Consider Linda Flower's approach to community literacy, based on the reading assigned for this week. Flower devotes an entire chapter to exploring the idea of community literacy. In what ways might her understanding of community literacy complement our discussions in class and/or blog postings? In what ways might her approach to community literacy challenge some of the issues raised through class discussion and/or blog postings?
As we discussed in class, this week you need to write the equivalent of 300 words, either directly in response to the questions I raise above, and/or in response to what others write.
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One of the things that struck me about the Pittsburgh CLC is that Carnegie Mellon is among the elite and as such, engaging in discourse with teenagers from the Northside, are engaged in an exercise of talking across cultural difference/divide. When privilege meets underprivelege, a hybrid is necessary if any discourse is to take place. Indications are, the dialogue was successful enough to develop a favorable environment that cultivated conversation, writing, reflection, persuasion and performance. That’s an impressive catalog! So how does this particular learning environment succeed where regular schooling (the banking system) fails? The discursive space introduces community folks and students alike to new skills to identify and verbalize issues (perhaps for the first time in some cases) and, if it works correctly, moves toward Dewey’s humanistic ideal of liberating human intelligence and human sympathy.
The other thing that really caught my attention, and I wonder did anyone else pick up on it, is the irony of the “protocols of style and decorum” (33) argument? I understand the point that the use of elite discourse is frowned on because it excludes people in verbal discourse? True – valid point; but what about the written word? Everything we have read so far indicates that there is some really good research and information to be shared with the service-learning communities. All the writings have been in academic-speak / elite discourse and might not be accessible to people who could really use this information to assist them in moving forward with particular initiatives. Much of what I have read seems to be academics writing for academics, to academics, about academics. There is some good information in here but do academics see any need to reach across cultural difference and drop that information in there? I would like to know if Linda Flower’s book is easily accessible at Pittsburgh CLC.
Linda Flower’s gives us the definition: “Community literacy is a rhetorical practice for inquiry and social change.” Since for the past five weeks our discussions have centered around defining community literacy and identifying public spheres, this seemed rather simplistic. In last week’s blogs we all tried to think of a true public sphere and some of us had difficulty coming up with one (or at least I did). I know that Professor Wilkey commented that the court/legal system suggested by Aime, was a public sphere, but having worked in that environment, I often found that it wasn’t about justice or having a voice of representation, but more about power and money. In a way it’s like the discourse that Habermas says existed in the 17-18th centuries.
In the rap written by Mark Howard, Flower does a good job of giving us an insight to problems in the community that are school related. In our class discussions we try to understand the reasons behind the need for community literacy and service learning. The instructor described in the rap is a great example. Because teachers are quite often distanced from the culture of students, they don’t understand how to deal with situations that are disruptive/unacceptable in the classroom. In any classroom there has to be some kind of order, so the instructor uses her ideology to deal with the situation. I wouldn’t say that “she lied” as the student sees it, but misinterprets a situation. This goes back to our first reading wherein Fish tries to delineate where the instructor needs to draw the line. Is it the instructor’s place to be counselor, mediator, interpreter, etc (on the sometimes minimal salary offered)? I know that most universities require classes for cultural diversity and social inequality for teaching students, but it’s not really enough to completely understand another culture. I see the need for community literacy, but I’m full of questions as to how you can reach that goal.
Flowers writes about a fourth community other than the urban, civic and organizational ones wherein “The chief function of this imagined collective is to create a distinctive kind of rhetorical community-an intercultural, problem-focused, local public sphere designed for talking with others across difference.” How do you do this when there are people that may not believe that it affects them? If it doesn’t affect them, many people wouldn’t care.
Anna’s observation: “Much of what I have read seems to be academics writing for academics, to academics, about academics.” The irony in Flower’s writing had occurred to me too. I know that there is a standard of writing that has to be upheld in academia, but the teenagers described might enjoy reading the rap and generate discussion from that, the rest of the book would become paper airplane material. The “everyday working class people” that Flowers describes would probably feel the same way. So who’s writing to inform the people of the community to encourage them to be community literate?
Flower Power
Based on the readings, Linda Flower’s approach to community literacy complements and adds to what our class has explored. Flower’s tour through “the community” in Pittsburgh and physical descriptions helped to ground the hypothetical theories. In addition, the study of the Community House and the examples of the artifacts that it has produced (including Mark Howard’s rap) were helpful in demonstrating the potential a project could have. It made me wonder, does Cincinnati have its own “CLC”? If we created one, what would make it successful?
I appreciate the fact that Flowers acknowledges the source of funding (Howard Heinz Endowments, the R. K. Mellon Foundation, the Grable Foundation, the collective Pittsburgh Foundation) and the fact that she details how it was a self-supporting nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization supported by grant writing. I don’t want to get caught up in the logistics, but I think that understanding and formulating ways to support such projects would be vitally important to their success.
For financial purposes, her project is referred to as “a neighborhood youth project, a recognized innovation in community/university collaboration, a research laboratory, and a working expression of moral visions and commitments” (24). These various ways of describing the same and different activities that all fall under community literacy have also helped solidify an understanding of the concept. In addition, her example of the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transsexual communities involved in the dialogue with the churches has further expanded my view of the potential that these projects could take.
Linda Flowers chapter on community literary is a good complement to the discussions presented in class & on the blog. The CLC project she discusses and the neighborhood that the mentors are entering is reminiscent of the OTR projects that have been discussed throughout the semester. The examples given in the book of the student’s poetry and their discourse mirrors a similar type of discourse that is occurring in OTR with the writing groups and the oral history project. Reading the rap by Mark Howard echoed to me the CD from OTR that we listened to in class Thursday night. The Pittsburgh community that is part of the CLC project is inspirational. There are so many cities that would benefit from a program that finds solutions to gangs and why educators can not relate to their students. Focusing on communication and the ways in which each group (teenagers, teachers, etc) communicates creates an environment where social change can happen.
Although the definition of community literacy given by Flowers may seem simplistic the execution of the definition is the truly complicated part. Setting out to create social change is not something easily accomplished. Society tends to be set in their ways regardless of whether or not those ways are causing oppression in others. Many live by the creed if it isn’t broke don’t fix it & they can’t see what’s broken or choose not to see it. I believe projects like the CLC and OTR are a move in the right direction to effect social change in an environment that does not wish to change.
Jill said “It made me wonder, does Cincinnati have its own “CLC”? If we created one, what would make it successful?”
I had a similar thought in regards to a CLC in this area. My thoughts are in Newport to create a place where the displaced lower income families & homeless can go to express their thoughts and feelings on the events going on in the community. The homeless were displaced when the Levy was built & the low income families were moved out of the projects so it could be torn down to sit empty for years to come. I wonder if a CLC would help bring about a discourse in the community that would find a solution to the mess that is Newport.
Flowers does not appear to be focused on a purely black and white, one-sided, or one level confined definition of community literacy. Instead, Flowers looks at community literacy from a multi-level, multi-sided, gray area, and over-lapping view of what constitutes community literacy and the intellectual purpose those who are engaged with it.
Flowers stated that traditional approaches to rhetoric and dialog failed to reflect common human realities. Flowers writes that those who follow the traditional approaches to liberal education, "... reflect a particular and rather narrow slice of the universal human experience" (p. 31).
There is mutual agreement with Flowers that community literacy is definitively connected with social justice issues because of society's glaring race, class, gender, and individual rights dilemmas. However, I'm not sure that Flowers' definition of community literacy is clearly focused on the impact of power relationships between traditionally unequal groups when it comes to service learning applications, at least not in this introductory chapter.
Our classroom discussions often drift into the arena of human differences. Flowers' observations do in fact acknowledge the presence of those differences in relationship to service learning activities.
The idea of Cincinnati having its own CLC is in complete conflict with the culture of this particular locality. The only exception to this rule is the work of the People's Movement in OTR, today.
Thirty years ago, the Model Cities Program funded an Arts Consortium for the West End, Mount Auburn, and Over-The-Rhine neighborhoods. The project was an appalling display of elite, Euro-centric cultural domination. The African American and White Appalachian expressions of the neighborhood people were ignored and deliberately excluded.
The three Model Cities' Learning and Resource Centers whose literacy program was culturally sensitive to neighborhood people was constantly under political attack by city officials.
The above case example illustrates the reasons why cross-cultural dialog must be conducted on a level playing field. The "hybrid approach" suggested by Anna is only workable if the privileged side is willing to listen first and utilize community "self determined" strategies for teaching and learning.
Aimen described Flowers' definition as "simplistic." Actually, I thought Flowers' concept of public versus counter public intellectuals raised some really complex learning, research, and teaching strategy issues.
I know that Jill asked if the Cincinnati area has anything like the CLC in Pittsburgh. Though I don’t officially know of any that can be listed here, I know that UC has had (and I am pretty sure still does have) such a program. As I was reading Flowers’s book, another book kept popping into my head from my past – Victoria Purcell-Gates’s Other People’s Words.
The book concerns itself with a specific family (child and mother primarily) and basically how a “community literacy project” affected this family long-term. If you have the time, I would recommend this to read. Gates used to be a professor at UC and the setting of this account adds an extra interest I think. I have found myself recalling passages and excerpts during discussions and readings in trying to visualize a project in practice and how it may impact those involved.
I thought it was interesting that Flowers sees community literacy (and the public sphere) as a place that “supports dialogue across difference.” She sees it serving to discuss differences (conflict) instead of sharing commonalities (consensus). I think that that is an important aspect because it sets up the notion of creating/causing/initiating change. This concept also made me revert back to one of the last chapters (don’t know if it was chapter 4 or 5) from Weisser’s book where he comments that we can’t expect immediate or grandiose changes from all people involved in a project. We must accept those “baby steps” that a project may make and acknowledge it as beneficial.
Also, Dr. Wilkey has admitted from his own experiences, sometimes the planned outcome or goal is transformed in the midst of a project and a new/different one arises – one that often was unpredicted or unseen. However, in the end, we must still embrace the change, large or small, significant or seemingly insignificant, as a good thing for the democratic society.
Jill mentions the notion of unexplored potential Cincinnati has to assist in helping citizens to develop their literacy status. I agree that many of the smaller communities within Cincinnati have great potential to improve in many aspects - school performance, decreasing crime, and creating desirable neighborhoods. Even across the river, here in Northern Kentucky, I see areas where conscious efforts are being made to recognize and address the deficits certain communities possess. At the same time, I have witnessed the inconsistencies these programs can bring to individual's lives. One year a family may participate in a program to improve the parenting skills with small children or teenagers. Once the members become comfortable and form bonds with sponsors, progress is made and documented, then for reasons beyond their control the program is no longer of service the next year. My experience with this scenario is due most often to funds not being available consistently to sustain such services. My greatest frustration lies in seeing these individuals allowing themselves to become vulnerable to change and open to constructive criticism, and subsequently they are left with a sense of rejection, furhtering the cycle of not valuing self-improvement.
I want to touch on Anna’s comment: “Much of what I have read seems to be academics writing for academics, to academics, about academics. There is some good information in here but do academics see any need to reach across cultural difference and drop that information in there?”
I think that need is clear, but I don’t know how to bridge that gap.
I’m having an identity crisis here. For the last seven+ years I have lived and breathed corporate-world/bottom-line thinking. I am in grad school with the hope that one day I’ll leave the world of meaningless corporate speak and suffocating bureaucracy. I don’t want to “leverage strategies” all day for the rest of my life. But I’m starting to realize that I’m just trading in one set of games for another.
I don’t want people to think that I don’t “get the point” of going to grad school or sic Stanley Fish on me, but I am thoroughly depressed that my practicality and business sense that have brought me “success” in my career feel like traits that are hindering me in my studies.
As Weisser said in Chapter 5, we want “to help students use language as a tool for effecting change in the world.” Today I wonder: how can I help students make change when I can’t even do it myself?
Based on what I've read of Flowers so far, I think that the big difference between her brand of “community literacy” and what we have been discussing comes down to a fundamental difference in implied scope and strategy. Flowers makes it very clear in chapter 1 (page 20) what her definition of community literacy is and based on that we can clearly see what she feels her role is. For her, “community literacy allows everyday people to take agency in their lives and FOR THEIR COMMUNITY (emphasis mine) and allows everyday people from places of privilege to participate in this struggle for . . . social justice.” It seems to me that she’s interested in constructing her own ‘public sphere.” She even goes on to say then (as Rabe pointed out above) that community literacy is, to her, “a working hypothesis about how we might construct a community that supports dialogue across difference.” Putting her whole definition into one model then, Flowers essentially says that community literacy is a hypothetical literate action that uses “the social ethic and strategic practice of intercultural rhetoric” that allows those who have been marginalized to “take agency in their own lives.” Her role then seems to be a facilitator and even a mediator to some extent in that she is creating a venue for a discussion to take place between the marginalized and the priviledged.
This is, on the surface, contrary to the type of social advocacy that we have been discussing in class, but I think what Flowers either fails to see or prefers not to highlight is that by acknowledging that an effort must be made to give voices to those who are subaltern she makes an implicitly political decision advocating their cause. Possibly our culture gives a too-soft from of reference. If she were attempting to make a public discourse between Indians and the British Imperialist their occupation of India, I don’t think that her position could be so subtle.
Flower has made things a bit clearer for me by introducing me to the idea a local public sphere. In a culture where media is so remarkably fragmented and the attention span of listeners/readers is so remarkably short, I had all but given up on finding a meaningful “public sphere” as we had discussed and read about to this point. Even knowing that most compositionists considered it a utopian ideal, gave rise to the question of what was the point of it.
One of the first things I noticed about Flower’s is that her rhetoric (Oh, God. I’ll try not to used loaded words again), her opening rhetoric is remarkably accessible. I know we’ve all experienced (difference/conflict) situations where we felt like parties were speaking in different languages. When she talks about what a local public sphere would have to include, her fourth pint is that “it requires rhetorical competence.” Quoting Roberts-Miller, “…one must make one’s argument understood in words others use.” This responsibility falls on all parties involved.
I see this as being remarkably important: All parties should not only seek to understand the rhetoric used by others and embrace it, but they should also help others understand their own rhetoric. Last year I sat in a doctor’s office “thinking” I understood a family member’s dire diagnosis. I did, but my 75 year-old mother hadn’t a clue what the doctor was talking about. Whether it’s medical, academic, or computer jargon, it is still jargon. The resistance to let go of using our specific rhetoric or resist using the “words of others” may put us in an uncomfortable position, but that’s where understanding begins.
How can we begin to understand cultural difference and promote inquiry if we are using markedly different rhetoric?
On another note, I do hope we’ll talk about the idea of an “activist intellectual” that Weisser discussed in chapter 5.
I think Jen's observation about types of things teenaged students would respond to is very true. Information posed in ways teenagers are drawn to seems to be the best way to go. I don't think students in this age range are totally uninterested in getting involved, I think they just need some type of motiviation and ways they can relate. Much of appealing to them needs to be done through things that will grab their attention, things they can relate to.
I think much of what community literacy is needs to be somewhat catered to the community its intended. I think Flower agrees. We cannot generalize how we approach community literacy. There has to be some tailoring to the intended audience, with a strong focus on communication.
This seems to relate back to Fish and his idea of traditional academia. As I read I could directly see that Flowers has a much different idea of how communication in teaching should be done. Her 'get it done' attitude is definitely different and is one that I prefer.
I also see how her definition of community literacy definitely relates to our learned idea of a public sphere. Flowers is very much geared to using language to constructively get things done. In class we talked about how she makes herself readily available to any community she works with taking the, 'how can I help' approach. She is using herself to focus on action as opposed to just theorizing.
Jason makes a good point, which is also something we discussed in class. That Flowers doesn't see community work toward literacy as being a 'advocate.' However, doesn't it seem more important that something is being done and not necissarily the titles attached to the work? I think focusing on labels and definitions seems like a waste of time. I must step back and say, though I am not 100% familiar with this stuff. Defining may be of very high importance, it's just my personal opinion that spending time naming is nowhere near as important the work itself.
I believe that FLower's interpretation of what community literacy is complements our discussions on community literacy in class. Flower aragues that "critical literacy sees literacy as a way to resist power, challenge injustice, and insist on alternative images of social and self-development". She talks about the various practices of literacy, i.e. community-based creative-writing programs, ESL, or analyzing ideology that shapes texts and media, and the power dynamic that shapes every "family member" of literate practices. And the power dynamic is one of the issues that has been made very central to literacy from the onset of our discussions. Also, we can tie in Jason's comments that he posed during the first week in which he suggests that literacy is contextual, not always traditional and that of academia. Worth mentioning to me is a point that Flower made in regards to the CLC project. It was when the group of teenagers and the mentors took the van into the Northside community and members of the community were conversing with each other. She mentioned that the focus was on the teens, not the tutor. The tutor had to adapt to that style of literacy. I think that is important because I the focus many times is not as much about the community but about the goals of the learning institution or scholar. The focus in service learning projects sometimes is more concerned with the intended outcomes of the researcher or scholar.
Linda Flower’s approach to Community Literacy struck me with close resemblance to the ideals I see as successful to the concept. In my own words, I view her philosophy as a more individualized approach to communities and there most emergent needs. Not every community is concentrated with a large population that fit criteria that necessitate specific interventions and I believe this way of providing interventions to particular areas is the formula for stigmas that surround the desires others have to work/assist in the community. For example, if I were to approach a group of parents of students where I work and try to educate them on the importance of maintaining hygiene habits for themselves and their children, the majority of these parents would be offended at the notion that I (an educated teacher) view them and their kids as dirty, or smelly. It would be false to assume that based on broad range demographic, every citizen/student needs guidance as to how to properly groom themselves. I found comfort in reading Flower’s insistence that the efforts directed at communities or groups be not general, but specific to the needs and benefits of the population chosen to serve. I did not understand the comment on page 42 where Flower’s says, “The mentors we will follow struggled with their roles as partners in learning for many reasons.”
I was hoping for a little clarification, but maybe I have read this too many times. Does this imply that the mentors struggled with their role as a teacher, or their varying social status, or was it difficult for the majority to negotiate a relationship with the individuals they were servicing? From my frame of reference, I do understand that working with those at an economic disadvantage does not come with success simply based on introductions. Results are most often forthcoming when the student/participant feels as though the efforts they are receiving are not from a threatening stance, or if the intentions are not genuine. Anyone can be an excellent judge of character, even seventh graders.
Jill mentions the feeling of having an "identity crisis" and I have to say that I feel much the same. Even from my perspective of trying to prepare my students for the obstacles they will face, I don't feel as though I will ever see any results similar to the readings. At the onset of the semester, I thought maybe I was too conservative to see the big picture or understand literacy from a different perspective, now I just feel inadequate.
In response to Anna’s comment about “academics writing for academics, to academics, about academics,” I agree that writing within academia can be frustrating. I struggle with this in a similar way everyday at my job. Many of the goals and initiatives that we have set for Vision 2015 are the same goals and initiatives that the same core group of community visionaries has been working towards for years. Vision 2015 has not reinvented the wheel when it comes to community development – our goal is to mobilize the community to move the needle forward. Our challenge is to break through the barriers of the community “elite” who have been working for certain changes in the community for a long time (i.e. green initiatives, ending homelessness) and bringing the message to the broader community in order to gain community will around these issues. So, while I may have gone off on a slight tangent here, there is value in the elite discussions between academics but the real value lies in community discourse and breaking through cultural differences in order to share ideas.
I think Linda Flowers sees community literacy as a mix of people from the urban community and from places of privilege using language to get things done within a context of difference. Community literacy depends on intercultural discourse so that people whose voices are often silenced can have a chance of being heard and because the mixing of cultures provides an environment for typically conflicting worldviews to reach a new levels of inquisitive discourse. I think this is very similar to our conversations last week about the public sphere because this is, in essence, what she is describing.
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