Contact Zones, or The Best Reading Experience of My Life

I love Mary Louise Pratt. When I say I love an author, I usually mean that their ideas have inspired me to think differently about important things in my own life. With Pratt, the idea is the "contact zone." Pratt's theory of the contact zone has reframed for me how I think about teaching -- what works and doesn't work with the diverse students we see in our classrooms today.

If you don't know, the contact zone refers to those spaces where "cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other" usually in the context of "asymmetrical relations of power." In other words, a classroom. Traditionally, the teacher is lord and master; the students must do what she says. The contact zone idea forces teachers to examine the structure we take for granted, examining the ways in which power relations in the classroom might get in the way of real learning.

I personally think the contact zone provides an awesome way of reading and thinking about literature. For instance, I never really liked the book Jane Eyre until I read it in grad school. My professor paired Jane Eyre with Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. The books are from two different eras, two different countries and contexts. Their authors are two different "races;" by conservative standards, these two books should never have been taught together in the same class. My prof taught them as a "contact zone," presenting Jane as a reflection of British Imperialism and Rhys' novel as a post-colonial, feminist response, in which Bertha claims back her voice and explains how she came to be Rochester's "mad" wife. It was one of the best, most powerful and memorable reading experiences of my whole life.

Reading Jane Eyre in the contact zone helped me understand the novel in its social and historical contexts. It was, in fact, published in 1847, while British imperialism was in full swing, and going largely uncriticized. (It wasn't until the 1870s that "Imperialism" became a widely used word in the English language, and early criticism of Imperialist policy came not from England, but from Russia.) Wide Sargasso Sea was published in 1966, when scholars engaged in post-colonial criticism were questioning the centrality of the literary canon, which was dominated by white writers and traditional perspectives.

Reading Jane Eyre by itself gives a reader a morality tale about a young woman blinded by love. However, taking the two novels together allows the reader to see Rochester as a symbol for British power and Bertha as his colonized subject. Wide Sargasso Sea introduces Bertha as a young Caribbean woman named Antoinette who has been renamed by her English husband. She says, "My name is not Bertha; why do you call me Bertha?" and Rochester responds, "Because it is a name I am particularly fond of. I think of you as Bertha" (81). Just as English soldiers renamed the countries they colonized, Rochester renames his wife and claims her as his property. While in Jane Eyre, Bertha has no voice, no spoken dialog, in Wide Sargasso Sea, it's Rochester who goes unnamed, taking some of the power back from the character. Rochester is certainly not a sympathetic character in Jane Eyre, either, but the pairing gives a reader a full context for his treachery and completes the symbolism -- Rochester becomes a representative for Imperialism and patriarchal values, and Jane's story becomes more about "the anger of the powerless," as Adrienne Rich notes.

It wasn't until long after grad school that I was able to make the connection that Mary Louise Pratt had made this reading experience possible for me. Literary scholar Patricia Bizzell has argued that Pratt's theory of the contact zone can give us a framework for re-imagining the study of literature. Bizzell argues that, instead of organizing English Studies in terms of period or genre (like "19th c. American Novel") or essentialized category (such as "Contemporary Woman Writers" or "the African American Novel"), we should study literature from the perspective of contact zones and instead look at "literature of segregation" or "literature of the class war." Bizzell's theory is pretty radical when you consider how little has changed about how we study literature, as if things like class wars and civil rights movements were not occurring all around us.

If you think about it, doing research on -- and therefore being able to offer college courses on -- things like "the African American novel" puts novels by Black American writers into a single, essentialized category, that ignores differences based on things like class and gender and history, allowing us to consider "Literature" as discrete works of art apart from their cultural context. The contact zone metaphor gives us a way of putting literature back into context, letting us see writing as always a sight of struggle, as "moments when different groups within the society contend for the power to interpret what is going on" (Pratt 463). In my opinion, this makes literature more fun!

More importantly, rethinking the study of literature and writing in terms of the contact zone can help us reengage our diverse students in course work and class discussion.  It creates a starting point for students to discuss and debate meaning, which might help us create the next generation of literary critics.  Putting two texts into conversation with one another like my professor did can help students understand writing as an ongoing dialog that doesn't end when a writer puts down her pen, or when a reader closes the book.

An Open Letter to My Students: Why Do You Hate Titles?

Okay, so here's the deal: A title is an important part of any writing project.  It helps to orient your reader.  It provides a key insight into your main point.  It is an invaluable expression of your writer's voice.  In an ironic twist, I have now graded about 10 papers about writer's voice as an "important issue," but these papers all had titles like "Important Issues Paper: Final Draft."  Oooh!  Riveting!  I can't wait to read another boring paper with the same boring title about the importance of writing with creativity and originality.  Do you see?  The irony?

So what's up with this?  I have decided that you must have learned somewhere along the line in your education to hate titles.  Maybe you were penalized unfairly for a snarky (if clever) title on a high school essay.  Maybe you are intimidated by the long, onerous, colon-happy titles common in academic prose ("Oh the humanity: Long and Onerous Titles as a Commonplace in Academic Research Writing").  Maybe you have another professor for another class who thinks titles are stupid. I get it; sometimes our subconscious fears and anxieties about writing surface in strange ways.

But now that it's out in the open, let's all stop.  Stop it.  Now.  Let's put all of this aside for the good of your writer's voice, and for the collective good of all humankind.  No one wants to read 30 student essays in a few days, not even the kindest, most compassionate writing teacher.  But clever, interesting titles make the process enjoyable, because they help me (the grader) focus on what's unique and interesting about your work rather than what's the same and frustrating about student writing in general.  As future writing teachers, you will all be in my position soon, so have a heart!

The trick is to write a title that reveals something (but not everything) about what YOU have to add to this ongoing conversation about literacy and composition pedagogy.  Make it clever, make it snarky, or make it polished, professional, and smart, but for the love of Pete, make it your own.  Show me what makes your writing unique and creative.  Make me want to keep reading.  I am a writing teacher, and this is my job, but I'm also a person, darn it.  And I have unreasonably high expectations for all of you.

That's all.  Mairin, out.

Teaching with My Whole Ass

"How do you do it?"  I asked my colleague.  She is the mother of a 4-year old.  "I feel like the best I can be is a half-assed teacher."

"I haven't taught with my whole ass in about 5 years," she responded.  It didn't make me feel better.

If I'm being honest, I have to say that I am not teaching with my whole ass, either.  Not even remotely.  Calling my work "half-assed" is probably overgenerous.  Many days, I stumble into class still in my coat and fling my backpack down in front of my students and ask them where we left off last time.  This is my new-mother version of a lesson plan.  I am several weeks behind in my grading.  I thought I could grade after my daughter goes to bed, but as it turns out, I also need to find time in the day to sleep.  I know.  Sleep!  What a waste of time!

What does it even mean to give it everything I have, when "everything I have" is so very little?  So little attention.  So little energy.  So little time.

Right now, I have this amazing dream of working over the winter break.  I will come in 3 days per week, while my daughter is at day care, and I will work.  I will write syllabi.  I will plan lessons.  I will read ahead.  Yes: reading the material I have assigned before my students read it is something I am definitely planning to try to do over winter break.  If I can.

The reality is that working at all still feels like a luxury that I can't afford.  Every moment that my attention is diverted from my child is a moment I can't get back.  She spent the weekend with my sister this past weekend, and she had a great time.  She played with her cousins so much much that she actually slept through the night.  She eventually noticed I was gone and became kind of distraught, and when she finally came home, she didn't want to leave my presence for a full 24 hours.  All of the rest and relaxation of the weekend went out the window as we played emotional catch-up.

The priority these last few days has been making sure she understands that I will come back.  I tell her, "You had fun with your cousins, didn't you?"  I say, "See?  Mommy was gone for a while, but then I came back, and now we're at home together."  What kind of parent would I be if I spent those moments at home grading papers or planning lessons instead of bonding with my daughter?  But what kind of teacher walks into class blind and just wings it?

So, maybe I can't be a good mother and a good teacher.  At least not until my kid goes to school.  Maybe that's the balance I need to find -- I will be mediocre at both but not terrible at either.

In the meantime, I will just teach with as much of my ass as I can muster in each moment.  My colleague who claims to be such a mediocre teacher is actually pretty awesome.  Her students love her.  She gets good evaluations.  People want her on committees.  She's smart, professional, and generally pretty great at her job.  I will try to rest assured in the knowledge that, if she can half-ass it and still be so great, then maybe so can I. 

Finding a Balance

Since becoming a parent 10 months ago, I have a newly sharpened understanding of the Buddhist tenet, "Life is Suffering."  Exhaustion has become my new regular mode.  Frustration, my new regular attitude.  Between changing diapers, breastfeeding, rocking and singing the baby to sleep, playing, swinging, walking the dog, doing laundry, and cooking dinner, I have to find time to do my full-time job.  When people ask me how motherhood is going, the first thing that comes to mind is "Traumatizing."

I often wonder why anyone wants to do this.  I suppose it's possible that someone, somewhere, enjoys losing her identity, along with any semblance of control over her own body, to raise a child who will inevitably come to believe that its mother has ruined its life.  Isn't there supposed to be a payoff?  A good reason to do this?  A happy feeling?  Something?

Sure, there are moments of bliss.  When my daughter looks at me -- in my sweatpant-festooned, unshowered state, face tear-stained and blotchy, hair askew, baby food dribbled on my shirt -- and she smiles at me.  I am a mess and she smiles at me.  That's pretty nice.  I have a feeling that I'm supposed to think this nice feeling is worth it; that I could live in poverty for this nice feeling.  That if anyone finds out how little attention I pay to my job and decides to fire me, this nice feeling will sustain me.  But the truth is, it won't.  I need my teaching job in order to do my mothering job.

Other parents seem more capable than me.  They show up to work with their eyes open, fer chrissakes.  How do they do that?  They write lesson plans.  They grade their students' papers in a timely fashion.  All these things I used to just do, and they now require a serious effort, weeks of planning, a babysitter, and an extra $12 an hour plus food.

Right now, it seems like "balancing" work and home life is an unattainable dream.  From reading the various "mommy blogs," I get the impression that posts like this one are supposed to end with some kind of upbeat, inspiring message.  Here's how I do it!  Here's how I have it all!  But so far, I'm not doing it, and having it all is obviously impossible.  I'd settle for having 1/3 of it.

If I'm being honest, I love being a teacher far more than being a parent.  Teaching is something I've been trained for.  I'm good at it.  There are identifiable criteria for success.  Parenting is a crapshoot.  I try things and fail every day.  No, every hour.  Every minute.  It's painful and difficult.  I suppose the best I can do is say, "I'll keep trying."  If I find a way to balance things, I will let you know.  Don't hold your breath.

Aversion to Busy Work

Even though I put a tremendous amount thought and effort into the design and implementation of my classes, and even though I encourage students to ask questions about my pedagogical motivations, the incessant rumblings still emanate from the back of the room -- "Ugh!" they exclaim.  "This is nothing but busy work!"

"There's no such thing as busy work," I tell my students.   "It's only busy work if you stop thinking while you do it."

They hate it when I say this, maybe because it sounds like I'm accusing them of not thinking (I am).  However, it bears repeating.  In our contemporary culture of quick fixes and attention deficits, it feels natural to shut down the ole noggin while you complete your homework assignments in front of the latest episode of Jersey Shore.  In part, at least, a show like Jersey Shore requires you to shut down your brain, so we become accustomed to operating without it.  Then, when someone asks us to use it, we find we've forgotten how it works, and we need to fish around in the bottom desk drawer for that darned instruction manual.  

As a student, it's important to ask yourself, "Am I thinking?"  When you are sitting in a lecture, are you listening to your professor?  Are you retaining information?  Are you benefiting from your education? 

If your answer to the above questions were "No," it might not be your fault.  A recent study indicated that lectures don't really teach anybody anything -- except, of course, the person who writes the lecture.  In fact, writing a lecture is one of the best ways to memorize and retain information about a subject, I've found.  Unfortunately, the audience tends to fall asleep as soon as the power point slide blinks up on the screen. 

A better way to teach, it turns out, is to engage students in their own education -- to give them situations in which to practice the art of your discipline, and to coach them on how to improve their skills and how to do a better job next time.  The professor as coach model is starting to spread to universities and colleges around the country.  The only problem is, you don't become a better player by sitting on the sidelines texting your roommate about what happened with that weird guy at last night's party.  If you want to improve your game, you need to play.  And when, I ask you, was the last time an athlete called practice "just busy work"?  If an athlete said this within earshot of the coach, what would the coach say?

While I admit that some students' seeming inability to learn anything in school is not always their fault, they need to accept some of the responsibility for doing their work and show some hustle out there.  When a teacher puts effort and thought into designing a "coaching-based" curriculum that intends to engage students, the students will get something out of it only if they are engaged.  When you meet your professor half-way, I think you're more likely to see the benefits of going the distance.