Performance, Identity, and Writing

We have discussed a number of interesting things since the start of the quarter. I am glad that I had the opportunity to discuss the Melanie Kill essay because it made the conversation about rhetorical genre theories a little more interesting. Further, my thesis focuses on performance and identity in relation to storytelling. I am interested in the ways in which people connect through storytelling as well as what storytelling accomplishes for a particular group of people. During Thursday's discussion, I started to think about how my research on storytelling, particularly Performance Poetry/Spoken Word is related to rhetorical genre theory, discourse communities, and literacy.

Of course, my thoughts brought me back to the Lunsford et al piece, "Performance Writing, Performing Literacy". Often, I relate to some of the student's opinions on "out-of-class" writing. When writing for class, I often find myself very conscious about what I am writing and how I am writing it. I'd hate to be misunderstood. On the other hand, I am more of a risk take when it comes to my poetry or blog posts. My art is up for interpretation so it doesn't offend me when someone misunderstands what I've written. (Though after reading Kill and Heilker, I'm becoming more conscious of the "me" that comes out in my writing or how I am "being")  However, some artists, poets especially, are concerned with how people interpret what they've written so they choose to perform their written work. As I've stated, I'm not obsessed with performance, but I do agree with Gere's idea that "performance is a another valuable component of the curriculum" (Lunsford et al, 232). I believe that it helps to transform language, the possibilities of language, and the ways in which students acquire literacy. I don't believe that students have to perform in the classroom, but I do believe it is valuable to have performance be a part of the learning experience.

During an Upward Bound course, I was responsible for helping students think critically about a Malcolm X speech. Students had to read the speech first and provided responses on X's argument. After turning in their responses, many students expressed that they wanted to hear X speak because they felt as if they didn't gain anything from simply reading it. Fortunately, I was able to find the speech online. After listening to his speech in class, I had them write another response. It seemed as if they better understood his argument after listening to it. Unlike their first responses, many of them mentioned his voice, tone, and how they really connected with X. It was in that particular course that I found performance to be valuable. I began to think about student writing and what students may miss if teachers do not include performance in the classroom (speeches, digital/video narratives, etc).

Further, after reading Mark Otuteye's piece on self-performing, I thought about how the student-teacher relationship as well as classroom identity may be affected if self-performed writing is included in the curriculum. Thinking back to Kill's piece, I feel like the effect is evident. Kill talked a lot about self-presentation for both students and teachers. This may be my background in critical pedagogy, but I believe it is important to know your students. I believe that self-performed writing provides an opportunity to get to your students. It allows students another way in which to position themselves when reading and writing new texts. I'd also like to say that by providing  room for self-performed writing can help decrease resistance, however, students' reactions to the digital narrative assignment that Matt assigned in the Upward Bound course would prove differently.

Relating this back to my research on storytelling, I want to see self-performed writing as a way to respond to the texts that students will read in our classrooms. For example, we talked about sexism and sexuality in my First-Year Composition Course. I often struggled with responding to those texts through academic writing, so I think self-performed writing would have helped me to position myself or engage the texts. I would have rather written a poem as my response. I believe a poem would have given me more room to better present myself. Below is an example of how one may respond to discourse on sexuality through self-performed writing. (Of course, it's Searius Add. I'll be interviewing him soon about the power of Performance Poetry.)

To conclude, I am now thinking about self-performed writing as well as the alternative research writing that Davis and Shadle provided in their piece. I believe that exploring identity/self-presentation and  performance in relation to First-Year Composition courses is important. We're able to identity ways to reshape the writing curriculum and our identities as teachers. Additionally, we can continue our conversation on the relationship between Rhetoric & Composition and Communication.