Superman,The Odyssey, and McDonalds

What is it about the cultural studies and composition that seems so complex? I mean this is the stuff we see everyday on TV, read everyday in the newspaper, and hear everyday on the radio. We are relentlessly bombarded with reminders of American culture in magazine ads, billboards, and the internet. When was the last time you watched something on TV without some kind of news, weather, or programming information tucked away “unobtrusively” in the corner or snaking steadily along the bottom? But after the third reading of this ethereal, mind-bending, postulations…I have decided that I’m making it too hard. I’m trying to make sense of it amidst all the jargon, name dropping, arguments, etc and it just doesn’t work for me. If I can’t find something hidden in the cryptic messages of these chapters that is useful for me as an educator, then this reading is worthless. So my essential question becomes: how do cultural studies affect the teaching of writing?

Cultural studies is defined by what is around us. It is how we perceive our world based on the influences of media, advertising, TV, internet, friends, family, radio, newspaper, magazines, neighbors, co-workers, community, -- along with our own belief system. You can’t have one without the other. This affects the composition class because it forces us to look beyond ourselves and our individual experiences to how those experiences work with, are influenced by, and are engrained in the world around us.

George and Trimbur state: “In a sense, the cultural studies approach to the writing classroom addresses the question of what constitutes the content of a composition course with the idea that content is right under our noses in the culture of everyday life while shifting the emphasis from the personal experience of the individual to the lived experience of participants in the larger culture” (82). So while we might begin our composition classes with personal experience, we must quickly look beyond ourselves and focus on the bigger picture. With cultural studies it’s no longer about you and how you make meaning based on your own experience, but more like how that experience affects and is affected by the surrounding culture. Cultural studies make use of the everyday as text including “social phenomena—not only media and advertising but also malls, city streets, classrooms, work places…” (82).

Traditionalists have always used “privileged text” to establish criteria for writing, so this loosy-goosy kind of content drives many of these traditional writing teachers crazy. Often, they simply refuse to step outside of the comfort of the classics, limiting their students writing to only that which can be conjured from the canon.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against this classic body of work (even though my kids refer to this as the stuff written by a bunch of dead white guys), but much of my task as a freshman English teacher, is not only to get these knuckleheads to read this stuff but then to write about the lofty concepts found within. I know that there are universal ideas and lessons to learn here, but what good does that do, if they refuse to even open the text? To many freshmen, classic literature is like kryptonite to Superman.

It doesn’t seem to matter if I costume myself in a toga and laurel leaf waxing poet for King Alcinous, brandish a light saber to fight the Montagues, stand on chairs spouting Rev. Dimmesdales’s fire and brimstone, or throw myself on the floor in anguish over their continual disinterest (I admit that I have done all these and more). There is little student engagement. I have begged to be allowed to choose my own classroom novels (even offered to buy them myself), because I am convinced that if my students could read and discuss, something contemporary where they could relate to the characters, or the teenage angst of a modern period, or an author that spoke to the ills facing today’s youth in a voice that didn’t require a dictionary, they might just tune in, instead of tune out.

And maybe then, their writing would be more purposeful, more authentic, more genuine…more…

Hairston states that “…the way for writing courses to become responsibly multicultural is not through the course content the teacher assigns but through the diversity of life experiences reflected in the students’ writing. The job of writing teachers, Hairston asserts is to set up the classroom as a ‘nurturing writing community’ so that students can ‘understand the rich tapestry of cultures that their individual stories make up’” (85). I had the opportunity to experience this sort of “nurturing writing community during an undergraduate class titled the Art of Writing Fact. Courtesy of Ann Williams, I was introduced to the idea of using ethnography studies as a basis for writing.

We were to take a close look at some aspect of daily living that affected us personally—a snapshot of a slice of life, if you will. Many looked at their hobbies for topics, while others chose family, career, or education. Me? I chose McDonalds. Not just the American icon of the fast food industry, but instead, a community established by a long-standing ritual of eating breakfast in the same place, at the same time for a several years. Since I happened to be a member of this community, it was easy to observe the traditions and rituals, albeit through a different lens. No one knew that my role as member had changed to one of observer and interpreter. It was fascinating to watch the interaction between members, to listen to their conversations in light of my new role. A little research unearthed this “McDonald’s Breakfast group” as phenomena found across the nation. There were other McBuddies (my term) eating breakfast everyday from Maine to Mississippi and numerous spots in between. I thought back to my long-time obsession with McDonalds French fries and the many trips as a kid to the local Mickey D’s. I researched the history behind the fast food mogul and its influence on our society. It was a fascinating study and certainly an experience that brought cultural studies to the forefront.