Main Claims
Schroeder begins his chapter with a lit review that draws the connections between new literacy studies, ethnography, and composition studies necessary to his project. Using his experience as an ethnographer in a graduate level course on cultural linguistics, Schroeder enacts a theory of new ethnography and literacy models, both of which feature the central characteristic of being dynamic. Whereas old ethnography required rigor, cold hard facts and distant, objective observation, new ethnography provides "access to culture," and pomoethno (my wordplay, not his) represents "the formation of a critical cultural politics centered on the role of the body in meaning-making, the fluidity and permeability of boundaries, and the need for self-consciousness about textual productions" (66). "The question of communities is central to the study of literacies," but the community he speaks of is one rooted in the material and cross-cultural, rather than an imagined space of shared investment and returns (61). Schroeder concentrates on new literacies as "sites of competing discourses and cultures, and literacy acts are efforts to navigate among these within specific social, material, and political contexts" (66), and the contexts offer constraints and possibilities for the range of choices a subject is able to negotiate within. Schroeder's chapter embodies his theory, as he "found [him]self trying to negotiate among discourses and cultures" (66), as teacher and ethnographer whose very presence is deeply affected by his position as white, middle class, male. He begins the very important and often overlooked step in which the researcher recognizes him or herself as inherently part of the subject of study. To drop the curtain and reveal the wizard takes little away from his gifts, but rather builds trust and a space for understanding for the audience.
Assumptions about Method/ologies
Schroeder does not give in to the traditional linear structure of the academic argument, which is pretty appropriate in this case. Rather, his structure reflects the recursiveness that he describes of his multiple positionalities as classroom ethnographer. Additionally, his parenthetical style citation (dropping a list of names connected to the development of an idea or concept), his personal and theoretical stance, and the inclusion of emails and evaluations as primary texts demonstrate Schroeder's commitment to the productive discomfort inherent in the composing of a postmodern text. As he puts it:
Key Words
Intersubjectivity, postmodern ethnography, new literacy studies, current vs. dynamic literacy models
Key Texts
Dwight Conquergood, Ellen Barton, Cope and Kalantzis, Ralph Cintron
Questions/Challenges
I should likely come up with more, but for now, my major challenge has to do with the negotiating process. In each of the author's sample texts from his course, either Schroeder himself, or the very traditional literacies his positionality represents tend to be the point of orientation that the students are negotiating toward. I believe that more work needs to be done in this area about just who is doing the negotiating, such as in Bizzell's "Rationality as Rhetorical Sovereignty at the Barcelona Disputation."
Schroeder begins his chapter with a lit review that draws the connections between new literacy studies, ethnography, and composition studies necessary to his project. Using his experience as an ethnographer in a graduate level course on cultural linguistics, Schroeder enacts a theory of new ethnography and literacy models, both of which feature the central characteristic of being dynamic. Whereas old ethnography required rigor, cold hard facts and distant, objective observation, new ethnography provides "access to culture," and pomoethno (my wordplay, not his) represents "the formation of a critical cultural politics centered on the role of the body in meaning-making, the fluidity and permeability of boundaries, and the need for self-consciousness about textual productions" (66). "The question of communities is central to the study of literacies," but the community he speaks of is one rooted in the material and cross-cultural, rather than an imagined space of shared investment and returns (61). Schroeder concentrates on new literacies as "sites of competing discourses and cultures, and literacy acts are efforts to navigate among these within specific social, material, and political contexts" (66), and the contexts offer constraints and possibilities for the range of choices a subject is able to negotiate within. Schroeder's chapter embodies his theory, as he "found [him]self trying to negotiate among discourses and cultures" (66), as teacher and ethnographer whose very presence is deeply affected by his position as white, middle class, male. He begins the very important and often overlooked step in which the researcher recognizes him or herself as inherently part of the subject of study. To drop the curtain and reveal the wizard takes little away from his gifts, but rather builds trust and a space for understanding for the audience.
Assumptions about Method/ologies
Schroeder does not give in to the traditional linear structure of the academic argument, which is pretty appropriate in this case. Rather, his structure reflects the recursiveness that he describes of his multiple positionalities as classroom ethnographer. Additionally, his parenthetical style citation (dropping a list of names connected to the development of an idea or concept), his personal and theoretical stance, and the inclusion of emails and evaluations as primary texts demonstrate Schroeder's commitment to the productive discomfort inherent in the composing of a postmodern text. As he puts it:
In drafting early versions of this text, I experimented with a range of discursive practices, from academic exposition to mosaic and academic argument to scrapping, and yet in trying to keep within the constraints of this collection, I was confined in the ways that I could connect and elaborate on these pieces, which I eliminated in the final version. These negotiations are significant contribtions, as the epigraphs to this text suggest, cooperatively evolved texts that are, at the same time, emeshed within the cultural practices of the academy. (67)
Key Words
Intersubjectivity, postmodern ethnography, new literacy studies, current vs. dynamic literacy models
Key Texts
Dwight Conquergood, Ellen Barton, Cope and Kalantzis, Ralph Cintron
Questions/Challenges
I should likely come up with more, but for now, my major challenge has to do with the negotiating process. In each of the author's sample texts from his course, either Schroeder himself, or the very traditional literacies his positionality represents tend to be the point of orientation that the students are negotiating toward. I believe that more work needs to be done in this area about just who is doing the negotiating, such as in Bizzell's "Rationality as Rhetorical Sovereignty at the Barcelona Disputation."
I really like the challenge you pose, Rachael. I, too, feel like Scroeder's students were bearing the brunt of having to negotiate towards the position that Schroeder already occupies. He does mention at one point in the chapter that much of he research was motivated by the feeling that even though he already occupied a privileged position in the academy as a white, middle-class male that he still found academic language foreign, frustrating, and something that he had to work towards being able to use fluently. But I still don't think this is enough to justify his own seeming unwilingness to consider the primacy of his own position. What is most interesting to me in light of the challenge you pose is the email Schroeder uses from Kim to close the chapter. On the one hand, it's interesting that he allows a student's critique of his own traditional academic literacy and apparent academic interests (publishing over teaching) function as the last word in the chapter. On the other hand, Kim's critique is really compelling and I'm bothered by the fact that he doesn't really do anything to reflectively address her challenge.
I wondered about Kim's comments, too, Anna. We did get to discuss this a bit in class, so I won't replay it, but I was left with a lot of questions about what he was pointing to with her response or demonstrating overall.
And your question raises the larger question, Rachael, of how interactive Schroeder was with his students/research participants. Classroom ethnography of one's own class (not someone else's) has always seemed very fraught given the fact that one's participants are also students who are being evaluated. I'm also wondering about all of this as we are reading Welch. In what ways are her research practices inclusive of her student's participation in her representations of them? Did she follow any of the protocols that ethnographers do? Or did she narrativize student responses and then seek their feedback? We don't get any positioning of that and maybe we shouldn't because she does not purport to be doing qualitative research. But there is the element of representing others in her book/study--representing students, activists, etc. I wonder if we will hold Welch to the same standard about participation?