Alisa L. RussellGeorge Mason University
A English (Teaching Writing and Literature) Candidate
Phone: 662-397-2661Graduate Teaching Assistant
Feminist Standpoint Theory as a Framework for Writing Instruction
While Feminist Standpoint Theory engages political reform and knowledge construction, the theory also provides a foundation for rhetorically and pedagogically significant practices in the composition classroom. Standpoint Theory, strongly tied to feminist critical theory through the work of Dorothy Smith, Donna Haraway, and Sandra Harding, contends that knowledge is situated in physical and individual experiences as opposed to a universalism or relativism. Only by taking every story into account, especially those outside of the dominant narrative, can we begin to formulate a web of knowledge that is more reflective of reality and representative of the whole. Applied to writing practices, Feminist Standpoint Theory forces us to dissolve the binaries and singular narratives instructors can create when they attempt to standardize a “multifaceted and fluid” (Sinor and Huston 369) practice. Composition studies have recognized standpoints in writing practices through Post-Process Theory, but these theories must begin to shape pedagogical practices in the composition classroom.
After a brief overview of Feminist Standpoint Theory, the presenter will establish how the theory holds implications for the composition classroom, both in emphasizing student standpoints and in the writing process itself. She will then explore and define two concrete practices composition instructors can derive from standpoints to improve writing instruction and re-emphasize rhetorical contexts: (1) switching from “teaching” writing practices to “modeling” writing practices paired with peer collaboration and (2) integrating Krista Ratcliffe and Wayne Booth’s ideas of rhetorical listening in the construction of questions and assignment design, emphasized with reflective practices. The presentation will urge new and returning composition instructors to evaluate the theories that shape their writing instruction, and it will provide practical pedagogical strategies to fully realize student standpoints in writing, a situated practice that requires situated instruction.
Good afternoon. I am happy to be escorting you over the finish line for the day. In addition to my English graduate coursework at George Mason University, I also teach two sections of First Year Composition. Naturally, I experience a great deal of my coursework through the lens of a composition instructor, and a recent course, Standpoint Theories, was no exception. Throughout the course, I began to ask questions such as: What are the implications of Standpoint Theory for writing instruction and writing students? And further, what concrete pedagogical strategies can answer these implications? In my brief talk today, I would like to explore possible answers to these questions. ENTERFirst, drawing on the work of Sandra Harding and Donna Haraway, I will establish the basic tenants of Standpoint Theory. Then, I would like to illuminate two major implications for writing instruction and writing students that arise from this theory. Finally, after Standpoint Theory and its relationship to writing instruction is clear, I will offer two pedagogical strategies that can answer the shift in writing instruction that Standpoint Theory demands.
Let’s begin with an overview of Standpoint Theory that creates this valuable framework for writing instruction. ENTER/ENTERStandpoint Theory first works against the idea that knowledge can be wholly objective, neutral, impartial, or universal. Instead, it contends that knowledge is constantly shaped by historical, cultural, and social values and beliefs of the subject, the one constructing and naming knowledge.ENTER Harding writes, “It is a delusion – and a historical identifiable one – to think that human thought could completely erase the fingerprints that reveal its production process” (128). The problem with deluding oneself into believing there can be a wholly objective and neutral knowledge, according to Standpoint Theorists, is that this knowledge simply reflects and reiterates dominant power structures.
Since this “objective” knowledge, which is actually “dominant” knowledge, isn’t really objective, Standpoint Theory instead suggests that a more objective version of knowledge construction lies in partial, situated truths. ENTERHaraway writes,
I am arguing for politics and epistemologies of location, positioning, and situating, where partiality and not universality is the condition of being heard to make rational knowledge claims. These are claims on people’s lives; the view from a body, always a complex, contradictory, structuring and structured body, versus the view from above, from nowhere, from simplicity. (92)
Creating a web of situated knowledge based out of individual experiences and surroundings allows for all lives to be involved in knowledge construction, which in turn creates a more objective version of truth. Therefore, Standpoint Theory contends that knowledge is neither universalist nor relativist, but “partial and locatable…webs of connections” (Haraway 89).
With this basic explanation of Standpoint Theory in hand, let us turn back to the writing classroom. ENTERIf truly objective knowledge is constructed from a web of individual standpoints, then the ENTERfirst implication of Standpoint Theory in the writing classroom is the encouragement and preservation of individual student standpoints, their own way of viewing the world based on their historical, cultural, and social backgrounds. Since each lifecollectively creates a more objective web of knowledge, we should seek for every voice to remain heard and in tact, both in written content and writing processes. Each student is coming to first year composition with a different physical view of the world and will go on to engage different disciplines and rhetorical situations, so their writing instruction should allow space for those variables instead of promoting a single right answer or single writing process. ENTERDavid W. Smit beautifully describes standpoints as they relate to writing practices: “People compose according to their own individual rhythms, which start and stop, ebb and flow, according to what comes to mind as they try to juggle what they want to say in relation to what they have already said, their larger goal, and their accumulated experience of how writing should be done in the situation in which they find themselves” (66).
ENTER/ENTERThe second major implication of Standpoint Theoryin the writing classroom is the situated nature of writing itself. While certain conventions are expected of certain genres, choices are always steeped in the rhetorical situation, which must then be negotiated with the author’s own standpoint. Not only are rhetorical choicesvariable from project to project, student to student, but writing as process is also a situated knowledge. ENTERJennifer Sinor and Michael Huston observe,
Too often teaching writing is reduced to teaching steps – prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, publishing – steps that are then plastered on large multicolored posters in secondary classrooms or practice in first-year composition. When this happens, something dynamic and changing – the act of writing – is distilled into something that can be prescribed, measured, and assessed. (370)
Therefore, to teach writing as a standardized package, easily consumed steps, or a one-size-fits-all pattern would be to diminish the very nature of writing, as well as student standpoints.
Since it is clear that Standpoint Theory holds significance as a theoretical framework for writing, we have arrived at the real challenge: if writing instruction cannot be standardized in content or process, then how can it be taught in a writing classroom? ENTERWhile some scholars believe this post-process thinking is merely philosophical, I contend there are at least two pedagogical shifts that I have made in my own writing classroom to emphasize student standpoints and the situated nature of writing, which can lead to transferable andrhetorically mature learning.
ENTERThe first pedagogical shift is not to teach studentscontent or process, but to rather model either one or many contextual responses and processes, and then let students choose and negotiate the best practice for their standpoints and their rhetorical situations through peer collaboration.
This shift to modeling is a necessity when you increase student autonomy in their choices.For example, I only control one aspect of a writing project and give students the opportunity to make every other rhetorical choice on their own. For one genre, the Rhetorical Analysis, students can choose from four recent articles covering a range of relevant topics that I provide. In this way, I can still grade their analyses but they are given choice according to their desired audience and purpose, both of which they choose for themselves.Then, the students have to decide which elements they will be focusing on in their analysis and how those elements should be organized.
It is important to note that by allowing the student to make all of these individual choices, their own standpoints are allowed to shape those choices, and I cannot simply teach lessons, but I instead must model these lessons in various ways. For example, I annotate a sample article on the screen in front of my students, and then I voice my thought process as I create an outline, all the while emphasizing the many different ways my analysis could be organized. Then, the students create their own outlines for the sample essay and share with other students – they see very quickly that they’ve all chosen to organize an analysis for the same essay in different ways.
I also use modeling and peer collaboration to demonstrate situated writing processes. The first week of the semester, I have students read the chapter on the writing process in their textbook by Andrea Lunsford, which provides a very detailed step-by-step list, and Anne Lamott’s famous essay “Shitty First Drafts” in which she describes the writing process as a vast mess of writing and re-writing and hating oneself. In class, I ask students to discuss which process they are most drawn to, and then I have them create visual representations of hybrid processes in groups. Each group member’s standpoint means they bring distinct preferences that must be recognized and negotiated. Then, throughout the rest of the semester, I can refer to the “Lunsford” way, the “Lamott” way, and some ways between the two for different class activities. By emphasizing that many of the class activities are simply based on my writing preferences and allowing multiple options, I recognize my own standpoint in the class’s design, and do not allow my standpoint to silence my students’ standpoints.
ENTERMy second pedagogical strategy for realizing Standpoint Theory in the writing classroominvolvesnot just asserting one’s own standpoint, but dwelling in others’ standpoints through what Krista Ratcliffenames rhetorical listening. She defines rhetorical listening as “a stance of openness that a person may choose to assume in relation to any person, text, or culture” (17). Peter Elbow would refer to this concept as the “believing game”: he asserts that students need to better learn to “dwell in, enter in, or experience a multiplicity of views or texts – even views that seem uncongenial or contradictory” (394). In Standpoint Theory’s terms, they need to learn to negotiate the web of partial knowledge. However, rhetorical listening does not discourage disagreements; it instead encourages a deep understanding of another’s view, an equal emphasis on “How can I change their minds?” and “Does my mind need changing?” (Booth & Elbow 389).
To integrate rhetorical listening into my class, I focus on one sample essay or article for the entirety of the scaffolding leading up to a written assignment. For example, for the Rhetorical Analysis, we analyze and re-analyzeWilliam F. Buckley’s “Why Don’t We Complain” through lessons on audience, stakes, claims, the appeals, and other rhetorical devices. By the end of the unit, many students agree with Buckley’s ideas and many students disagree, but every student has “dwelled” in his ideas, considered the different angles, and practiced both believing and doubting in one area or another.
Assignment arcs can also encourage rhetorical listening.Early in the semester, my students write what I call a Narrative Argument, which uses the student’s own personal experience as the evidence to be analyzed to support a larger argument. Later in the class, as we construct research questions for a Researched Argument, the students must reflect on how their own standpoints lead to the construction of the question, and I reiterate that their research should change what they think the answer will be or even the question itself; in this way, they let other standpoints shape their knowledge.Afterwards, we compare the Narrative Argument and the Researched Argument: how did an argument solely constructed from their own standpoints differ from arguments that took into account an array of standpoints? In this way, the students are not only encouraged to dwell in another’s ideas before making their own, but they can also see how standpoints lead to knowledge construction, which will further prepare them for responsible civic engagement.
In closing, these shifts in writing instruction that grow out of Standpoint Theory, which include modeling over teachingand emphasizing rhetorical listening, are not exhaustive. I offer these strategies more as stimulation for further consideration ofStandpoint Theory’s relevancy in the writing classroom and developmentof your own strategies that could better reflect these concepts in order to empower students to later engage in crucial political and social change. ENTER Thank you.