Response to Brooke's "Underlife and Writing Instruction"

Brooke’s article “Underlife and Writing Instruction” brings up some really interesting ideas about classroom management and forming relationships in the classroom.  First, he describes the student’s underlife and anything that takes the students out of the classroom, distracts them from participating, or even causes misbehavior. Then he explains that in general, writing teachers attempt to use aspects of underlife to help the students see themselves as writers.  Brooke gives many interesting ideas, but it all comes down to respect.  In undergraduate education classes, I was told that everyone has a story, and it is the teacher’s job to learn it.  I do not recommend that composition classes turn into come-to-Jesus meetings, but there has to be room for the student’s personal identity and expression.   More so than any other subject, writing not only reveals a student’s underlife, it relies on it.  It was clear from the first assignment that I graded for 1301 that students were desperate to set themselves apart and share their story.  That urge has been systematically beaten out of them every time we tell them there is no room for their opinion in this genre.  Writing is not only a tool for communication, it is a vehicle for self-expression.  There are so many different ways to communicate now, and if we continue to remove self-expression from writing there will be very few left who willingly do it. I cannot think of many students who would choose to write an essay if there was any other option. 

It seems that the best solution is to include underlife in classroom management in order for the students to remain engaged and bring a certain level of respect into the relationship.  College students are old enough to understand mutual respect—I believe that having an open discussion about aspects of underlife that can distract from classroom participations can be helpful.  Ask them why they are on their phones, when do they stop listening and start doodling? Do they distract themselves because they are uninterested, tired, or for some other reason? I think that including them in the conversation about how a class operates and what can be done to keep the course work interesting can be a very valuable opportunity to learn more about their identity. I am not saying that it is a teacher’s job to make sure that the students are constantly entertained, but it is important to know in general which teaching strategies appeal to your students and which cause them to tune you out.  Students will bring their underlife to class no matter how often you tell them to “leave it at the door.” It is about teaching them to balance their classroom identity and underlife identify and showing respect for both.