Imagined Geographies

Nedra Reynolds begins her essay "Composition's Imagined Geographies: The Politics of Space in the  Frontier, City and Cyberspace," discusses "Importing Composition" by Muchiri et al. I made a note in the margins next to the quotation "The teacher in New York or Los Angeles may look out over a classroom and think, 'the whole world is here.' It isn't" (qtd in Reynolds 13). The note was that composition professors have capacity to hold honorable, yet misleading perceptions of space in our classroom. I'm seeing this all tying into the conversations about writing environments (particularily social/business/political environments, discourse communities so to speak) that we create in metaphysical spaces, in customs of discourse. This leads to the necessity of literacy studies.

One of the most interesting essays from Ecocomposition pages 97-208 was Long's Education and Environmental Literacy. Long's work over the years has covered 20th century American literature, environmental writing, and teaching reading a writing. For more on Long's bio and current work, visit here.

Where I believe Long arrives to by the end of his essay is that literacy studies help us find "the human center" situated in the world. Furthermore, the literacy approcah gives us and our students the opportunity to express who we are and receive and understand those expressions in writing communities. We share and enrich our cultural values by learning about other discourse communities and furthering our notions of tolerance, objectivity, and reflective thinking. Furthermore, we also have the opportunitiy to refine our own discourse communities in learning about others, even if we do not participate in them. Citing Martha Nussbaum (e.g., Nuss-Bomb with all respect) Long suggests "The citizen of democracy 'must incerasingly learn how to understand, respect, communicate if our common problems are to be constructively addressed'" (qtd in Long 131). He also calls attention to the value of literacy studies vis Giroux's study of Friere's "Critical Conciousness" which views "literacy as changing the world . . . understanding of citizenship, democracy, and justice that was global and transnational" (qtd. in Long 132).

However, what do we make of Nedra Reynolds discussion, particularly point #3 on page 13, about arguing for "a spatial politics of writing instruction that denies transparent space and encourages the study of neglected spaces where writers work" (13)? Is she talking about the same things that Long is exploring? I think they may share some common concerns about not only the importance of a literacy approach in some writing assignments, but also the value of expressing ourselves so we have a connection with the spaces around us so we can reach that unity so many of the pastoral texts we've read this quarter attest to such as Silko, Momaday, Sanders, etc. They indeed show us the literacy of places where they have dwelled, what it means to be and live there with the places they describe. However, the texts in Ecocomposition (pgs 98 - 206) and Reynolds' discussion, encourage a pastoral of the individual space and its connections to surroundings, not only physical, but socio-political places too.

If education is about learning and gaining intelligence, perhaps we should investigate more of the places we communicate within and the places where others coommunicate? 

Converging, tolerating, listening and sharing who we are may indeed indeed make us more intelligent, not just better citizens.