Hawkins' piece completely challenged the way in which I have been thinking about new media. Am I allowed to say that? It's just one essay. It's just one person's belief about the importance of new media, and the connections she is making to her experiences with new media and the pedagogy she employs. I was confronted and shaken by this text. In my apprehension to seek out and utilize new media, I was affirmed and consoled by this text. We as teachers need to work with new media so that we can feel and understand the extent to which our students feel confused and challenged by their projects? Hells yes, praise the lord, and pass the salt! If this desire to deconstruct, make new, make fragmented, make visible, make unsure, create tension, is a main idea or ideal component of the pedagogy I am developing as a new teacher, which it most certainly is, how can new media function for me as a teacher and a learner? I challenge my students to write an
essay
…
paragraph
…
sentence
…
word
…
letter
…
THOUGHT
This is not easy for them. The impossibility of a word. I am challenged to further develop a pedagogy.
Hawkins says it best when she says we are situated within a "current historical context." Our current historical context is not only a suggestive for new media. We are not. It is not an option! We are not being asked to incorporate new media into our teaching practices and pedagogy. Our current historical moment demands it. "And your resistance will only result in your own disability, your own immaturity" she says. I see my students resisting and resisting, paralyzed by the inquisition of a why, the seemingly perilous nature of constructing the sentence, expanding the thought. I am equally resistant to new media. Paralyzed! Para/lyzed. Para/lies.
Everything comes back to queer theory.
Hawkins writes, "I imagined what it means to my students to 'read' as a butch lesbian, how that would or would not differ from reading as a trasngendered person, how and why this may or may not affect their ability to learn to write in my classroom. As a writing instructor, I mark their essays and mark myself. How are these markings related?" I love the parallel she is creating between genderqueer (I would even argue genderfuck), and new media. What happens when we step outside of a prescriptive method of identity is what happens when we step outside of a prescriptive method of composition is what happens when we step outside of a prescriptive method of language. Markings emerge on my body as a text. My power is exerted through my body. The choices I make pertaining to my body are the scripts through which my students read my text.
I am comforted and challenged by what Hawkins says at the end of her manifesto: "All you need to do is believe that you have a shot at the magic, your own magic." When such mechanisms for invention as the typewriter or the word processor came into being and students were confronted with learning how to use these mechanisms for composition, I'm sure there was apprehension and distrust. How could these students and teachers adapt and embrace these mechanisms, and how is this different from what contemporary learners and teachers are faced with today? Not so different, huh? We can do it, 402-ers! We can do it!
