Queer Writing as a Heterodox Approach to Assistant Teaching in the Composition Classroom

Ryan Patrick Kirby

Queering the composition classroom entails a widening of the workspace’s ideological boundary to more squarely fit the idea that sexuality plays a large, circumferential role in queer folks’ relationship to and with composition. Implied by extension of the interpersonal peer-student relationship, “queering the writing center” strongly features the materialization of Harry Denny’s suggestion that “sexuality is another lens through which we must view the writing center” (42). To queer a writing classroom is to invoke a fuller, more democratic composition routine that strengthens the relationship between otherwise independent identities as well as the relationship between the interpersonal peer-student exchange.

Student writers often come into the peer tutor’s—or teaching assistant’s—workspace seeking to reinforce arguments upsetting “structuring binaries” (Denny 41) through rhetorical composition; queering this classroom, then, provides for the unique occasion to cultivate fundamental and universal concepts in spaces enhanced by queer existence—especially by upsetting the “self or other” binary vis-à-vis the act of interrelating the two.

In first and simplest order, we find in the role of the peer tutor—queer or otherwise—an opportunity for further inclusion of the queer experience in her ability to design heterodox compositional approaches (superior to the demonstration of tolerance). The heterodox approach also benefits the otherwise heterosexual learner: They get to enjoy writing instruction that is socially capacious, thus more “true-to-life.”

But this is just the primary step—the peer tutor first considers that a heteronormative local sphere will just not cut the mustard if she wishes to cultivate a social space that emulates reality: which is an amalgam of heterodox identities. Next, to make instruction more involved (and in so doing, more socially roomy) the peer tutor extends the same nondeterministic benefit to queer narratives as she does those heteronormative—doing so through a comprehensive approach. As a result, queer folk, by way of other, become tantamount (not adjuvant) to the world process.

Yet, a peer tutor must remember that in her “allowance” for queer space she demonstrates an indelicate power move. Instead, the peer tutor could, in approaching queerness as a worldview rather than a custom, not dictate queer compositional space, but assume it through everyday practice—an unquantifiable act of democracy. In this sense, the peer tutor finds her particular role invoking what Christina Saidy refers to as the reciprocal, gathering experience cultivated through composition (63).

As such, I suggest illumining the idea that the peer tutor acts as both mentor of writing and co-practitioner of space: If the peer tutor is able to queer the composition classroom by understanding not to restrict space—and not to do so only whenever a queer person has joined the conference—she is able to materialize an interrelational ecosystem greater reflexivity. That is, by destabilizing the performative aspects of orthodox mentorship, the peer tutor begins to chip away at the notion that “cultural practices are. . .charged with strong normative assumptions. . .in their attempt to build [a] collective identity” (Eleftheriaids 99).

Of the myriad measures peer writing mentors may offer to become better familiar with queer material, queer thinking, and the queer experience, contributing to a collective identity by considering queerness without a queer presence implies a gesture of social goodwill—which is precisely what is needed in order to “queer the writing center” not only once, but en masse. In this way, queerness becomes a reflexive consideration, not postured discourse or act of discretion costumed on and off in the attendance of queer people—that type of behavior is, along with being obsequiously gauche, emblematic of psychological Halloweenism.

A peer mentor best “caution[s] against an identity politics that positions any epistemology as offering a totalizing way of knowing” (Denny 41) when, instead of considering how she might act if in the company of queer folk, she treats her instructional approach as a general standard by which to cultivate a continuously fluid workspace. Harry Denny’s approaches to queering the composition classroom deal with de-anthropologizing and demythologizing queerness as something “mystical,” something spatial, something researchable-archivable, or something programmable through well-intended interdisciplinary reference.

Having said this, queerness should not be merely tolerated but interrelated. The Latin word for tolerate is tolerō, or “I endure”; contrast this linguistic proof with the inter- of interrelate being Latin for “between” and we further obviate the merits of “interrelation” in contrast to sheer “tolerance.”

What is more, to cultivate queered composition classrooms is to approach peer tutoring with a shared—or borrowed—and celebrated epistemology queer folk daily possess as agents securing their personal identity from collapsing into a larger, conventional culture. By allying the positive aspects of interrelating epistemologies, the peer tutor at once seeks to discover herself as “individual and other” not on her own terms, but on the terms of working against the heteronormative reflex to think only in queer terms whenever expressing misguided sympathy.

The peer tutor’s capacity to queer a composition classroom or not either “analyzes practice[s] that inscribe meaning, making certain bodies and ways of doing visible and marked [or makes] others illusory, invisible or unmarked” (Denny 42); as such, the peer tutor’s ostensible choice to forgo this instructional shift—favoring a heteronormative, exclusionary approach—really does emphasize the importance of an individual’s response to queerness both inside and outside of the writing center.

Queering any transfer-based environment asks for its employees to familiarize themselves with queerness insofar that the ipso facto construction of safe harbors does not emerge from the sole, backbreaking efforts of queer folk, rather, from a combined public effort: an interrelational mechanism, you would say.

Composition classrooms are inherently uncomfortable, which is an addendum worth attaching in the midst of suggesting that tutoring centers (and, correspondingly, peer mentors and teaching assistants) take on the uncomfortable responsibility of interrelating queerness through their compositional approach. As such, Denny ultimately requests for writing centers to do what they do best: offer approaches that far outweigh the moderate range of tolerance by implementing working, interrelated queer methodologies into an already unstable writing routine.

The discursive self-other model loops back around like so: The peer mentor, in her already being to some degree uncomfortable during the “normal” course of ideological transfer in the composition classroom, ought to take her discomfort and, with it, procure comfort by stylizing a queered technique (regardless if she or the student[s] with whom she presently mentors is queer).

By doing this, she adopts a model of queerness (and not an identity of queerness, lest she be queer) that further demonstrates the reaches of her direction while also recognizing the social world in a more representative light. If “for many students, collaborative writing, active learning, and recursive processes are educational rituals that are not well-known or comfortable” (Denny 58), by taking this level of discomfort for which composition classrooms are known (and through the powerful burden of academic responsibility being thus obligated) and then utilizing spatial richness as a decades-long adoption of heterodox approaches, we can be sure to bolster robust and dynamic interrelationships.

Works Cited

Denny, Harry. “Queering the Writing Center.” The Writing Center Journal, 25:2, 2005, 39-62.

Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos. “Anti-Identity, Politics and the State Queer Challenges and Future Directions.” Queer Festivals, Amsterdam University Press, 2018.

Saidy, Christina. “Working from the Inside Out: Writing for Community and Democratic Participation When Citizenship Is in Question.” English Journal, 103:2, 2013, 60-65.

About the Author

Ryan Patrick Kirby is a writing mentor, queer freelance writer, graduate student of English at Arizona State University, and a lifelong community activist, aspiring educator, and soon-to-be PhD student at University of Texas at San Antonio. Focusing on non-fiction and academic writing, Kirby often finds approaches to queer theory, birth of consciousness, and Marxist studies as his go-to; for fiction, Kirby writes queer fiction, queer poetry, and affect fiction. After completing his graduate degree, Ryan Patrick Kirby will seek English literature and composition lecturer and adjunct roles before moving toward his doctorate in English. When not working, conferencing, educating, reading or writing, Kirby can almost certainly be found with his husband enjoying time outside with their two dogs, Jasper and Pilot.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *