Bizzell

Male/female has an even longer history than conservative/liberal of organizing public discourse into two separate camps. Male is associated with aggression, ego, separateness, rationality—female with nurturing, the unconscious, connectedness, intuition. No how many times actual existential beings prove the generalizations false, the generalizations persist and their effect on human life is as constant and obvious as sunlight and gravity. Composition theory seems to be taking shape in my mind (admittedly male, even if I am extremely left-handed) in relation to these age old polarities.

Lunsford and Bizzell seem to define the female influence on composition. They stress the social context of a student. Bartholomae also stressed that social context, but as a sort of threatening, hegemonic influence that the individual had to fight against through rigorous rationality. Lunsford and Bizzell stress social context in a more benign way: as the natural setting from whence an individual comes and, even more importantly, the goal towards which an individual should strive, the place where he or she is integrated into the world of others.

Lunsford’s emphasis on collaboration seems paradigmatic of a female methodology. So, too, does Bizzell’s theory of a “holistic” manner of teaching. In my imagination, I can see her listening to two men arguing the points of inner and outer directed methods. She listens with, if not outright disgust, at least with impatience as the two ramble on and on. She sees them as two men who are so egotistically wrapped up in individual theories that they’ve lost contact with life on earth. Holistic teaching is something that is ultimately perceived through intuition, not rationalization.

I don’t mean to imply stereotypes when I talk of male and female principles. Although I’ve never met the women, I doubt that Lunsford and Bizzell got where without being aggressive individuals. I’m sure they fought against the stereotypical reception of their ideas even as the propounded the larger principles which supported the ideas. They probably had to fight those who saw collaboration as another form of gossip and holistic teaching as an inability to decide one way or the other.

I tend to get lost in theory. Shaynee’s comment that a teacher had to look at the goals of his or her students reminded me again of the context of teacher. When I think of teaching, I think of college—and not always undergraduate teaching. Most of theories we are studying seem aimed at that level. But for a teacher whose students are not demographically destined for the university, how does one find a method of teaching so that exceptions can be inspired and challenged while acknowledging the fundamental validity of not moving on. Male theory seems to be a one size fits all sort of thing—female theory seems more . . . contextual.