Now that we have settled into Spring Quarter, we can think back and reflect on our Winter Quarter classes. In doing so, I definitely had a lot of thoughts on Multicultural Rhetorics, taught by Dr. Monica Reyes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this course she worked to help her students \u201cunderstand the relationship between rhetoric and minority subjectivities; develop understanding of cultural hegemony; interpellation; identity; intersectionality and culture through a rhetorical lens; consider how metanarratives and counternarratives work toward perpetuating and resisting systemic power; interrogate how \u201cdifference\u201d as it is articulated in and through identity categories translates into material consequences; and to compose counterstories which allow for diverse voices, particularly those formerly silenced people of color.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To accomplish these goals, Monica utilized PAB (progressive annotated bibliography) assignments that had students analyze and write about the readings \u201cbecause it helps students learn how to synthesize readings, which is important.\u201d I can attest that these assignments got easier and easier each week, with connections between readings become more apparent and the writing process coming a bit more smoothly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the PABs, which Monica uses in all classes she teaches, the students partnered with people of color from a variety of places in order to collaborate on their personal counterstories. Participants included students from DePaul\u2019s OMSS<\/a> (Office of Multicultural Student Success), students from Monica\u2019s undergraduate class, and family and friends. Students then worked with their partner to create a story\/multimodal work that accurately told the counterstory. The assignment could be done in many ways, all starting with an interview, but ending in essays, poems, pieces of art, and more. My partner, DePaul student Amira Hady, and I ended up telling her story<\/a> in essay format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another MA student Steven Reese, and his partner Yolanda Williford de Villareal de Alegria, created a beautiful combination of poetry, stories, and art<\/a> all created by Yolanda, with some interpretation and extrapolation done by Steven. Steven, who noted that this was his favorite course last quarter, had a lot to say about his experience with the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy own counterstory project was especially meaningful to me because my partner, Yolanda, is my sister-in-law\u2019s mother – my brother\u2019s mother-in-law. Working with her was so much fun, and we developed our own feeling of being family by the end. She even calls me mijo now! I never really thought I\u2019d be close to my brother\u2019s eventual mother-in-law, whoever she may be, but I guess I didn\u2019t know he\u2019d be marrying into Yolanda\u2019s family. So this project helped expand my ever-growing concept of what \u201cfamily\u201d is, and I\u2019m pretty thankful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having a class that helps you develop personally as well as professionally is very valuable. Steven noted that \u201cafter the year we just had, this course felt extremely relevant and urgently needed and thought exploring the topic through counterstory was interesting and ultimately, empowering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could not agree with his sentiment more, having participated in the same class discussions and worked on the same projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monica has found the counterstory project so valuable that she is including a variation of in her class WRD 511 Rhetorics of Displacement. \u201cMy students are partnering with a client or former client of a shelter for displaced people to help them tell a story about themselves that highlights something they enjoy or feel empowered by. The stories may be used on the shelter’s website with client’s permission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowing how eye-opening and fun this project was, I can only imagine the works that will be created in the upcoming iteration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WRD 506 combines theory and practice in order to help students conceptualize Multicultural Rhetorics and gave them their well-earned space in discourse. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take a look back to WRD 506 from Winter Quarter and see examples of projects worked on by students. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":11510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,471],"tags":[557,572,562,24,555],"class_list":["post-11507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courses","category-graduate","tag-academic-writing","tag-courses","tag-graduate","tag-rhetoric","tag-student-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wrdblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}