by Kamilah Cummings
Earlier
this month I participated in a webinar presented by Dr. David Kirkland of New
York University titled A Song of the
Smoke: Critical Thoughts on the Literacies of Young Black Men. The webinar
was part of Georgia State University’s “Conversations in Global Literacy” series. Kirkland’s
presentation examined how educational bias has marginalized black male youth
and created a cycle of miseducation that disengages them from the classroom at
all levels of education. As part of rethinking the ways educators address this
crisis, he offered thoughts on how to better engage these students and their
literacies in the classroom. One of the thoughts Kirkland offered for how to do
this is to replace “reading, writing, and arithmetic” as the rudiments of education
with “pleasure, play, curiosity, and creativity” (Kirkland) .
Although
we envision the classroom as a place of inclusion, research reflects the
reality that many classrooms from kindergarten to college remain places of exclusion.
In the article, “Are we having fun yet? Students, social class, and the
pleasures of literacy,” Bronwyn T. Williams writes, “if we consider how
experiences of reading, writing, and other forms of popular culture influence students’
perceptions of pleasure and literacy, social class has a role to play. Intelligence
and pleasure obviously have no class boundaries, but the experiences students
have with different forms of texts and communication often do have them. (Williams
339-340) ”
Williams admits that this can be an uncomfortable subject for educators, but it
is a fact that both he and Kirkland argue educators must acknowledge to better
facilitate student engagement and learning. Kirkland believes a pedagogical approach
that incorporates pleasure, play, curiosity, and creativity can create a more
inclusive learning experience.
Certainly,
Kirkland and Williams are not the only scholars to recognize the need for
pleasure in the classroom. However, as they both acknowledge, the pleasure
principle has all but disappeared from most college classrooms. For many
educators, pleasure and learning are mutually exclusive experiences that can
only unite in specific disciplines.
Following
Kirkland’s presentation, I thought about ways that I use “pleasure, play,
curiosity and creativity” to engage students. As much as writing teachers, or teachers
in any discipline, love our subject matter we have to accept that many students
do not share our love or enthusiasm. With adult learners in particular, there
might be a multitude of reasons why students have been disengaged from writing.
However, if we find ways to make it more pleasurable and, dare I say fun, perhaps
we can disarm some of their fears and frustrations.
This
reminded me of a recent class where several of the students confessed that they,
“did not like writing.” Rather than attempt to unpack all the reasons why they
felt this way, I decided to try to make writing fun so that they could gain
pleasure from it while revealing their writing strengths. So, I brought the
party game “Table Topics” to class. The game consists of cards with thought-provoking
questions on a range of topics from popular culture to politics. It is marketed
as a conversation-starter. I used it as a form of low stakes journaling/prewriting
assignment. Students pulled two cards and were allowed to decide which question
they wanted to answer. I gave them 15 minutes to write a response to the
question. I was surprised at how much fun the students had with the game.
However, more importantly, they were surprised by how much they were able to
write and how much pleasure they had writing it. In previous low stakes journaling/prewriting assignments, students sometimes struggled to write for
the allotted time.
The
University of New Hampshire’s English Department Director argues, “We can make great
claims for the future utility of writing, but if we make it a dutiful act of
delayed gratification, devoid of immediate pleasure, students will not write
voluntarily, and they will not really engage with the work we require” (Writing and
Pleasure) .
My experience supported this. Playing a game delivered more benefits than I
expected. I was able to use their responses to show them how they could effectively
write a thesis, use narration, support points, use descriptive detail, compare
subjects, and more. I learned about my
students’ outside interests and experiences, which I pulled from to further
engage them by selecting more pleasurable future readings that aligned with
their interests. I also referred to their game responses when providing later
feedback on written assignments.
Williams
cautions that “taking pleasure seriously in the literacy classroom is not about
making everything a game” (Williams 341) . (Williams 341) . I agree. I did not turn my classroom
into game night at SNL. However, I did find that one night of play helped me to
improve student engagement in my class and yielded a more pleasurable overall
learning experience.
Works
Cited
Kirkland,
David E. A Song of the Smoke: Critical Thoughts on the Literacies of Young
Black Men. 14 September 2014.
Williams,
Bronwyn T. "Are we having fun yet? Students, social class, and the
pleasures of literacy." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
(December 2004/January 2005): 338-342.
Writing and
Pleasure. 2003. 29 September 2014
<http://cola.unh.edu/english/writing-and-pleasure>.
