"A Teaching Story"

My idea for this paper is to suggest, through an examination of the
trope of the pass, the need for a reconsideration of the at once violent
and delicate space of the composition classroom. i am thinking about the
effects of "mainstreaming" programs such as the AIM program at UF, but also
how the practice of teaching writing in general can be an act of reinstating
the status quo. What is at stake for those students our university so
eloquently labels "at-risk" in a writing class that does not problematize
its own role in the subject formation of university students? How might we
re-think this process of mainstreaming we're employed to teach, and
ultimately, how might we teach our students to reconsider their need for
the almighty "A"?

i'll consider what it means to construct a syllabus with an eye to the
imperatives of cultural studies-type work, focusing specifically on how
a consideration of the social construction of gender and sexuality in the
classroom can be used to destabilize other normative categories such as
class, race, and student. i am looking for places where the construction
of normative sexualities, passable students, and good consumers overlap,
and i've found one such site in the location of the composition classroom.