English teachers returning to higher education to receive their master\u2019s degree are a common student in MAWRD program, two of which are current students Brady Gunnink and Caroline Gonzalez (holding the “On Strike for My Students” picket sign). Brady is an English teacher at Jones College Prep, where he teaches rhetoric and composition courses and AP level classes. He is now beginning his third year with the program, taking one class a quarter. Caroline is the same, teaching full time at Hancock College Prep and still relatively new to the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Brady and Caroline are also participants in the ongoing CPS teacher\u2019s strike that is now ending its third week. The strike has currently idled 25,000 teachers and 300,000 of their students, which will continue to be the case until a deal is forged between Chicago Mayor Lightfoot and the CTU. As of yet, no such deal has been struck, with CTU representatives not yielding until their demands are met. Reasons for the walkout are various, including teacher\u2019s pay and other financial elements. One of the primary demands has been the decrease in class sizes, of which many public school teachers say have surpassed reasonable capacity. We caught up with Brady and Caroline to ask about their time in the program and how their profession and the strike have influenced it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experience in WRD<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Being from similar positions, Caroline and Brady share much in common on why they chose WRD, having both practical and personal reasons that relate back to their work as teachers. One of these reasons is WRD\u2019s quality as a writing and rhetoric only focused program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m an English teacher at a selective enrollment public high school in downtown Chicago,\u201d said Brady. \u201cI teach rhetoric and composition classes, but my undergraduate background was in Literature. Although I learned a great deal through teaching those courses, I wanted to get more grounding in rhetorical theory and practice through a graduate program. DePaul is the only program in the city that has a Rhetoric program separate from the Literature department, and I found that appealing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their full-time work as teachers also plays a role in their choice to return, as their work naturally does not leave much time to focus on self-improvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause I am often overwhelmed with the demands of my career, I struggle to balance my responsibilities at work and my own personal growth,\u201d Caroline said. \u201cThis degree is the only way I know how to force myself to dedicate time to nurture my own self and growth. This degree is helping me refine my own writing and thinking and, therefore, improve my instruction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One interesting factor in their lives is that, since they\u2019re receiving their MA to teach writing while also already doing just that, they have the opportunity to apply the material learned in WRD to their current classes at work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have brought at least a little something from every course I’ve taken back into my classroom,\u201d Brady answered. \u201cFor example, The Essay with Pete Vandenberg helped me rethink how I teach the personal essay. Discourse and Style with Darsie Bowden gave me some concrete practices for helping students develop and think about their writing style. Sociolinguistics with Jason Schneider helped me reframe my students’ linguistic practices and acknowledge to students the power dynamics inherent in the concept of Standard Written English.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince I started the program last quarter, I have already applied what I learned in my own classroom,\u201d Caroline also said. \u201cInspired by what I learned in WRD 511 with Professor MacKenna, I rewrote my first unit in my AP English Language class to include a study of visual rhetoric and the rhetoric of social movements. My students read Lloyd Bitzer’s “The Rhetorical Situation,” using his definition to find real world examples of rhetoric. Now, after taking WRD 500 with Professor Bokser, I am thinking about how to use Richard Vatz’s “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation” in class to start a conversation about the ethical responsibility we have as writers, or rhetors. I think that that more I grow and (re)think what I thought I knew, the more I can enrich my students’ learning experiences and increase the opportunities they have to grapple with disciplinary concepts and their real world application as scholars do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teaching, the CPS Strike, and Being in WRD<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Though their positions are not uncommon in the program, the CPS strike has changed this for them. When asked about the walkout\u2019s influence on educational experience, Caroline and Brady provided similar but different accounts and relations. Caroline was quite open about how it has affected her financially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause teachers are not paid while on strike,\u201d she said, \u201cour current strike has negatively affected my ability to make my tuition payments on time, which I have been paying out of pocket since CPS does not offer tuition reimbursement or loan forgiveness. I have to reach out to the financial aid office and figure out a plan to ensure that I can enroll next quarter. Other than that, it has not changed the way I engage in the WRD program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWorking a full-time job and doing graduate-level work is taxing, which is why I’ve been taking one course per quarter for the past few years,\u201d said Brady, whose situation is common amongst students. When questioned on how the strike affected this, his answer was reassuring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough striking means I am not officially doing that job, I still picket and march in the mornings and watch my kids (who are both CPS students) in the afternoons, so the amount of time I can devote to graduate work ends up being about the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside participating in it, Brady has also been conducting research on the CTU and the strike, primarily focusing on the rhetorical dimensions of the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Contemporary Rhetorics we have been reading about the turn in rhetorical scholarship towards participatory field methods,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a participant in the CTU strike, I am better able to identify the embodied and affective impact of the CTU’s rhetoric in real time (both by interviewing other participants and by gauging my own reactions). I have been able to collect a great deal of artifacts and qualitative data. My analysis is still forthcoming, but I’m leaning towards a focus on how the CTU uses the art of presencing to present the reality the bodies of teachers, support staff, and students which creates a formidable counternarrative\/counterpublic to the Mayor’s rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as Caroline details, the strike has had predictable effects on their lives outside WRD. \u201cBecause we are locked out of our CPS email, we are unable to communicate with our classes and access our work on Google Drive and Google Classroom. This a full work stoppage.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, continued communal support in and outside the protests has helped her and others along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEach day during a strike, CPS teachers report to their school picket lines from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. My colleagues and I have used this time to build community and interact with the people in the building we rarely see during the course of our busy school days. Chanting and singing, we have marched to nearby schools and engaged in small protest actions on busy streets. Taking turns bringing in food and drinks, we make sure to support and nurture one another to ensure that we all have the energy and stamina needed to make this sacrifice for our students. After picketing, we have been canvassing our neighborhoods to ensure that parents and community members understand what is happening and that we hear any concerns and answer questions. Each afternoon, we attend rallies and marches planned by CTU.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of this writing, according to the Chicago Tribune, the strike continues, with city officials and CTU representative still debating make-up days for class time lost during the walkout. Caroline was still positive about the situation though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOverall, I am so overwhelmed with the love and support we have gotten from our southwest side community. Parents have dropped off tamales for us. Former and current students have stopped by to chant and march with us. We have a solid group of current students who show up every day to picket and cheer us up with their original protest songs. Community members honk their car horns and roll down their windows to cheer us on as they pass on their morning commute. This strike has been a beautiful reminder of the power and resilience of our small Latinx community. While I cannot wait to return and continue to provide quality educational experiences for my students, I am certain that we have made the right decision to strike and that we are at the forefront of a necessary and long overdue fight for equity and justice for all. I am incredibly proud of the work I do each day in my classroom, and I am honored to work with some of Chicago’s finest educators.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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