Close to the Heart: Teacher Authority in a Classroom Community

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Steven L. VanderStaay, Beverly A. Faxon, Jack E. Meischen,
Karlene T. Kolesnikov, and Andrew D. Ruppel
Close to the Heart: Teacher Authority in a
Classroom Community
In this article we provide a “portrait” of an exemplary writing teacher and the social
construction of authority he established with students in two courses. The portrait
demonstrates that teacher authority is most essentially a form of professional authority
granted by students who affirm the teacher’s expertise, self-confidence, and belief in
the importance of his or her work. We find that professional authority is neither oppressive
nor incompatible with de-centered methods, effective instruction, or the kind
of assertive teacher authority required to effectively lead a class. In this way, effective
instruction and teacher authority become mutually reinforcing reciprocal processes.
One might read the history of modern composition studies as a
series of attacks on classroom uses of power.
—Patricia Bizzell, “Power, Authority, and Critical Pedagogy”
The Prison House of Power
Few problems have proven more vexing within composition than the right use
and exercise of power. Whereas practitioners in the 1960s and 1970s sought
to eschew the “damage that has been done to students in the name of correct
writing” (Shaughnessy 9), composition instructors now have to worry about
their complicity in macro-social forces of racism, sexism, and class oppression
(Olson 297). In response, many compositionists have sought to “de-center” their
power through collaborative, dialogic, and student-based methods (Bizzell,
CCC 61:2 / december 2009
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“Power” 55; Bruffee 636; Lunsford 76). Others have cautioned that de-centered
methods may also oppress students (Gale 136) or trivialize the academic standing
of female instructors (Sciachitano 299; Kopelson 126–27) and, by extension,
composition itself (Holbrook 211). The upshot is a prison house of power, an
“impasse” (Bizzell, “Power” 54); our fears about power impede our efforts to
use it to serve our students and advance our field.
Fortunately, scholarship on the problem of pedagogic power, defined here
as teacher authority, has revealed cracks in this impasse. Patricia Bizzell and
Carmen Werder have advanced useful distinctions between power, expertise,
control, and persuasion that permit an enabling and assertive use of teacher
authority. More broadly, a consensus has emerged that both the “common
good” (Bizzell, “Power” 54) and a “good education” (Pace 22) require teachers
to “use their authority in teaching for the purpose of enhancing learning and
empowering students” (Gale 57).
Yet this theoretical progress has not been matched by parallel accounts
of practice. Scholarly calls for research on an instructive and consensual use
of teacher authority remain vague and idealized. Despite wide agreement that
composition instructors must balance a healthy wariness of their authority with
a renewed commitment to use it effectively, no one has ventured a description
of what an enabling exercise of teacher authority looks like in real classrooms.
We seek to fill this gap by providing a “portrait” (Lawrence-Lightfoot) of William
Smith, a widely respected and award-winning composition and technical
writing instructor.
What We Talk about When We Talk about Authority
Although Plato framed authority as derived from a person’s ability to sense the
ultimate good, most modern accounts of authority derive from Max Weber,
who saw authority as a form of power legitimized by the agreement of those
it controls. According to Weber, rules and laws uphold legal or bureaucratic
authority; time and tradition legitimize traditional authority; and charismatic
authority rests upon the devotion and assent of followers. Sociologists later
posited a fourth form, professional authority, describing the expertise needed
to achieve consensual aims (Pace and Hemmings 6–7).
Ideals of Authority across the Disciplines
Most educational discussions of authority derive from John Dewey’s Democracy
and Education and his often-quoted view that “since a democratic
society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute
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in voluntary disposition and interest” (87). In contrast, sociological accounts
of teacher authority follow from Emile Durkheim’s view that education introduces
the child to society, linking the family to the city and state. Therefore,
schools—constituting a child’s first experience of the larger society—hold a
special responsibility to model a fair and legitimate authority.
Durkheim’s view that education should provide an ideal experience of
authority is universally implicit within composition. In the 1970s, for instance,
academic feminists and others began advocating de-centered methods as a response
to the “patriarchal power” invested in the teacher (Bizzell, “Classroom”
847). Summarizing this period, Bizzell noted that by 1982 composition scholars
had declared a revolution in methods defined by “students’ control of their own
writing processes” (“Power” 55). By 1990 the notion of a de-centered classroom
had moved beyond writing methods to describe larger classroom dynamics,
celebrated by Lundsford as “radically democratic,” “non-hierarchical” and
“intensely collaborative” (76). Influenced by expanding accounts of the complicity
of schools, universities, and discourses in sexist, racist, hetereosexist, and
colonial oppression (Foucault), teachers were charged to commit themselves
to “ending the student’s oppression” (Ellsworth 309). Others warned that any
relinquishment of classroom authority placed composition and rhetoric in
a deferential position in the academy. Louise Wetherebee Phelps challenged
composition instructors and writing program administrators (WPAs) to become
“unafraid of our own power,” while Edward M. White admonished that
we “use it or lose it” (qtd. in Werder 10). Reflective of the current historical
moment, caution remained dominant. In 1991, Bizzell noted that “it seems to
be crucially important to our sense of ourselves as professionals that we do not
exercise power oppressively in the classroom” (“Power” 55).
Some instructors claimed success with de-centered and anti-oppressive
methodologies (Shor); others reported frustration and failure. Reflecting on her
own attempt to embrace critical and “anti-racist pedagogies,” Elizabeth Ellsworth
concluded that “strategies such as student empowerment and dialogue
give the illusion of equality while leaving the authoritarian nature of the teacher/
student relationship intact” (306). Ellsworth’s concerns were widely shared. Kirk
Branch described how his early efforts to de-center proved counterproductive
for the adult literacy center students he taught; they became frustrated, and he
felt purposeless (229). Zin Liu Gale cautioned in 1996 that the very intent to be
an “emancipatory teacher” may reinscribe traditional hierarchy by rendering
the instructor a “morally superior figure” (136).
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Gender, Race, and Authority
Composition instructors committed to feminist goals faced a similar conundrum.
Influenced by landmark feminist texts such as Carol Gilligan’s In a Different
Voice and Elizabeth A. Flynn’s “Composing as a Woman,” many celebrated
“woman friendly” pedagogies emphasized student-centered activities, a safe,
accepting classroom climate, and a “feeling” orientation (Hollis 342). Other
feminists attacked these pedagogies. Introducing the CCC “Symposium on
Feminist Experiences in the Composition Classroom,” Marian Sciachitano argued
that de-centered methods perpetuate the diminished position of feminist
academics and composition itself (299). Karen Hayes argued for writing classes
that embrace “Difference with a capital D” (301), maintaining that the model
of a teacher actively confronting racist and sexist students inspires others “to
begin to assert themselves as well” (303). Since confronting students requires
a substantive and assertive teacher authority, these arguments directed composition
teachers to embrace their institutional power—even at the risk of
reinscribing the kind of teacher-centered authority earlier feminists critiqued.
Academics of color raised similar concerns. Asserting that de-centered
methods privilege the language, learning styles, and social capital of white,
middle-class children, Lisa Delpit cautioned that black children “expect an authority
figure to act with authority” (289). Asking whether the Delpit hypothesis
holds for introductory college composition students, Thomas A. Lugo followed
a cohort of African American men studying composition with a white, female
teaching assistant who favored a “de-centered classroom pedagogy” (iii). Tracing
these students’ dissatisfaction, frustration, and self-destructive opposition,
Lugo concluded that this teacher’s reluctance to exercise traditional classroom
authority created a poor cultural fit for her male students of color.
A Way Forward
Strengthened by the criticisms of feminist teachers and academics of color,
attacks upon de-centered methods deepened the impasse over power, bringing
urgency to theoretical efforts to find a way forward. In the most well known
of these efforts, Bizzell asserted that composition maintains “an insufficiently
differentiated notion of power” that collapses important distinctions between
coercion, persuasion and authority (“Power” 56). In her view, while coercion is
oppressive, authority weds persuasion to collaboration and trust (57), “a concept
of usable power” (55). Carmen Werder also challenged the assumption that
student empowerment requires relinquishment of teacher authority (9). And
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summarizing the current moment in research on teacher authority in a recent
meta-analysis, Judith L. Pace and Annette Hemmings asserted that theoretical
elaborations like those described above comprise some of the “most promising
possibilities” for resolving the problem of power in the classroom (22). The
next step requires “the investigation of what really happens inside classrooms
as participants interpret and manage the forces that shape teacher-student
relations” (22). It is our purpose in this article to take this step, braiding an
account of practice to discussions of theory and utilizing “portraiture” as an
interpretive approach ready-made for doing so.
Portraiture
“Portraiture” was the term Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot used to describe the
research method of her book The Good High School. Lawrence-Lightfoot
believed that the traditional social science emphasis upon disease and disorder
distorted educational research, fostering inaction and cynicism. In response,
she formulated portraiture as “an intentionally generous and eclectic process
that begins by searching for what is good and healthy” (9). Portraiture directs
researchers to document the “mix of ingredients” and “institutional character
and culture” in which students thrive and succeed (Lawrence-Lightfoot and
Davis 8). Ethnographically, a portrait is an extended and highly detailed, descriptive
narrative account. Ideally, a portrait makes peers of researchers and
readers, providing sufficient detail and documentation to enable readers to
assess the writer’s conclusions or generate competing findings of their own.
Similarly, portraiture invites subjects to act as collaborators and share their
own thoughts on the research.
Portraiture has won praise for drawing attention to the aesthetic features
of ethnographic writing and for respecting readers and subjects (e.g., Ladson-
Billings; Harding). Critics have faulted the method for its close association with
a single author and for lacking a postmodern conception of truth (English).
We thought portraiture was our best research method for several reasons. To
begin with, the method fit our intention to document an enabling use of teacher
authority. Portraiture’s current standing within research on culturally relevant
teaching (Ladson-Billings; VanderStaay) emboldened our hope that we might
study empowerment without ignoring oppression. And the method’s requirement
that we treat participants as collaborators reduced the hesitancy we felt
regarding our own authority to author research about a colleague’s teaching.
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Finally, portraiture’s emphasis upon the observation of nuance and gesture
challenged us to attend to what we feel as well as to what we think, to address
the emotional heart of the matter.
The Selves We Bring to This Study
Concerns about teacher authority are “close to the heart” for us because they
touch on our wishes and fears as writing teachers. Composition instructors
and a literacy scholar who teaches writing methods, we seek expertise that
allows a teacher to use “authority in teaching for the purpose of enhancing
learning and empowering students” (Gale 57). Admittedly, we also want our
students to respect us, follow our instructions, and attend to our advice, but
we fear the dis-empowering uses of authority. We are also interested in ways an
experienced teacher addresses challenges such as tardiness and texting during
class and in forms of authority a successful and nurturing writing teacher
demonstrates. Following the dictum that the best teacher is a good model, we
sought to answer these questions by studying William Smith.
William Smith
Hired to restructure and revive a freshman writing program, William Smith
came to Western Washington University eighteen years ago, following successful
positions as a composition instructor, technical writer, writing program
administrator, and Shakespeare scholar. At Western he won our distinguished
teaching award, became a widely respected director of composition, and later
developed the technical and professional writing program. Smith is described
by a former department chair as “born to be mild” and by a WPA colleague
as teaching with an “informed and self-less approach.” In the quarter of our
study Smith taught two sections of Introduction to Technical and Professional
Writing. Two of us observed each section for three weeks, collecting field notes
and conducting semistructured interviews with focal students and the teacher,
whom students call “Bill.” Coauthors not engaged in fieldwork completed literature
reviews and met twice weekly with the ethnographers, permitting a fluid
and ongoing weave of informed observation and disciplinary reflection. We
analyzed all transcripts and field notes as a team, meeting together in seminar
fashion or presenting to each other in colloquia. Each author contributed to the
analysis, which was collated and summarized by one author and then revised
and affirmed by the research team.
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A Portrait
A Day in the Life of English 302
Bill enters the classroom for his 8:00 a.m. Introduction to Technical and Professional
Writing class wearing pressed khaki pants, a cadet blue button-down
shirt, silver wire-rim glasses, and dark lace-up shoes. His hair and mustache are
full and gray. He wears hearing aids in both ears. English 302 meets in a media
lab ringed with computers, and Bill operates a computer, projector, and document
camera from the room’s center; students working at computer stations
line the walls of the room, their backs to the teacher. Bill moves around the
classroom as he makes his opening remarks, his voice soft but clear. He hands
out assignments he has reviewed and graded, greeting students by name as he
returns their work. He recommends that students come to see him. “My office
hours are pretty sacred: they are set aside for you,” he says, adding that he can
arrange for other meeting times. These remarks emphasize his availability and
willingness to evaluate their work and mentor their progress.
Next Bill outlines the quarter’s remaining assignments, projecting the
course schedule onto an overhead screen. He reminds his students that they
have “about a dozen documents to prepare” for possible inclusion in a final
portfolio. He focuses on the next major assignment, a brochure on volcanoes
and Mt. Baker that “is about two weeks out,” employing language that suggests
a professional expectation rather than a classroom assignment’s due date. “Any
questions?” he asks. “Is this making sense to you?”
As Bill speaks he gestures outward with his right hand slightly cupped
and then slowly brings his hand to heart, a gentle but emphatic motion that
is surprisingly intimate. Watching a silent movie of the class, one would guess
that Bill is telling a personal story or sharing a deeply held belief. Bill’s movements
come across as exceedingly sincere and are quick without being abrupt;
they punctuate his conversation with a gentle, flowing quality, reminiscent of
signing. He uses humor freely, but the humor is not sarcastic and is never cruel.
At all times he conveys a sense of gentleness in speech and demeanor. When a
student tells Bill that he has forgotten to post an assignment on Blackboard, he
thanks the student and deftly corrects the error, as if modeling how to accept
criticism with aplomb.
Bill affirms his students in speech and body language. He says “yes” more
than “no.” Phrases and terms he frequently uses include “Absolutely,” “Whatever
you decide,” “That will work,” “This should be fun,” “Let’s brainstorm,” and
“Let’s take a look at . . .”
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When lecturing or making announcements, Bill is declarative and upbeat.
When affirming a student, he raises his voice and relies on “absolutely” and
“that will work.” With a struggling student he becomes quieter. We asked him if
this was his intent, and he smiled. “It is deliberate,” he admitted. “The struggle
should be private—it’s a private moment in a public space. If I’m quieter my
relationship with the student is more intimate. Then they’ll try things on the
computer they wouldn’t try otherwise.”
“And raising your voice?”
“It’s kind of a group ethos: ‘Look, it can be done!’ It’s infectious. ‘Other
people can do it!’ Even today, students are terrified of technology,” he added,
explaining that these public affirmations build confidence in individuals and
the class. Similarly, his pet phrases reinforce this sense of group ethos. For instance,
the phrases “let us” and “let’s take a look at . . . ” suggest a community
working together toward a common goal.
Plagiarism and Power Sharing
Bill tells students to consider the image of themselves they want to project in
their portfolios and to write and revise with that image in mind, linking their
portfolios to the professional identity they will establish in the workplace. Next
Bill sets up an assignment involving process description. He reviews natural
description and textual partitions, reminding the class that “chunking” information
allows a writer to “divide and describe.”
“Natural processes are really tricky,” Bill adds, illustrating the point by
explaining how difficult volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and tornadoes are
to describe. He then cautions students about plagiarism. Trained to make
such announcements in our own classes, we are surprised that his comments
don’t come off as a threat. Instead, he defines plagiarism and offers strategies
for identifying and avoiding it. He provides several specific examples of what
plagiarism looks like in the context of their current research, informing students
that he will identify plagiarized material and hold them responsible for
producing original work. Students look at him with focused attention, rapt but
not frightened. No one asks the kind of nervous questions we so often get in
our own classes (e.g. “But what if you accidentally . . . ?”) Then Bill describes
his high expectations for the assignment. He presents these expectations as
information to be shared and not as a veiled threat, suggesting a collective assumption
that everyone in the class intends to avoid plagiarism and produce
excellent work.
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Engagement with Students
Halfway through his afternoon class, Bill announces, “I’m going to come around
and peek over your shoulders for a minute.” He begins with Hagrid, a student
returning to school after a decade of professional experience in web design and
journalism. Well over six feet tall with a full beard and hair to his shoulders, he
towers over Bill, who is trim and compact. Bill and Hagrid laugh as they look at
Hagrid’s computer, and we hear Bill say, “Okay, can I get you to share this with
the others?” Hagrid hesitates but agrees. As Hagrid walks to the instructor’s
station, Bill brings a screen up for him on the projector, turns down the lights,
then moves to the periphery by the door, his arms folded and relaxed at his
chest. When Hagrid asks if anyone in the room has heard of Creative Commons,
Bill raises a hand in response. Hagrid continues, sharing information for finding
graphics that can be freely used on the web. When he finishes, Bill comes
forward, smiling, “That’s great, great information.” Bill goes on to talk about
copyright infringement, extending Hagrid’s information while acknowledging
its importance. He finishes by saying, “Thank you once again.”
When we talk to Hagrid about Bill’s authority, he describes Bill as being
more interested in the “choric” than in the “dialogic,” typified as a “traditional
classroom—teacher in front speaking, students in a row.” When we ask for
examples of “choric,” Hagrid immediately brings up the moment when Bill
invited him to share his expertise. “I’ve never had a teacher ask me to explain
something like that in class, to acknowledge that I knew more about that
particular topic then he did,” he said. “He kind of took me aback. . . . Honestly,
my first thought was: is he trying to teach me a lesson? I have had teachers
slap me down—‘I’m the teacher; you’re the student.’ Bill recognized very early
because of my age and professional experience—he’s read my résumé—instead
of seeing me as a threat to his authority, he’s chosen to use me as a resource.”
Later, we ask Bill about this moment. He grins. “I was absolutely delighted.
I want students to share what they know. I was also delighted that he was so
articulate.” Bill continues, “It was good for the other students; he broke the ice.
That was the turning point. Yesterday, volunteers [to show their work] came
fast and furious, and they’re sending me websites they think might interest
me. They’re teaching me more now.”
Bill goes on to discuss his hearing aids, which he often jokes about. He
explains, “I had a difficult time when I first got my hearing aids. You become
a cyborg. But now I always tell students that if I miss something or if I’ve misunderstood
them, they should let me know. This empowers them. My own dis-
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ability works in my favor because it puts me on a much more equal footing with
my students. The aids have helped me learn to rely on students more to teach.”
Bill can be insistent about this reliance. He frequently asks for examples of
student work, waiting patiently until someone shares one. Students send these
to him from their computer stations as email attachments, and he opens them
on the class screen. One day, he says, “Is there a woman in here who would like
to send one? We have all these guys sending, and I would like an example from a
woman.” A moment later he turns toward Dana and asks her to share her paper.
“In front of people?” she says.
“Yes, so we can talk about it.” Addressing the class he explains, “Dana’s
paper makes a really interesting point,” and adds quickly, “Has anyone sent me
something?” He checks his computer and says, “Oh yes, good. A couple more?”
Later, we ask Bill about this moment, and he says, “Sometimes women
are stronger in language, and in this group the women are the stronger writers;
they’re writing circles around the men. I was concerned that they weren’t
sharing their work. . . . I felt I should intervene and ask and encourage them.
Now I’m getting lots of participation. Students are sending me work freely, and
the class is much better for it. There are times when you have to ask for what
you want, and this was one of them.”
Heather
One afternoon Bill comes into class and places a brown bag on the table. He
has designed an assignment in which students describe a mechanical object
with moving parts. “Let me start by giving you a little more information on
mechanical description, what it is and how it works,” he explains. “The mechanical
processes of hose clamps and paper clips have no terms that holistically
describe their uses—which is what we’re going to do today. Right now, you’re
looking at me and saying, ‘I hope he gets a phone call.’” Students laugh, and he
continues, “Think about your audience: what does an audience need to know?”
Bill circulates around the room, stopping at each student’s station to survey
what he or she is doing, engaging some in conversation. Bill does not wait
to be invited to look at his students’ work. He alerts them when he reads over
their shoulders but does not ask permission. When looking at student work
in this way, he asks frequent questions. “What would happen if . . . ?” “How do
you think your reader will understand this diagram?”
Bill reaches the desk of Heather, a student who has found previous assignments
difficult. “So to define it I tell you its use?” she asks.
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“Not quite” Bill says. Then, indicating the clip, he asks “What is this?”
“I have no idea.”
Bill responds, “Sure you do.” His tone is encouraging and reassuring, not
critical or sarcastic. “Just look at it, tell me what it is,” he says. Heather balks.
Bill sticks with her. At this point, he is sitting beside her, their eyes level,
a stance he often takes when a student is confused. He continues to ask her
questions about the file clip. He spends a long time with Heather, patient and
interested, as if the file clip’s function is an important question. She says something
quietly to Bill, and he nods his head in agreement. She begins typing, and
he moves on to other students.
When we talk with Bill about Heather, he says, “Heather was resisting.
By the end of the day she did a good job. She didn’t know what I wanted. She
wanted me to tell her how to do it. I finally convinced her to start writing. . . .
This was a good moment for her—more competence.”
Heather smiles a little ruefully when we ask about that day in class.
“I wasn’t getting it,” she says, adding that Bill “dumbed it down” for her but
wouldn’t tell her what to do—he made her do that. We ask about Bill’s authority
in the classroom, and she declares, “Definitely authoritative. It’s obvious
he knows his stuff. He has examples on everything. Not ambiguous at all. You
learn a lot.”
Findings
Forms of Authority
Confirming previous research, teacher authority in this study proved complex,
the locus of control for Bill’s authority surprisingly diffuse (e.g., Pace). In
speaking to us about the class, Bill offhandedly attributed his authority to the
university, saying “Well, I have the institution behind my authority here. So now
the question is, how do we build a community in spite of it?” We found this
comment telling because it made clear that Bill sees his legal and traditional
authority as an impediment to the rich and supportive classroom community
he seeks to create. Yet, while Bill did downplay and relinquish much of his
legal and traditional authority, he nevertheless achieved a remarkable classroom
presence and spoke and acted with great authority. Students attentively
listened to him, followed his advice, sought his assistance and approval, and
otherwise respected him. Consequently, his classroom authority must derive
from sources outside the institutional power he wields.
Weber accounted for authority distinct from institutions and tradition,
calling it charismatic. Sociologists have ascribed charismatic authority to
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qualities that encourage people to obey and follow a leader. In Bill’s case, his
charismatic authority stems from his subject-area knowledge, experience, and
professional expertise as both a writer and teacher of writing. Some charismatic
authority may also derive from his humor, gentleness, and friendly demeanor.
Yet “obedience” is altogether out of place as a description of Bill’s relationship
to his students. Bill’s classes are markedly student centered. He encourages
students to ask questions of each other before turning to him, and he makes
frequent use of peer work, peer response, and peer editing. Students control
topics for discussion and writing, their approach to research and writing,
and many of their assignments and due dates. Use of class time is strikingly
student controlled, as evidenced by the time students have to read and write
in class. Terms long associated with Weber’s notion of charismatic authority,
including “loyalty,” “followers,” “leader,” “duty,” and “obey” also misrepresent
the dynamics in Bill’s classroom. In this sense, the authority granted Bill by
his students, while sharing features with Weber’s notion of charisma, requires
a very different kind of vocabulary.
Midcentury modifications to Weber’s theory added a fourth form of authority,
professional authority, which Pace and Hemmings have described as the
“expertise needed to achieve consensual aims” and an authority that derives
from “a strong command of subject knowledge and pedagogical skills” (7). Bill’s
pedagogical skills are exemplary and include expertise in all components of the
class including course design, lesson planning, lecturing, running discussions,
writing assignments, conferencing, responding to student writing, facilitating
peer interactions, and grading. We believe this sense of professional authority
accounts for most of the classroom authority we observed, particularly in light
of two additional refinements to Weber’s account: Carl Friedrich’s assertion
that authority more accurately derives from agreement than obedience, and the
notion of professional trust, as accounted for by Bidwell and others. Bidwell
pointed out that the trust upon which teacher authority rests is uniquely collective,
rather than individual (qtd. in Pace and Hemmings 7–8). While Bill
draws from all four grounds of authority—legal, traditional, charismatic, and
professional—his professional authority proves most dominant. And he deftly
plays his traditional and legal authority against his professional and charismatic
authority when responding to small gestures of classroom disobedience.
Embracing Contraries
We frequently experience small acts of student misbehavior in our classrooms as
threats to our authority, finding ourselves unsure how to respond when students
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arrive late, ignore our instructions, or use class time to send cell phone texts or
emails. Consequently, we wondered how Bill would respond to such moments.
In fact, we were surprised by how frequently we saw students using class time
to email, text, and flit about the Internet. We were more surprised to find that
these transgressions neither bothered Bill nor diminished his authority. Early
in the quarter we saw Bill look over a student’s shoulder as the student read an
email. Turning to the class, Bill said that he had an important announcement.
The student grew increasingly uncomfortable, the class quiet and tense. Bill
told the class to bring up a blank Word document, to access the Internet, and
then, while looking at a website, to quickly hit “Alt+Tab” (which immediately
returns the screen to the Word document). “That’s what you should do if you
find that a professor is about to catch you on the Internet,” he told the class,
which erupted in laughter and exclamations. Alt+Tab became a running joke
over the remainder of the term.
This vignette can be read from competing perspectives. On the one hand,
the moment asserted Bill’s knowledge, demonstrating he is not easily fooled
and buttressing his powers of surveillance. But the incident was also a hall pass
of sorts, a license to use the Internet in class. The upshot was not the diminishment
of his authority but its aggrandizement: the moment expanded his
charismatic and professional authority to a far greater degree than it diminished
his traditional and legal authority.
Heather and Hagrid
Bill’s classroom interactions with Heather and Hagrid provide further insights
into the kinds of authority Bill relinquished and marshaled and the manner in
which student authority emerged in response to Bill’s assertions of his professional
authority. With Heather he was both assertive and facilitative, refusing
to give her answers or tell her what to do. She concluded that Bill is “definitely
authoritative.” Heather granted this authority based upon her assessment of
Bill’s expertise as a writer and teacher of writing, and the procedural skill with
which he teaches the class.
Hagrid initially mistrusted Bill, believing he had called on him to shut
him down. In fact, while very pleased with the class and Bill’s willingness to
use him as a resource, Hagrid remained uncomfortable with Bill’s tendency to
downplay his traditional and legal authority. “I’m someone, give me an inch and
I’ll take a mile—until an authority figure sets a boundary,” Hagrid explained.
And yet he earned a high grade in the course, met all deadlines, and further
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advanced his skills and abilities as a technical writer. The responsibility Bill
relinquished to him proved effective, even if it did render him uncomfortable.
Hagrid’s notion of authority remained traditional and legal, but his willingness
to seek and follow Bill’s advice reflected respect for his expertise in writing and
his professional authority.
Know Thy Students
Bill’s success with Hagrid and Heather revealed an additional source of his
professional authority: his deep knowledge of his students. Interviewing and
speaking with Bill, we were continually impressed by his ready access to his
students’ needs, abilities, and motivations. He could list each student’s topic
and the changes their drafts had undergone. Bill garnered his knowledge of
his students through the hard work of attending to their writing, conferencing
over long office hours, and paying close attention to the dynamics of their
classroom behavior and participation.
Discussion
Rhetorical Agency
Carmen Werder has argued that the conceptual system she calls “power talk”
has truncated the discussion of the right exercise of teacher authority. According
to Werder, power talk has framed teacher/student interactions in adversarial
terms, collapsing a teacher’s many forms of agency into binary conceptions of
obedience and control. Joining Bizzell, Gale, Pace and Hemmings, and others,
Werder proposed language that permits the possibility and discussion of an
enabling use of teacher authority. To this end she posited “rhetorical agency,”
which she has defined as “rhetoric as persuasion in cooperative terms” (14).
For Werder, rhetorical agency is “not about controlling others; it’s about understanding
our common needs. It’s not about forcing others; it’s about choosing
with them from an array of perspectives available . . . and figuring things out
together” (14).
Werder’s conceptual system fits much of what we observed in Bill Smith’s
classroom. Certainly, Bill expressed and exercised his power in an assertive,
enabling manner, and he did so largely on the basis of the information he shared.
The weight of his comments on plagiarism, for instance, relied upon the facts,
vignettes, and advice he presented. While he did declare his responsibility to
report plagiarism, he presented it as information students could use. And he
spent most of the lesson sharing information about how to prevent plagia-
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rism. Consequently, the persuasive weight of the lesson remained grounded in
information rather than in his traditional and legal power, thereby liberating
the discussion from adversarial relations. Similarly, Bill wasn’t threatened by
Hagrid’s professional expertise and made use of Hagrid’s knowledge, shaping
the class as a “collaborative enterprise” (Werder 23).
Bill can be insistent and challenging, as when he asked Dana to share her
paper. Yet he did so because of the quality of Dana’s insight. He was careful not
to personalize his request; he used a business-like voice and quickly segued
to other matters, throwing the attention off of Dana. We believe the authority
backing the request was firmly based in his professionalism as a skilled teacher
rather than his bureaucratic or charismatic power.
Werder’s assertion that rhetoric may be a useful guiding metaphor for
approaching the right use of classroom authority also rings true for us, given
our study of Bill’s teaching and our own experience as teachers. In responding
to student writing, for instance, we clearly retain traditional and legal authority.
We tell students what grade a paper or portfolio receives, where it needs
improvement, and when it meets course standards. Moreover, we come into our
classrooms with a pre-established sense of what effective college-level writing
looks like and the steps, contexts, and processes that enable students to achieve
and demonstrate it. But we also know that students learn more through problem
solving and mutual assistance than through commands and obedience. The
freedom and responsibility to make their own mistakes, choices, and discoveries
is a requirement of their progress. Trusting us helps them in this process; we
best build that trust through our subject area expertise as practitioners and
teachers, the professional authority we demonstrate in teaching well, and the
close knowledge we build of their skills, personalities, needs, and motivations.
Consequently, we agree with Werder that this facilitative model of teaching
writing provides a frame for discussing teacher authority.
Concerns that focus on traditional and legal authority overlook the more
substantial contributions of charismatic and professional authority. Fears that
de-centered practices threaten the standing of composition miss this point
entirely. The bureaucratic authority emerges from a different source than the
authority we earn when students trust and respect us. Our study suggests that
trust and respect yield much more classroom power. Because the authority
teachers fear misusing is legal, traditional and bureaucratic, a focus on professional
authority may permit teachers to exercise authority distinct from the
kind of power we typically view as oppressive.
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Something More
Reviewing our portrait, we were tempted to conclude that professional authority
is inversely related to bureaucratic authority and to recommend that
composition teachers follow Bill in relinquishing their bureaucratic power.
But Bill himself dissuaded us from this point. He noted that what it means to
“teach well” varies by circumstance, setting and students. “I am much stricter
when teaching freshman rhetoric or basic writing,” he explained. “As technical
writers, these students needed to think less about me and more about their
intentions and audience. Teaching well in other circumstances can require a
different orientation. And I know that the approaches other teachers use to
‘teach well’ may differ sharply from mine.”
More importantly, the more we reflected upon Bill’s relinquishment of
his legal authority the more we saw this relinquishment as a consequence,
rather than a cause, of his classroom authority. Rereading our transcripts, we
sensed something more, a further layer of internal authority, a kind of belief in
himself and the importance of his work and field that we had not yet named.
Required by the methodology of portraiture to attend to such feelings, we read
back through the history of research on authority, looking for language that
might help us get at this deeper layer, this “something more.” This led us back
to Durkheim and the following quotation from Education and Society:
It is not from the outside that the teacher can hold his authority, it is from himself;
it can come to him only from an inner faith. He must believe, not in himself, no
doubt, not in the superior qualities of his intelligence or of his soul, but in his task
and in the importance of his task (88–89)
As a teacher of writing, Bill manifests this belief in himself, “in his task and
the importance of his task.” This is the “something more” we saw but could not
name: Bill not only teaches writing well, but he does so in the fullest confidence
that teaching and studying writing are essential tasks and eminently important.
No Easy Task
Of course, teaching writing well is not an easy task. In fact, our most frequent
response to our classroom observation was awe. Like musicologists studying
a recorded set of jazz improvisations, each step of analysis left us admiring the
skill, artistry, and effort implicit in the myriad components of Bill’s teaching.
Consider the sources of knowledge upon which he draws: his years of experience
as a writer and teacher of writing; his administrative experience directing
composition programs; the hundreds of hours he has spent observing and
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evaluating writing teachers; his broad knowledge in composition, theory, and
technical writing; his reflections on his teaching; and his long hours building
his deep familiarity with his students and their writing. In turn, he brings this
knowledge to bear upon course design, lesson planning, responding to student
writing, lecturing, running discussions, establishing class procedures, and
interacting with students.
We differ somewhat in how we have applied the findings from this research
to our own efforts to teach well. We all find ourselves to be working harder as
teachers, reading student writing more closely, holding longer office hours, and
attending more deliberately to who our students are and how they respond to
our instruction. And we have all attempted to become warmer in our interactions
with students. We find ourselves more relaxed in the classroom and more
confident, more trusting of our instincts and willing to act on them. As one
of us put it, “Bill showed me that an effective classroom doesn’t depend on an
infallible teacher.” While we remain committed to de-centered methods and
a facilitative stance, we are more convinced that such approaches require a
teacher whom students trust and respect. Three of us find we respond to tardies
and other infractions with a “lighter touch” than we used to, while one of us
reports that he is increasingly convinced that “teaching well” for him means
enforcing attendance, decorum, and deadlines. For one of us, intellectual honesty—teaching
from a pedagogy she believes in and understands—has become
a guiding goal and concern. Another reports thinking more about the needs
of individual students and less about programmatic requirements. At least
two of us admit to hoping that we’ve strengthened our charismatic authority
and moved closer to that rare combination of engaging personality, confident
poise, and gentle, ego-less persona we observed in Bill. All of us feel renewed
and reinvigorated. We are no less exhausted but ever more convinced of the
value and worth, the importance of our task as writing instructors.
We are similarly unanimous in believing that we honor and open a window
on enabling forms of authority by attending to them. Just as the study of writing
methods requires attention to the theory and assumptions behind classroom
practices, the study of classroom authority requires disciplinary attention and
research, informed theory, and reflections upon practice. In this article we’ve
sought to contribute to this effort by providing an account of one writing
teacher’s exemplary exercise of his authority, by introducing portraiture as a
promising ethnographic method for producing such accounts, and by sharing
the analysis that led us to conclude that teacher authority principally derives
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from the professional authority one garners by teaching well. We find that
professional authority is neither oppressive nor incompatible with de-centered
methods, effective instruction, or the kind of assertive teacher authority required
to effectively lead a class. In this way, effective instruction and teacher
authority become mutually reinforcing reciprocal processes.
Limitations and Directions for Further Research
The scope and reliability of this study are necessarily limited. Asking what is
“good and healthy” in an exemplary teacher’s exercise of power and authority,
we saw Bill Smith’s technical writing classes as a best-case laboratory of ideal
conditions. Writing instruction in other contexts would necessarily yield a
different combination of forms of authority and power. Similarly, we wonder
whether the dynamics and forms of authority we recognized in Bill’s classes are
shared by other exemplary teachers, or whether there are multiple and diverse
ways to demonstrate an enabling use of authority.
Race
Portraits and reflections upon practice that attend more specifically to race are
especially warranted. We wonder, in particular, about Thomas Lugo’s finding
that de-centered methods proved counterproductive for the African American
men he studied. Do the forms of classroom authority that most enable students
vary according to race and gender? Do de-centered methods exacerbate home/
school cultural dichotomies for students of color? Did Lugo’s teacher’s methods
fail because they were culturally inappropriate for her male students, or
because she employed them poorly? Would Bill’s students have assented to the
authority of Lugo’s teacher? Could a teacher with Bill’s charisma, expertise, and
professional authority have been successful with de-centered methods in the
context Lugo describes? Portraits and classroom studies of writing teachers effective
in multicultural settings would go far toward answering such questions.
Gender
We leave our study with similar questions about gender. While men have argued
that de-centered methods may threaten a teacher’s academic standing
and classroom authority (e.g. Tobin), the vast majority of teachers who have
asserted such views are women writing from their own experience in the classroom.
A female colleague whom we asked to comment on this paper raised the
same concern, suggesting that perhaps students respect Bill for his facilitative,
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student-centered approach in part because it defies their expectation. “A female
teacher’s use of such methods would confirm expectations,” she countered,
“positioning her as a woman first and a teacher second.”
We call for classroom research that compares diverse and contrasting
demonstrations of teacher authority by male and female teachers of writing in
a variety of settings. In our view, studies of this sort, attending to contexts and
dynamics beyond the scope of our own research, represent the most promising
directions for future research. Composition is advanced by both theoretical
and applied studies of teacher authority that seek enabling routes past the
“impasse” over power.
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Steven L. VanderStaay
Steven L. VanderStaay is professor of English and vice provost for undergraduate
education at Western Washington University. He teaches courses in literature,
linguistics, and writing methods.
Beverly A. Faxon
Beverly A. Faxon teaches journalism at Skagit Valley College and English at
Edmonds Community College.
Jack E. Meischen
Jack E. Meischen currently teaches basic writing and communication at Madison
Area Technical College and first-year composition at Edgewood College.
Karlene T. Kolesnikov
Karlene T. Kolesnikov lives and writes in Washington State.
Andrew D. Ruppel
Andrew D. Ruppel teaches freshman composition at Western Washington University
in Bellingham.
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