Don't hog the cover

In class today we began our conversation on James Paul Gee’s An Introduction to Discourse Analysis—perhaps the most accessible book on the topic available. I was struck by two things from the discussion:

One, that for the students who completed the reading, Gee’s presentations of grammar-as-perspective and the seven tasks of language proved immediately useful to them as they prepare their functional analyses. His cognitive/social approach to d/Discourse analysis will help them take the grammatical data they’re “mining” and use it to examine how a text presents a perspective (or lens) on the world.

Two, that the relationship between language and power is something a majority of students have thought about before, even if they didn’t put it in such direct and (perhaps) narrow terms. And if they haven’t thought about that relationship directly, many of them are fairly quick to pick up the memes of political critique.

Here’s my tension: to what extent am I leading this class to places I want to go and not to the places they want to or need to go? It seems to me that there is a “sage on the stage” structure to this class—and I’m talking way too much. One could say that I’m helping reproduce stereotypical classroom Discourse—teacher talk, student listen (and respond when necessary).

What would happen if I were to shut up? Where would we go? And would the course “cover” the stuff I think it needs to cover?

Cover. Covey. Convey. Conceal?

It’s interesting that the term used to denote what gets taught in class is “coverage.” We cover the material. Do we duck and cover, too? Does the “coverage model” hide as much as it displays? Do we cover ourselves? Our asses? Does my “sage on the stage” routine cover my need to appear authoritative and knowledgeable?

Bruce said it:

the times are tough, yeah
just gettin’ tougher
the whole world is rough
just gettin’ rougher
cover me