“Dear writing… I hate you. But I love you. I hate that I love you.” In a humorous and shrewd series of love (and break-up) letters, Ogadimma Ebele captures the affective, on-again, off-again nature of writing, and offers a fitting introduction this second issue of Undercurrents. In this dynamic collection of student work, we see ample evidence of the ethical dimensions of writing, rhetoric, and literacy. “Every time we write,” as rhetorician John Duffy reminds us, “we propose a relationship with others.” As the work of this issue demonstrates, acts of writing, language use, and the teaching of writing and language are not neutral. Our ways with words (and other communicative symbols) can forge human connections and enrich our thinking, but they can also reinforce injustice and, at times, threaten our very lives.
Two authors in this issue compellingly turn the spotlight on the language and literacy classroom, considering the ethics and politics of classroom practices. Nayelis Guerrero considers the cultural and social contexts of language learning, and offers a persuasive case for attending to cross-cultural inclusivity in the classroom as a means for facilitating English language learning. Similarly concerned with the classroom’s potential to become a site of exclusion, Siena Santos Edmunds highlights the systemic oppression that is replicated through unacknowledged biases in teaching styles and curricula, and urges teachers to reflect on and resist their own prejudices.
Three other authors represent their inquiry processes that led to critical examinations of academic literacy practices. Ashley Kim considers the cultural and cognitive benefits of language learning by questioning the decline of formal Latin instruction and presenting ample evidence to question its dismissal as an irrelevant, “dead” language. This interest in the cognitive effects of language use is echoed in Chloe Tomasetta’s essay, in which she considers whether the advancements of digital, typewritten note-taking practices favor speed at the expense of learning and memory. Rounding out this issue’s investigations of literacy learning, Abigail Pineau examines the enjoinder she had so often heard (“Read!”) and considers the personal, social, and academic benefits of reading for pleasure—and inspires the teachers and parents among us to combat readicide: the systematic killing of one’s love for reading through regimented approaches to literacy education.
Turning their inquiry outside of the classroom, other authors in this issue consider language’s world-making—and even life-threatening—powers. Brianne Riccio narrates her inquiry process, as she moves from her own annoyance with her generation’s frequent and fumbled attempts to cultivate romantic relationships toward a critical evaluation of social media’s impact on human connection. Shifting attention from the rhetorical challenges of love to the cultivation of violence, Steve Prochniak uses his personal experience as an Army Military Police Officer to investigate the rise of gun violence in the United States—and discovers that the problem is, in large part, a rhetorical one.
I invite you to witness these eight students doing more than student-ing. In considering the complex, affective, deeply personal, and thoroughly political nature of language use, these authors strive toward expanding knowledge and creating a better world. We see, in other words, students writing with authority: the antidote to write-icide.
-Lauren M. Bowen, Editor-in-Chief of Undercurrents and Director of the Composition Program