I Assume You Can Do Anything

I was nervous when I was putting my syllabus together for my English 095 class the Fall of 2010. English 095 is for students who have low ACT scores and need more help before going into English Composition I and II which are graduation requirements. Before even entering the class, these students have been labeled as developmental writing students which they often translate into "stupid students."

Many students who come into ENG 095 are English as a Second Language (ESL) students, those from rural areas, and those with lower socio-economic status. These were the first students that I taught under my graduate assistantship at my university, and, boy, don't you know I felt that pressure.

The temptation is to lean toward the simplistic and in many ways these students need to learn the basic elements of college writing (organization, thesis statements, academic language). And these elements are daunting to students who write heavily in their first language or regional dialects. They've been told that their way of writing is "wrong" and "full of errors." Going into this class, I felt that I had two jobs: to teach writing and to edify these students..

So, when I made my syllabus I decided to not hold back when it came to difficult topics. Many professors would disagree with me saying that these students can't handle theoretical topics or ideas that aren't so obvious. As I added reading and writing assignments, I kept thinking about something my mom said to me a few years ago. We were talking about how she would point at the words when she read to me even when I was an infant. I laughed and teased her saying that it was impossible for me to learn that early. She replied, "I   didn't know what you could do, so I assumed that you could do anything." Those words have haunted my pedagogy and influenced my ENG 095 syllabus.

About half-way through the semester, I introduced my students to the idea of intersectionality which is a feminist theory about how people can be discriminated against on more than one level. For example, a black lesbian female has race, sexual orientation, and gender discrimination.The reading assignment for the discussion was a very long article which called for a level of critical reading that many instructors would not expect from ENG 095 students.

A few weeks later, the students turned in a paper in which they applied the theory to themselves and what that meant to them, if they were surprised, and how they dealt with it. I found out that one of my students has two dads. Three students came out to me. One student realized she was a feminist. She had come to my office a few days before the paper was due and was very distraught, because she couldn't figure out how she was discriminated against in any way. It took all my will power to not yell, "You're a woman!!" Instead, I found myself saying, "Why don't you go research how much women make versus men at Wal-Mart?" She looked very confused as she left my office. In her paper, she talked about how women are discriminated against in the home, at work, and with societal expectations.

These were students who were told by their teachers that they would never ever be able to handle this type of academia, and through feminism in their education they were able to redefine themselves as capable students and, for some, even as feminists.