with flexible practices—e.g. a tutor and student can interact with texts by reading them aloud and discussing them, by drafting outlines or revision strategies by hand or on the computer, or by looking up resources in books and online. These multimodal practices are great for giving students multiple means to learn and compose, but they privilege highly individualized instruction.

• Applying UDL to writing center pedagogies asks tutors “not to think of how they might adapt their tutoring for students with disabilities” because “all students come to sessions with a variety of differences” (Kiedaisch & Dinitz 50).

• Because first-year composition courses and writing centers must potentially serve all students in the university, these spaces must as accessible to the widest range of students as possible.

• For instruction, this means providing information in multiple modes—through spoken word, handout, group work, and electronic presentations. We must also create flexible assignments that allow students to compose projects that are most useful for them; for example, I can create assignment goals—e.g. exploring a central thesis statement and integrating research—while being flexible about how students apply these concepts. A final project, for example, could be a research paper, website, extended blog or social media project, visual collage, or photographic essay. The key is to create a flexible curricular base that allows students to choose the medium that works best for them.

 

Skype Interview with Adam Banks

Adam Banks is a really smooth speaker, and we had a great discussion about community work, critically discussing race in the classroom, integrating useful technological practices, and how to make class spaces accessible.

Here are some quick highlights:

I see my main responsibility as helping my students to claim roles for themselves as intellectuals. To see themselves as doing intellectual work right here right now, not waiting until someone busts them with a piece of parchment, or a degree, that they can only access those conversations once they’ve graduated, but to take the responsibility that intellectual work requires now.

This says a lot about both Banks’ role as an instructor and as a community leader. As someone who does community work and values the intersections between academic and activist work, Banks’ emphasis on his students as intellectuals is very telling for how he sees them as agents of change.

We get the sense that access means we embrace everything. NO. We have to consciously ask the question, “What makes sense and why?”

In response to how he tries to use technology to create the “transformative access” promoted in Race, Rhetoric, and Technologies, Banks told us that the main point to remember with bringing technology into the classroom is that we have to think critically about those choices. That is, we can’t just bring in technology because something’s shiny and new; it has to be relevant and useful for students.

These different language varieties are strengths rather than something that somehow has to be accounted for, dealt with, something that’s just a challenge.

One of the texts we have discussed throughout this course is Students’ Rights to Their Own Language. Banks spoke against taking a viewpoint that encourages students to embrace their own voices throughout the writing process yet penalizes them on the final drafts. He argued that we are not in charge of employing a “linguistic poll tax”; rather, we are in charge of teaching students how to be rhetorically agile and flexible.

If there is any area of the academy that is severely tokenized and placed into its own space, disability studies would be it.

I want to on this note because it’s part of the response to the question that I posed before: What intersections are there between African American rhetoric and the rhetorics of other students who are often cast in liminal spaces within the classroom? Banks spoke about looking at the intersections of different rhetorics as they relate to our particular interests–in his case, African American rhetorics. Banks explained his work as an attempt to move black rhetorical traditions away from the tokenized inclusion where they usually fall, which is where he saw the connection with dis/ability.

We covered a lot of ground with this discussion, and speaking with Banks was a great experience. Next week? Jonathan Alexander!

 

Race, Rhetoric, and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground

Recently, I read Adam Banks’s Race, Rhetoric, and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground. According to Banks, this book’s project is not to answer either/or questions about technology, society’s development, and exclusion; instead, it traces the technologies used within the African American rhetorical tradition to unseat racism and exclusion based on technological practices (2). Very generally, then, this argument is one of access: access for African American to the dominant technologies of society in ways that are ethical.

Banks defines AA rhetoric as “the set of traditions of discursive practices—verbal, visual, and electronic—used by individuals and groups of African Americans toward the ends of full participation in American society on their own terms” (2-3). Here, Banks emphasizes technology and autonomy because, according to him, “technologies are the spaces and processes that determine whether any group of people is able to tell its own stories on its own terms, whether people are able to agitate and advocate for policies that advance its interests, and whether that group of people has any hope of enjoying equal social, political, and economic relations” (10). These opening points really resonated with me because I often explore access in terms of rural populations, across lines of gender, and (more recently) through the lens of dis/ability. Like others in comp/rhet, who Banks blasts for ignoring the “convergence of race a technology” (15), I have not paid due attention to these drastic inequalities.

When people first started talking about the Digital Divide, it was discussed in terms of material access. For example, rural populations didn’t have access to internet technologies. Neither did poor urban populations nor minority populations. White middle- to upper-class males were most privileged to this access. Since the early 2000s, studies have been published that have noted a balance in terms of gender and many other inequalities. However, as Banks notes, material access is only a single facet of a wider access:

The problem with the Digital Divide as a concept for addressing systematic differences in access to digital technologies is that it came to signify mere material access to computers and the Internet, and failed to hold anyone responsible for creating even the narrow material conditions it prescribed. 41

Banks breaks access into five separate parts: material, functional, experiential, critical, and transformative.

• Material access: “equality in the material conditions that drive technology use or nonuse” (41);
• Functional access: “knowledge and skills necessary to use technological tools effectively” (41);
• Experiential access: “access that makes the tools a relevant part of [the users’] lives” (42);
• Critical access: “understandings of the benefits and problems of any technology well enough to be able to critique, resist, and avoid them when necessary as well as using them when necessary” (42);
• Transformative access: “genuine inclusion in technologies and the networks of power that help determine what they become, but never merely for the sake of inclusion” (45).

The material is the foundation for all other types of access, and as we progress through these different categories, we (ideally) gain privilege to the transformative access that allows us to be part of the networks of power. In order to make it there, Banks writes, “We must know how to be intelligent users, producers, and even transformers of technologies if access is to mean anything to our individual lives, the lives of our students, or those of the communities we live, work, and play in” (138).

In order to gain that ultimate access, Banks asserts that writing teachers must take the initiative to teach students how to use technology, both as writing tools and also as systems of knowledge-making. For those unfamiliar with how to do this, Banks offers steps:

• Start slowly.
• Only use technologies to meet your curricular goals.
• Let (or make) your students teach you.
• Don’t be scared of recreational uses of technologies.
• Don’t just produce customers. 139-40

I’m interested to know what intersections Banks sees between African American rhetorics and feminist or dis/ability rhetorics, and whether he sees these classroom practices as applicable to a wider range of traditionally-marginalized student populations. Luckily, he will be Skyping into our class tomorrow, and I imagine he will have much to say about his own pedagogy!

Banks, Adam J. Race, Rhetoric, and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2006. Print.