Asao B. Inoue's Infrequent Words

Entry 41  I’ve spent the last blogbook post ( post 40 ) making a case against argument (sort of), but I also agree that much college writing does ask for argument and not persuasion in the way that the CCSS, and most other writing standards and outcomes such as the WPA OS , articulate it. There is a lot to be gained by understanding and learning about argument and its textual focus on evidence, linear logics, and arrangement. The impulse to cite sources and start by offering what others have said before you in a discussion practices a kind of honoring and respect to others that is important and helpful in most decisions and exchanges. Citing and acknowledging the words of others can be an act of humility, but it can also be peacocking, off-putting, and disingenuous. College courses and professors often – usually – ask for logocentric writing, writing focused on the individual writer staking their claim in the “they say/I say” format, and college writing tends to favor a stance of “...

Entry 40 In my last post ( post 39 ), I discussed the ways white male authors and their historically cultivated habits of language deeply inform the CCSS and its appendix essay , which explains the focus on “argument” over “persuasion” when teaching language and writing to high school students in the U.S.  But I was just getting started in explaining the problems with the appendix essay and the focus on argument. There’s more. I’ll continue in this post. The reason I go into such detail about the appendix’s discussion is that it is indicative of most logics in all course or programmatic outcomes, in both secondary and postsecondary contexts, and it’s good to know what we must orient ourselves against and why if we wish to be antiracist.  The appendix’s discussion of “writing” explains three kinds of writing students should learn: “argument,” “informational/explanatory writing,” and “narrative.” However, half or more of this larger section in the appendix on writing focuses on ...

Entry 28 To really understand what White language supremacy is exactly, and how we might decenter and counter it in our classrooms, we have to understand what the habits of White language, or HOWL, are. Their use and circulation is an important aspect of White language supremacy. HOWL can be used as a heuristic to help students identify these habits and critique them as they decide what they wish to take on as their own habits of language.  All people have habits of language, ways of seeing, saying, and judging things, ideas, and other people. These habits afford our ways with words. They also, when understood from a thirty thousand foot view, constitute the dominant rhetorical moves that are considered appropriate or preferred in any given context. That is, when we pan back and look at the long view of history and the wide view of who controls language practices in schools, universities, professions, and disciplines, this long and wide view of language habits reveals that elite, W...

Entry 25 Now, some may still be resistant to the idea that language can be racial. Some may still find it hard to believe that today the dominant ways with words and standards for communication in our classrooms and the broader society come from, favor, and afford privileges to White people more than anyone else. They may say that because those privileges are not doled out equally to all White people that there are no privileges being doled out. They may also try to point to a few BIPOC who take on habits of White language and are rewarded for it.  Some may also argue that what we teach in the literacy classroom is just apolitical English, just language, just clear and effective communication for everyone. And in fact, they will say language has no race. Clear communication does not depend on one’s racial designation. So how can we have White language supremacy? Everyone has equal ability to learn any version of English. Good grammar or clear communication is not racial in nature a...