Overview The readings in Part Two of the course invite us to consider the role of education--"schooling"--in our lives. They spur us to think about how we interact with school, how education might change us. They call out the tension between home and school. Richard Rodriguez, Min-Zhan Lu, June Jordan, and Gloria Anzaldua also engage us in a conversation about differences between "home language" and "school language" and what happens when the two meet. As George and Trimbur point out in their introduction to this chapter, there is a "hidden curriculum" at work in most classrooms, as well as the obvious one (algebra, biology, American history). Is "school  Rodriguez tells us that when he first went to school, he could "barely speak English." Later, he writes, "A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn't forget that schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student." Min-Zhan Lu, who grew up in Shanghai in the era of Mao, describes the tension between the culture and languages of home (Shanghai dialect and English) and school (Standard Chinese) as hearing multiple "voices" in her mind. In telling the story of teaching a course in Black English to college students in New York, June Jordan highlights the important role African American Vernacular English in the cultural life of its speakers while highlighting tensions between AAVE and Standard English. Finally, in a chapter from her book, Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua writes of schools' attempts to silence her and her Chicano culture--both as a student and as a teacher. As you read and write about these texts, consider how the writers made sense of their experience. What are they telling us about the tensions between home and school? What kinds of evidence do present? How does their experience in moving from home to school compare with yours? What questions do these texts raise? For example, in reading these texts, I might wonder, "If my home language is different from school language, what is gained and what is lost as I take on the new language?" Or I might ask, "If Chinese schools in the time of Mao indoctrinated students with his vision, in what way have I been indoctrinated in my American classrooms?" Essay Two begins with your questions. You'll write an essay in which you attempt to answer a question brought forward by the texts, adding your own experience and voice to the conversation, and using references to the ideas of at least two of the writers to push off against. Learning Objectives The reading and writing you'll do in Essay Two challenges you to take a look at your own experience with the differing cultures of home and school--and to raise questions about the implications of those differences. In the process, you'll be working on skills important to your success as an academic thinker and writer:
Such skills, knowledge, and habits of mind are important to success in the kinds of intellectual work you'll encounter throughout the academic curriculum--and beyond the classroom as you engage in work and the civic life of the community. Writing Process (deadlines for each step are listed in the Course Calendar link)
Grading
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