It's aQuestion ofFaith: Discourses of Fundamentalism ... - JAC Online

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352]AC to acknowledgeone ofthe most important differenceswithin students' lives.And, likemy students,Istruggledwith thosewho didn't acknowledgethevalueofthisfaith. Perhaps faith iswhat isneededmost for asuccessfulcriticalpedagogy-faith inthe valueofinitiatingdialogueinthefaceofconflictsoverdiscoursesandfaithinstudents' andteachers' abilityto valueandnegotiateeachothers' differences. UniversityofNebraska,Lincoln Lincoln,Nebraska Notes "The name "Luke" is a pseudonym chosen by the student whose work isprofiled. 2Por further information about the larger goals and findings from this project, see Critical CompositionPedagogiesand theQuestionofAuthority:Scenesfrom ThreeCollege-LevelClassrooms. Unpublished Dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1994. 3For this class, students wrote two individually-authored papers, a collaboratively-authored research paper (which included a 3D-minute oral presentation), six one to two-page response papers to class readings, and several in-class assignments. The first paper asked students to trace the history of a belief that they held while the second required an analysis of one form of advertising and the third focused on any controversial issuerelated to the American Experience. Assigned readings were drawn from anthologies, localand campus newspapers, magazines, and student writing from the previous term. For formal papers, students wrote several drafts to which I and other students responded via peer sessions, full-class workshops, and individual conferences. The six response papers served asthe basis for classdiscussions on assigned readings. I responded to these papers but did not initially grade them. At the end of the term, students selected and revised their three best responses and turned them in for aportfolio grade. 41realize that reading a student's responses or actions as shaped by one overriding discourse is problematic because such a reading seems to decontextualize this discourse from its relationship to others, like race and class. Yet, asJennifer Gore suggests, naming the discourses that shape student response helps teachersexamine how their own discourses shape their practices: "We allhave atendency to refuse our own implication in relationships of power-knowledge and in particular discourses; we all participate in the construction and operation of regimes of truth even while working or arguing against domination or authoritarianism, or for empowerment, democracy, and liberation" (109). Thus, this essay is more a story of how my faith in the authority of critical pedagogy conflicted with Luke's faith in fundamentalist authority and the way these collisions enabled me to question the regimes of truth within my discourses as well as his. 5Inproviding this "summary" ofthe poem, I am confronted with the problem of privileging my reading over Luke's. ' "The binary that Luke sets up between Teresa and the narrator, who gains "the respect and the security of being awhite person," can alsobe fruitfully examined in terms oftheories of raceconstruction and the social construction of "whiteness." Sharon Stockton's "Blacks vs. Browns" and AnnLouise Keating's "Interrogating 'Whiteness,' (De)Constructing'Race'" both discussinterpretive frameworks which are useful in analyzing how Luke's response aims to essentialize and transcend race. Works Cited Bates, Stephen. Battleground.New York: Poseidon Press, 1993. Bendroth, Margaret Lamberts. Fundamentalism&Gender,1875 tothePresent.New Haven: Yale UP, 1993.
Discoursesof Fundementalism 353 Berlin,JamesandMichaelVivion.CulturalStudiesintheEnglishClassroom. Portsmouth:Boynton/Cook, 1992. Berthoff, Ann, Beth Daniell,}oAnn Campbell, C.Jan Swearingen,JamesMoffett. "Interchanges: SpiritualSitesofComposing."CollegeCompositionandCommunication45(1994):237-63. Bizzell,Patricia"BeyondAnti-FoundationalisminRhetoricalAuthority:ProblemsDefining'Cultural Literacy;" CollegeEnglish52(1990):661-75. Bleich,David. "Literacy Citizenship: Resisting SocialIssues. TheRight to Literacy. Eds. Andrea Lunsford, Helene Moglen,andJames Slevin. New York: MLA, 1990. 163-69. Boone,Kathleen.TheBibleTellsThemSo.'TheDiscourseo/ProtestantFundernentalism. Albany:StateU of NewYorkP, 1989. Cox,Harvey. "TheWarringVisionsoftheReligiousRight."TheAtlanticMonthly,November1995:59+. Fox,Thomas. TheSocialUsesofWriting.·PoliticsandPedagogy . Norwood, NJ: Ablex,1990. Giroux,Henry.BorderCrossings.' CulturalWorkersandthePolitics ofEducation. NewYork:Routledge,1992. Gore,Jennifer.TheStruggleforPedagogies: CriticalandFeministDiscoursesasRegimes ofTrutb.NewYork: Routledge, 1993. Hernandez,Ines."ParaTeresa."RereadingAmerica.·CulturalContextsforCriticalThinkingandWriting. Eds.Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen,andBonnieLisle.New York:St.Martin's P, 1989.247-49. Hurlbert, MarkC. andMichaelBlitz.CompositionandResistance.Portsmouth: Heineman, 1991. Kaminer, Wendy. "AWing andaPrayer: ReligionGoesBackto School." TheNation, 15Dec.1997: 18-20. Keating,AnnLouise. "Interrogating'Whiteness,'(De)Constructing'Race." CollegeEnglish57(1995): 901-18. Kincheloe.]oeL. TowardaCriticalPoliticsof7heacherThinking:MappingthePostmodern.Westport,CT: Bergin& Garvey, 1993. Knoblauch,C.H. andLilBrannon.CriticalTeacbtngandthe IdeaofLiteracy.Portsmouth:Boynton/Cook, 1993. Lather, Patricia. GettingSmart.'FeministResearchandPedagogywith/in thePostmodern.New York: Routledge, 1991. Marty,MartinandR.ScottAppleby.FundementalismsandSociety.·Reclaiming theSciences, theFamily,and Education.Chicago:U ofChicagoP, 1993. Mclaren,Peter.LifeinSchools.·AnIntroductiontotheCriticalPedagogy intheFoundationo/Education.New York: Longman, 1989. Moffett,James.Stormin theMountains.·ACaseStudyofCensorship, Conjlict,andConsciousness. Carbondale: Southern IllinoisUP, 1988. Ryder, Phyllis Mentzell. "I'm OK, You're (Not) OK: Teaching in aWorld of Relativism."jAC:A JournalofCompositionTheory15(1995):511-25. Shor.Ira, EmpoweringEducation:CriticalTeacbingjorSocialCbange.Chicago:U ofChicagoP, 1992. Simon,Roger.TeachingAgainstthe Grain.'TextsforaPedagogyofPossibility.NewYork:Bergin& Garvey, 1992. Stockton, Sharon. "'Blacksvs.Browns': Questioningthe White Ground." CollegeEnglish57(1995): 166-81. Swilky,Jody. "ResistingDifference:StudentResponseto MulticulturalTexts."TheWritingInstructor (1993): 21-33.
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