Written Communication Jan 2025

Composing Time in a Secondary U.S. Classroom: (Not) Challenging Ideological Polarization through Straight and Queer Temporal Movements

Ryan Schey University of Georgia

Abstract

Drawing on a larger year-long ethnography at a public, urban, comprehensive high school in the Midwestern United States, this article describes the texts students composed in a co-taught sophomore (grade 10) humanities course combining social studies and English language arts. Bringing together sociocultural perspectives on literacy and composition with queer theorizations of time, I argue for the utility of attending not only to time’s multi dimensionality but also its multi directionality. Doing so in writing instruction can help thaw binary polarization and foster more humanizing temporal and in turn ideological movements. To illustrate, I present an ethnographic case of students writing about the history of gendered clothing in 20th-century U.S. society. I examine how different temporal ideologies had consequences for students (not) reproducing antagonistic, polarized binaries with respect to oppressive values, in particular anti-LGBTQIA+ values as they intersect with class, race, and politics. Although my emphasis is how gender and sexuality intertwine with economics, race, and politics, this article suggests that attending to the multidimensionality and multidirectionality of time is a productive site for scholars and educators committed to praxes of justice in writing instruction.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
2025-01-01
DOI
10.1177/07410883241286905
Open Access
Closed
Topics
writing pedagogy qualitative research race and writing gender and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (11)

  1. Compton-Lilly (2023)
    Conceptual Review: Finding Time: Opening Up Conceptions of Time in Literacy and…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  2. Schey (2023)
    The Queer Temporalities of (Im)Possible School Futures: Transness, Christian Ep…
    Research in the Teaching of English
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    Restorying With the Ancestors: Historically Rooted Speculative Composing Practi…
    Written Communication
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    Freedom Dreaming in a Broken World: The Black Radical Imagination in Black Girl…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  5. Johnson (2017)
    Writing the Self: Black Queer Youth Challenge Heteronormative Ways of Being in …
    Research in the Teaching of English
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    Courting the Abject: A Taxonomy of Black Queer Rhetoric
    College English
  2. Osorio (2017)
    Embodying Truth: Sylvia Rivera’s Delivery of<i>Parrhesia</i>at the 1973 Christo…
    Rhetoric Review
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    Computers and Composition
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    Research in the Teaching of English
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    College English
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