Small Potent Gestures

In the Selfe and Selfe chapter, the authors make the point that the "actions within the discursive spaces of computer networks will not be grand gestures, but rather small potent ones" (pp. 348-349). This focus on "small potent" gestures is familiar to me because I worked with Cindy Selfe for five years at Michigan Tech where I got my PhD. Reading this phrase brought me back to the years that I assisted Cindy on CIWIC (Computers in Writing Intensive Classrooms). She emphasized how we need to be responsible for how we use computers to teach students how to write. Of course, this message seems old now given that computers, networks, and the language about them has changed so dramatically in the years since this chapter was published. However, I think it is still a concern; we should occupy our thinking with this responsibility.

I think about small potent gestures every time I prepare to teach. For example, in my Technical Communication class, I use a novel as a context for assignments. I use narrative because narrative is how we think and store memories. I also use it because narrative requires interpretation, a language act that every writer needs to learn in order to write. We must interpret a context before we can know what language to use. In the 15+ years I've been using a novel, I have had only 3 students who complained about it. First, they complained because they had to read a novel, and as one student said, "I haven't read a novel since high school." Second, they associated the type of writing we used in that class with creative writing used in the novel. They saw the writing as the same and insisted that they didn't want to do creative writing. The thing is that they don't do creative writing; they do creative thinking and then write in the style of technical writing. I have never been able to convince these students that the actual writing they were doing was technical writing and not creative writing.

I use narrative as one way to help students "develop a critical consciousness about the role of language" in computer networks (p. 331). This development means that students need to develop a sense that language is used to construct a picture (or act within) of a social context. To say it is constructed is to say that one must invent the language in response to a social condition, that is, in response to something that has happened. From this construction, writers learn to use the appropriate language that fits that context. Because narrative must be interpreted in order for meaning to happen, I see that students are doing the same thing--constructing an event/happening. We invent everything through language. We know what is happening because language was used to describe it. From narrative, students learn invention. I use narrative, then, as a small potent gesture thata enables them to engage in critical thinking.

I also assume that because interpretation happens, ethical situations will naturally evolve. I have not found that to be the case in my class. The writing that happens is basically supporting the status quo. I want students to develop the "ability to think against the grain of prevailing thoughts as well as with it" (p. 331). I thought narrative would naturally cultivate that thinking. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe the scenarios I create for assignments that grow out of the novel should be more specifically and more intentionally written as ethical dilemmas. From that, students will then need to "enter" the discursive landscape of the novel with a distinct ethical approach. I see that I have some serious thinking to do before I teach that class again.