There are any number of words in the the title alone worth discussing because they are words that come up in wide-ranging discussions, both public and scholarly, that are intensely relevant to the world we live in. Assessment is a topic that we all, as teachers, know--and sometimes dread--though the depth and breadth of how we understand it can be limited and limiting. Social Justice is a phrase too casually thrown around these days without much interrogation of what social justice looks like in the constituent community affecting it and affected by it (BSU is certainly guilty of this). And, finally, antiracist is a term coming into vogue at this particular cultural and historical moment: to be antiracist implies not just not being racist, but being actively engaged in fighting the effects of systemic racism and white privilege.
Inoue brings these ideas all together, forces working in a classroom--thus, his term, ecologies.
POST: We started the semester exploring early contexts for the field of Writing Studies--where and how it started in the US university. This week we are jumping to now, to see where the field has ended up. There are many ways to do that, but I chose Inoue because a) his profound effect on my own teaching and thinking about assessment, and b) because I think he speaks to the best the field can contribute to the wider world. To do this work, I would like us to dissect this important piece of award-winning scholarship from the field as a class. For this week's post, please do the following in your Reading Response:
1. Include the briefest of summaries of the introduction to Antiracist. This is the text we all read, so don't feel like you need to explain the chapter so much as indicate what you, as a reader, writer, student, teacher, understand Inoue's argument to be here.
2. Using the list included in this week's update, provide a bit more complete summary of the chapter you were assigned to read for this week.
3. Try to identify what parts of the introduction your chapter makes feel more complete and realized, more understood.
See the Monday Update for what chapter you need to read. You'll be reading in small groups of 2 or 3 so you don't need to feel like if you get it wrong you'll be ruining Christmas or anything.
IN-CLASS on Wednesday: I will ask you to connect what you read about in your chapter to at least one other person in our class who read a DIFFERENT chapter. I tell you this here just to prepare you for that work.