Justin J. Bain
PhD Student in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric
Syracuse University
315-443-1412
jjbain@syr.edu
• Philosophy
• Writing 105
• Writing 205
• Writing 307
• Writing 110Teaching Philosophy
Growing up in the Mayfair District of Fresno, California, a working class county-island amidst the southeast side of the city, I was quick to realize that the restricted code of my home and neighborhood was not the required language at my school. The mix of Spanish, English, and Hmong that I spoke in my neighborhood was not endorsed at school, and the non-academic styles of argument employed by my parents and friends rarely won me praise in the classrooms of my youth. But it did teach me that language mattered, and that the ability to speak and write in effective ways meant the difference between a life of hard physical labor and one of, what I decided then, was freedom.
Now some twenty years and 3000 miles from my childhood home, I have come to reconsider the meanings of labor and its relation to issues of social class, body/mind, and freedom. But my belief in the use and potential power innate to the acts of composing and speaking have endured, and it is a belief in, and respect for, that power that continues to motivate my teaching and scholarship today. I believe, therefore, that each student enters my classroom as, in many respects, a sophisticated rhetorical agent, one who is able to function well within numerous contextual time-spaces. And it is the awareness of that rhetorical skill and agency, and its relation to various academic literacies, that typically forms a site of inquiry within the classrooms where I teach.
Drawing on the work of James Berlin, Bruce McComiskey, and Bruce Horner, I engage students in the identification and examination of systems of cultural production, distribution, and reception within both local and national contexts. In WRT 110 for instance, a pre-freshman course in academic writing, I worked alongside students to identify and interrogate the discourses surrounding social class (in their own lives, in academia) from multiple perspectives, beginning (crucially) with their own. And in WRT 307, an upper division course in professional writing, students inquired into diverse written genres in specific sites of work, attempting to understand professional and technical documents—retail websites and case statements, for instance—as social actions and not simply empty containers. Through activities such as these, my teaching continually emphasizes rhetorical purposes and the needs of diverse audiences in the production of writing that circulates both within and beyond the boundaries of the classroom and the semester.
Such work enables students to locate themselves, and their work, amidst a myriad of competing discourses, allowing them not only to compose more effective documents, but to consider the implications of those potential effects. It also demands that students draw on various sources during the composing process, including primary and secondary sources as well as their own experiences. The success of this type of academic labor, however, requires students to develop the language and ability to discuss, define, and defend the rhetorical choices that they make. So in all of my classes, the semester begins with the search for a common language to talk about writing, often a collage of students’ own language and that of the academy. This language, its meanings and implications, continue to develop throughout the semester, bridging the differences between home and academe as we discuss and workshop a variety of texts, including those composed by former and current students.
Student experience, knowledge, and rhetorical skill, as they intersect the discourses and material conditions of academe, are also crucial intersections in my work with writing centers. As both a consultant and an administrator, I have spent over seven years in writing centers, working with a broad spectrum of learners. This experience has only strengthened my commitment to assisting students in making the transitions and decisions associated with learning academic literacies. Such transitions are not limited, however, by the physical walls of a writing center, and so it is important that all writing center work is done in association with, and in relation to, the rest of the university community. As a writing center administrator, for instance, I have trained undergraduate, graduate, and professional consultants from diverse backgrounds and fields to help students from across the curriculum understand assignments not as empty containers to be filled but as rhetorical situations to be met with accommodation, negotiation, or resistance. Such a stance allows students do more than simply regurgitate what has been taught to them, enabling them to put knowledge into use and act as rhetorical agents.
While some tend to think of writing centers as supplemental to the work of a writing program, something added on, my own experience has followed a much different trajectory. In many ways, my research into theories of social space, spatial practices, and built environments has grown out of my commitment to writing center work. As unique spatial locations amidst the traditional classrooms and offices of universities, working in writing centers prompted me to inquire into the ways in which the spatial practices of universities and local communities structure the possibilities for work, for both students and scholars. I labor to interrogate the ways in which the built environments of our past and present mark our bodies and minds, for ourselves and for others, organizing power relations and the positions from and against which we speak/write.
In turn, the results of my research often find their way into the courses that I teach. In WRT 205, for instance, a sophomore course in research and writing, I worked alongside students to investigate the social spaces of home (including individual houses, local communities, and their university) as a defining factor in literacy, identity, and agency. In particular, this assignment consisted of a series of activities combining shifting focuses on home with diverse methods and methodologies (including interview, survey, ethnography, “traditional” library research, and source evaluation). While this was, of course, designed to allow students to learn and manipulate a variety of research strategies, it also enabled them to situate their work within local and specific contexts as they discovered and engaged the histories, citizens, and issues that come to the forefront when spaces are examined as rhetorical texts.
Students in the course were quick to realize, as I was, that what is typically considered academic work must be made accountable to non-academic institutions, that their work is both impacted by and influential in the practices of everyday life. An awareness my working class roots in Fresno and an understanding of the impact of that social space on my life has helped guide me into a field that allows me to work, on a daily basis, with both language and those who most need to know how to use it. It is my hope that, if nothing else, the courses that I teach push students toward a similar sort of awareness about language, about their own lives, and about the potentially crucial intersection of the two.