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Examines the teacher's role and the teacher's authority in postmodern academic settings.
This book is a sophisticated analysis of the teacher's role and authority in postmodern academic settings. Xin Liu Gale argues that the teacher's authority is inevitable and indispensable in effective teaching, and that, furthermore, it is necessary for "symbolic imposition." The author insists that teachers and scholars should explore how the teacher's authority functions in the pedagogic context and how it can help students develop critical literacy.
Influenced by the works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Pierre Bourdieu, Jean-Claude Passeron, Paulo Freire, Richard Rorty, and various poststructuralist theorists, Gale investigates the complex relationships among the teacher's and the institution's authority, the teacher's discourse(s) and social and pedagogic roles, and students' discourse(s) and diverse backgrounds. She then proposes a two-level interactional model of teaching that is based on a new discourse relationship characterized by the "edifying" role of the teacher.
"One of the interesting and revealing features ofTeachers, Discourses, and Authority in the Postmodern Composition Classroom is that the author uses her personal experience as an English teacher in China and her extensive knowledge of educational movements during the Cultural Revolution to support her theoretical philosophical discussions. This personal dimension adds flesh and blood to an already insightful, intelligent, and revealing analysis. The work represents composition scholarship at its most mature and sophisticated." — Gary A. Olson, From the Foreword
Foreword by Gary A. Olson
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The New Paradigm and the Questioning of the Traditional Teacher's Authority
Bourdieu and Passeron's Theory of the Traditional Teacher's Authority
The Changing Classroom and the Questioning of the Traditional Teacher's Authority
A Perplexing Dimension of the Teacher's Authority
Chapter 3: Reconsidering the Teacher's Authority
The Institutional Authority as Necessary Evil
The Ambiguity of Authority of Expertise and Personal Authority
Chapter 4: Rethinking the Relationship of Discourses In the Classroom
Discourse as the Site of Struggle
Rorty's Notion of Normal and Abnormal Discourse
Responsive Abnormal Discourse and Nonresponsive Abnormal Discourse
Differences Between Responsive Abnormal Discourse and Nonresponsive Abnormal Discourse
Reconceiving the Discourse Relationships in the Classroom
Chapter 5: Discourse as Enabling Constraints
Lena's Story as an Indication of the Need for Primary Interaction in the Writing Class
Changing the "Stabilized Social Audience" Through Primary Interaction
Stories about "Outsiders": Critical Consciousness versus Critical Literacy
The Two-Level Interaction as Means to Critical Literacy
Chapter 6: Edifying Teachers as Enabling Constraints
The Concept of the Edifying Teacher
Edifying Teachers' Edifying Roles
The Nurturing Mother and the Edifying Teacher
The Emancipator and the Edifying Teacher
The Mediator and the Edifying Teacher
Edifying Teachers as Enabling Constraints
Conclusion, or a New Beginning
Notes
Works Cited
Index