Mixed Forms and Dynamic Discourses

To continue our discussion of hybrid/alternative/mixed discourses from last week, we read Patricia Bizzell's "The Intellectual Work of 'Mixed' Forms of Academic Discourses;" this article seems to be the next step in her defining of non-traditional academic discourse where she further explores the influence and importance of new voices in traditional academic writing and language. In this article, Bizzell reiterates the confines of the traditional academic community, the languages of a certain class and status that previously defined "what's real, normal, natural, good, and true" (Bizzell 1). Bizzell asserts the evolution of academic writing with her introduction of "'alternative' forms of academic discourse," (1) including the writing of minority groups, lower social classes, and women.

With these new discourse groups entering academia, Bizzell asserts that both the audience and the content of academic writing is evolving, changing to include a broader audience:"These new discourses enable scholarship to take account of new variables, to explore new methods, and to communicate findings in new venues, including broader reading publics than the academic" (3). Bizzell's name for these new discourses evolve from hybrid to alternative to mixed which shows the reader how these cultural discourses are being scrutinized and--potentially--accepted in the academic community. As a teacher, Bizzell notes the importance of expectations of students, such as how it is a mistake to expect a certain discourse from a certain student: "it is a mistake to expect something like traditional academic discourse from all the students who appear racially white or who self-identify as white" (5). This may be taken a step further to students of different cultures by assuming short-comings or inability to switch between discourse communities. Students may be uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations such as certain classroom environments or when assigned certain style of writing; non-traditional work may be foreign to students and instructors alike. However, as Bizzell notes, it is important to encourage and accept "a diversity of intellectual approaches" (9) through student exercises and acknowledgment of individual experiences.

In her article "Academic Discourses or Small Boats on a Big Sea," Jacqueline Jones Royster's work builds upon the Bizzell readings from class. Royster explores the connections between academic and nonacademic settings, the influence of new discourse communities on traditional academic discourse. A short-sighted perception of literacy is simply reading and writing; however, literacy connects "cultural, social, political, and economic implications and consequences" (Royster 23) and focuses on the various expectations and values of particular discourse communities, both by those in the community--educators, writers--and by those who are outside looking in--readers, students. Royster notes the exclusivity of traditional academia, the singularity of "the language, the discourse... other languages and discourses" (24). This notion of "the other" emphasizes why students may be uncomfortable in a foreign community or why non-traditional styles of writing may be difficult for certain writers. Despite this exclusive aura of traditional academia, Royster suggests that academic is changing, evolving, and dynamic; what is "correct" is a matter of acceptance in a static discourse community due to
"sets of values, expectations, protocols, and practices" (24-25). The hierarchy of traditional academia limits new voices or different styles of writing.

In education, it is possible to open the door to academic writing to different styles and ideas by using knowledge dynamically, enhancing previous experiences of writers by incorporating their personality into their writing. Royster states: "We envision the work of classrooms as dynamic, multidirectional engagement with the expectation of of dynamic rewards, rather than as places where the goal is mainly to match the norms and to replicate ordinary outcomes" (27). By re-thinking roles in education, students may become more than vessels for teachers to fill with knowledge; similarly, teachers may be taught by students' personalities, knowledge, experiences, and culture. If educators "help students to forge connections between what they already know as language users," (Royster 28), both students and teachers will learn from these connections and further build upon their knowledge, growing through the experiences of others.

Works Cited

Bizzell, Patricia. "The Intellectual Work of 'Mixed' Forms of Academic Discourses." AltDis: Alternative Discourses and the Academy. Ed. Christopher Schroeder, Helen Fox, and Patricia Bizzell. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002. Pp. 1-10.

Royster, Jacqueline Jones. "Academic Discourse or Small Boats on a Big Sea." AltDis: Alternative Discourses and the Academy. Ed. Christopher Schroeder, Helen Fox, and Patricia Bizzell. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002. Pp. 23-30.

Bizzell's Hybrid Discourse: definition, limitations, examples....

In her articles "Hybrid Academic Discourses" and "Basic Writing and the Issue of Correctness, or, What to Do with Mixed Forms of Academic Discourse," Patricia Bizzell discusses the evolution of traditional academic discourse to a new, "hybridized" collection of scholarly writing. While Bizzell offers solid arguments and examples for hybrid writing, she also questions whether this writing may be considered as a different style or an commonly accepted form of academic writing.

To differentiate traditional from new, "hybrid" academic writing, Bizzell describes traditional discourse as a "correctness" that follows certain uses of language in writing for the "male, and white, and economically privileged" (Hybrid 11) in academia, including the use of a "grapholect" for writing, not reading the content. With this understanding, Bizzell identifies new, different works and creates an evolved style and genre of academic writing; she defines "hybrid" discourses as a combination of traditional academic discourse that may "violate many of the conventions of traditional academic discourse" (Hybrid 8). This new style is more diverse than traditional writing; it incorporates various cultural elements and individual language that differs from the accepted norm in writing. These "hybrid discourses " create composition that doubles both as academic writing and as an opportunity for individuals' to be heard.

Bizzell offers examples of new, respected scholars as evidence of hybrid discourse. The author includes the use of personal experience, "offhand refutation," humor, indirection ("deliberately not coming to the point quickly"), and cultural references, among other traits, as key characteristics of hybridized writing (Hybrid 14-16). Bizzell notes that Victor Villanueva, a Puerto Rican American, and Keith Gilyard, an African-American, both offer insightful, purposeful writing to the academic community. Both authors combine language, personal experience, culture, rhetoric, and traditional academic writing to create hybridized academic writing. From my own experience reading Villanueva's Bootstraps, I initially read the book as an autobiography, then added in the academic details with the help of classwork and discussion. This evolved style of writing fails to fit the standardized traditional understanding of writing, yet succeeds as academic, fulfilling the need for "correctness" in composition.

In her article later article "Basic Writing," Bizzel questions her own explanation of "hybrid" because the term is limited and biological. The term limits what may be considered as part of the genre, typically only two elements that are combined. Rather, this style may be considered to be a contact zone where culture, identity, and voice meet in writing. Bizzell's use of Gloria Andalzúa's Borderlands as an example of evolved academic writing brings to mind a powerful experience of my own. I work as a tutor in the WSU Writing Center where I read students' papers daily, each falling into what may be considered traditional discourse and many that are hybrid discourse, or a combination of the two. One student wrote on her own experiences as part of a Hispanic migrant-working family and part of the white, wealthy community where she attended school; the student compared her experiences to that of Anzaldúa and attempted to reconcile her understanding of individuality and voice by following that of Anzaldúa's. This work moved beyond what Bizzell calls hybrid because it incorporates so many elements and combines what is traditional with what is personal. Despite her work, I still wonder what the student may have done with her writing if she had been more confident in her ability to move beyond traditional standards in the paper.

To evolve composition in the classroom, Bizzell calls for the use of both traditional academic writing and new, hybrid works (Hybrid 19). Bizzell calls teachers the "gatekeepers to higher education" (Basic 6) to students. She calls for a democratization of education so that individuals may expand their understanding of scholarly writing and may find an avenue for their voice to be heard (Basic 11). Additionally, Bizzell notes the importance of looking beyond the "correctness" of writing style in order to help students succeed (Basic 11).

As a last note, I appreciated that Bizzell quotes bell hooks in both of her articles, noting the importance of voice, or, rather the importance of the many voices of an individual (Hybrid 20, Basic 8). I found this to be beautiful and, in a nutshell, a perfect example of the many characteristics and experiences of a writer that may be combined in numerous ways in writing.

Works cited

Bizzell, Patricia. "Hybrid Academic Discourses: What, Why, How." Composition Studies 7.2 (1999): 7-21.

____. "Basic Writing and the Issue of Correctness, or, What to Do with Mixed Forms of Academic Discourse." Journal of Basic Writing 19 (2000): 4-12.

Thoughts on Cultual Hybridities and the Authority of an Audience

Throughout Mary Louise Pratt's article "Arts of the Contact Zone," the author discusses the variety of rhetorical contact zones in literacy found throughout history; from her son's bartering of baseball cards to Guaman Poma's seventeenth century New Chronicle, Pratt illustrates the wide variety of contact zones found within various literacies. Pratt defines contact zones as "social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power..." (1). In Poma's case, his writing incorporated native Quechua and non-native Spanish to form a message; this is an example of cultural hybridity as described by Barbara Monroe's January 12, 2010 lecture, the mix of cultures to create a different identity in order to speak with those around them. Pratt continues to explain these identities through the use of autoethnographic text, a "text in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations others have made of them" (2). Quite often, these representations are a response to those in power, the authority in a given situation. Poma's letter addressed the Spanish because they were they authority in Peru at the time and would determine the validity of Poma's writing; Pratt notes that "legitimacy is defined from the point of view of the party in authority--regardless of what other parties might see themselves as doing" (5).

In his chapter "What in the World Is Contrastive Rhetoric?," Robert B. Kaplan addresses language as a broad system of communication. He address five questions in which students and writers may approach the complex nature of composition, many that address the person of authority in the writing process. Cultural backgrounds affect a writer's ability to address a question or discuss a topic, particularly if the audience--the person(s) of authority--are intimidating within their understanding of social hierarchies: "learners so inhibited [by 'whom they perceive to have authority'] may be accused of failing to exercise critical thinking, but they may not see themselves as authorized to undertake such an act" (Kaplan x). Considering the audience is a powerful and potentially inhibiting aspect to writing; for students, the teacher will grade an assignment and may thus be perceived in a certain manner, altering the student's written content. The cultural backgrounds and perceptions of a writer add to their writing, from grammar to content to critical thinking.

In her lecture, Monroe introduced contact zones using the analogy of playing cards to illustrate the ways in which people may express their own culture identity and understanding of culture according to their context. When playing cards, each distinct card may be used to alter the outcome of a game, similar to the ways people are composed of many cultural identities and use them according to a situation. An example of a distinct contact zone in which several cultures have been in contact for hundreds of years is the southwest region of the United States. To depict this contact visually, the flag of New Mexico integrates the highly symbolic figure of the Zia sun of the Zia Pueblo Indians with the Spanish colors of bright red and yellow. While this combination of cultures may be disputed from a historical perspective to reasons of modern economics, the flag displays the contact between cultures and the cooperation between the two in a type of interculturality.