Marking the Unmarked: Reading Student Diversity and Preparing Teachers

Abstract

One way that composition scholars have attempted to understand the writings of students has been by attending to the social and cultural factors that contribute to the diverse uses of language we see students' work. It has become commonplace to talk of linguistic and cultural diversity, of gender differences, and of class as contributing to the written practices of students. It has also become common to structure into teacher-education programs some attention to the problems of non-native speakers of English and speakers of non-standard dialects. These are important moves, to be sure, but over the last several years I've become concerned about those students who don't, at first glance, appear to be on the margins. In fact, more than once I've heard beginning teachers describe their classes as not diverse, their students as all pretty much the same, because when they walk into the classroom what they see are white, presumably middle-class, speakers of standard English. Such statements position students as already belonging to a set of culturally-hegemonic literacy practices because the outward manifestations of race and gender are easier to identify than the more difficult markings of class or literacy experience. Thus, teachers are inclined to believe that any problems their majority students have writing are the result of a lack of effort, the sign of intellectual deficiency, or a product of resistance. It seems that the metaphorical construction that places some students on the margin leads us, perhaps unconsciously, to construct most students as being in the center, where we assume they share the values, literacy practices, and abilities of the dominant culture. Be-