Ch. 8 The politics and pedagogy of appropriating discourses

“Importing critical literacy: Does it have to fail?”

What does appropriating mean? How ‘appropriating discourses’ a different

understanding from ‘learning a language’ or ‘gaining literacy’?

“English should become pluralized to accommodate the discourses of other cultures and facilitate fairer representation of periphery subjects” (Canagarajah, 1999, p.175) -- should! A strong argument – what do you think? How will this happen?

“What post-colonial subjects display is the critical detachment they are able to adopt towards the cultures and communities they inhabit,” which gives them a “creative and radical” standpoint (Canagarajah, 1999, p. 183).

As an international graduate student, how are you like/ or not like/ the ‘hybrid subject’ described here?

Develop meta-discursive awareness (use students’ “shuttling between L1 and L2” C, P.186)

Pay attention to the desires, repertoires and strategies students bring with them and encourage students to reflect on these as well as on the institutional/expected ways of learning and purposes for learning

Unpack cultural meanings in textbooks to expose hidden curricula

See discussion questions re: talkative lady who misses her bus on p.189

Bring popular culture into the classroom (comics, songs, film) (C, p.190)

See ‘classroom underlife’ as “pedagogically valuable” (C, p.192). What is the underlife in your classroom?

How can you value ‘safe houses’ or sites of oppositional behavior?

What is critical pedagogy? Kramer-Dahl disagrees with those who say

that critical pedagogy won’t work in non-Western settings (p.16). Why?

What are the key principles of the Critical Reading and Writing (CRW) course she designs?

How does Kramer-Dahl understand the resistance of students to the CRW course? (pp.27-30)