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English 830: Teaching Composition Chapter 8 — Teaching for Social Justice

Chapter 8 Required Materials

Due July 17 Wednesday: Required Readings on Social Justice

Due July 17 Wednesday: Required Readings on Inclusion and Universal Design

Chapter 9 Class Activities

The World Needs Saving

Part 1. Journal Writing (20 minutes)

Journal Writing should matter. But so often we make it so “academic” that it becomes boring, that our students don’t care about it. The goal of today’s journal writing is to try to write something meaningful and to think about the value of aiming at that type of writing. All in the context of aiming at a larger goal of working on the problems of social justice.

  • I know. You’re not perfect. You’re just one teacher scholar, one IUP graduate student just struggling to pay your tuition bills and earn that degree.
  • But the world’s messed up. And it needs your help.
  • So close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths.
  • I want you to write about compassion. I want you to write about doing good. I want you to write about love. I want you to write about helping others.
  • Write a story about someone who really does make a difference in the world.
  • Write a story about a great day of teaching you once did.
  • Write the story of how you fell in love.
  • Write whatever comes to you, even if you’re not sure why you’re writing it.
  • Write something down that matters, so you’ll have it for later.
  • That will make the world a better place, at least for you.
  • And if we’re going to start anywhere with saving the world, that’s the place to do it.

Part 2. Small Group Discussion (20 minutes)

  • Talk about what you wrote. There has to be something worthwhile in there.

Part 3. Small Group Discussion: Is it our job to save the world? (20 minutes)

Now you’ve armed yourself with some of your important memories. That ought to help you think about the debate between Stanley Fish and Patricia Bizzel.

  • Fish says we have a responsibility to teach students how to write not to teach them moral values. Bizzel says its impossible for us to not teach our values, so instead we should openly acknowledge them.
  • From Stanley Fish’s article:
    • “My concern, however, is not with academic time management but with academic morality, and my assertion is that it is immoral for academics or for academic institutions to proclaim moral views.The reason was given long ago by a faculty committee report submitted to the president of the University of Chicago. The 1967 report declares that the university exists “only for the limited … purposes of teaching and research,” and it reasons that “since the university is a community only for those limited and distinctive purposes, it is a community which cannot take collective action on the issues of the day without endangering the conditions for its existence and effectiveness.”
  • From Patricia Bizzel’s article:
    • “It will be seen that here I refer to the third way in which composition studies “saves the world,” a way shared with every other academic discipline, namely through contact with the professor’s personality and values. On the one hand, I acknowledge that it is presumptuous of me to bring these values into the classroom, even though I cannot help doing so, and also, by the way, even though I have never found students to be so biddable and easily manipulated as the agitators against so-called political correctness seem to think they are. And on the other hand, like Fish, I believe that my values are right and true. I cannot help but believe so; why would I adhere to them otherwise? Therefore I feel a little less guilty about dragging them after me wherever I go. And I have one additional little solace, which is that I do change my mind in response to persuasion by others—students as well as colleagues can lead me to see things differently, and I can bring witnesses to prove this. So, an ideological tyrant I am not, but, I hope, a humble writing teacher who is helping her students to write better, to analyze various American rhetorics of persuasion, and to reflect—as every rhetorician must do, as Plato, Cicero, and Quintilian have warned us—on the moral, ethical, and political commitments entailed in wielding the tool or the weapon of words” (p. 186).
  • Who’s right, Fish or Bizzel?
  • Or, put less in the either/or mindset of today’s politics, what are our ethical responsibilities as teachers?
  • How can we make the world a better place as educators? And should we?
  • Can we save the world with our teaching?

Part 4. Full Class Discussion (15 minutes)

  • We will have a general discussion about trying to save the world.

Part 5. The Challenge of Social Justice Teaching

  • Snyder, Susan. (2023, Jul. 5). Penn State Abington professor sues the university, claiming he was discriminated against for being white. The Philadelphia Inquirer.
    • Zack K. De Piero, a former Assistant Teaching Professor of English and Composition, said “Penn State pressured him to ensure consistent grades for students across “color line[s],” otherwise his actions would demonstrate racism and he would be condemned as a racist, he said in a lawsuit filed in federal court last month. De Piero, who filed multiple complaints with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging discrimination, said he and other white professors were targeted as racist ‘simply by virtue of teaching while “white,”‘ the lawsuit said.”
  • From Shane McCoy’s article:
    • “Specifically, this framework for writing for justice must entail 1) affective approaches to learning; 2) demystifying of the effects of Empire, colonialism, and imperialism; 3) developing students’ consciousness oriented towards action; 4) creating pathways for successful knowledge transfer, from the learning environment of the classroom to the learning environment of the street; 5) privileging interrogative approaches to learning material rather than prescriptive approaches to learning material; and 6) privileging the importance of empirical research to support and advocate for social justice pedagogies.” (p. 27).
    • McCoy’s definition of social justice pedagogy: “What [social justice pedagogues believe] in common is that opposition to hegemony is enabled by critical consciousness; through writing in FYC, I aim to cultivate a student’s critical consciousness, one that is invested in opposing social injustices” (p. 28).

Part 6. Full Class Discussion (15 minutes)

  • We will have a general discussion of social justice teaching and the recent law suit

Part 7. Break (10 minutes)

  • We will take a short break to re-energize everyone

Part 8. Small Group Discussion: The Complexity of Equity (15 minutes)

Social justice is a really challenging subject. So let me ask you to mull over a few hard questions:

  • We all have implicit biases. How can we personally address those biases? How can we help students to understand and work past their biases?
  • Sometimes scholars use the term “privilege,” but does personal circumstance transform privilege? How privileged is the person suffering from cancer or who just lost a loved one? Less challenging, how privileged is the young man or woman who just had their heart broken by a relationship ending?
  • Much social justice work revolves around race, but how do we also help make the world more equitable for people who are different because of their sexual identity, their religion, or physical challenges they may have that no one can see?
  • People get othered in many ways beyond the categories scholars routinely discuss. You can be othered because you are overweight, homely, have bad skin, have a birthmark, smell different, or dress in unusual ways. While such challenges might not have the same pervasive effects as racial bias, how can we deal with these challenges in our classrooms? Does talking about such issues detract from the longstanding issues of problems linked to race, class, and gender?
  • And, if you’re lucky or just a great teacher, you might be able to spark a really engaged discussion about social justice in your class, which is truly a big accomplishment because, trust me, it really doesn’t happen that often. But as special as such a conversation can be, then what? What happens after that?
  • Where do all of these challenges leave us? What should we do as teachers?

Part 9. Journal Writing: Good Deeds (15 minutes)

  • Think about a time recently when you did a good act. This might have been something small or big
  • Record what you did in whatever detail you can recall. Then describe how the person reacted.
  • Now reflect on why you did it.
  • Try to think of a second good act you engaged in. Repeat the same writing about that act.
  • Do these good acts stand out in your mind or are they hard to remember?
  • How can you better put yourself into that frame of mind for doing good in the future?
  • Sometimes we know what we should do, but we are too scared or too busy or too embarrassed to do that good deed.
  • How do we train ourselves to be consistently, courageously good?
  • Think of a good deed you can do today. It can be something small. Write down what you want to do so you don’t forget.

Part 10. Land and Complex History Acknowledgment (10 minutes)

Part 11. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Sample Statements (10 minutes)

Part 12. Assignments Overview (10 minutes)

  • Dr. Pagnucci will take time to go over the weeks assignments and answer any questions

Part 13. Parting Thoughts (5 minutes)

  • Video: “What is it to be a hero?”
    • This video captures perfectly why it is valuable to teach about superheroes: To encourage our students, and ourselves, to act heroically whenever we the opportunity comes our way; to choose to do good whenever and however we can

Part 14. Final Thought

  • “You don’t need superpowers to be a hero. The only thing it takes to be a hero is the courage to do what’s right when someone needs your help.”–Dr. Pagnucci (June 12, 2023).

Part 15. Go Do That Good Deed!

  • Take time today to do that good deed you planned.
  • You can do it.
  • And, after all, the world really does need saving.

Current Assignments

  • Due in the Years Ahead: Be a Teacher Who Makes a Difference!
  • Due July 22 Monday: DRAFT of Your Teacher Website
    • We will spend the first half of the class working on your website to further enhance it
    • You want to include some information about yourself, perhaps some pictures, and some information about your home and/or university
    • You are working to get your English 830 documents included on the websites
    • If you have time, you might create a page to highlight some of your research interests
    • We will spend the last half of the class having each person take 5 or 10 minutes to INFORMALLY show their website

Upcoming Primary Assignments

Optional Materials

These materials are recommended but not required.

Teaching Philosophies

Teaching Pedagogies