Understanding Resistance

Reading Douglas Hesse’s article, “Teachers as Students, Reflecting Resistance,” I could not help but think about our practicum class last semester. As first-time composition teachers and first-time practicum students, I think Hesse more than accurately described our limbo situation. In the dual role as teacher and student, we struggled with resistance, not only our students’ resistance but surprisingly our own. I was shocked by how much our attitudes towards the new material in our text The Politics of Writing resembled our students’ attitudes towards our department’s approach to teaching composition. We failed to notice our own resistance to an unfamiliar discourse community, composition and rhetoric. Hesse contends in his article that all first-year students, whether freshman or beginning graduate students, experience a strong level of resistance with new material; furthermore, they tend to discount the writing style and content as unapproachable rather than accepting that the difficulty exists within themselves (225). Naturally, one’s initial response to complicated material is that the information is too complex or written in a purposefully confusing manner. We expect our freshman to need help interpreting content, yet as graduate students we believe we are prepared for deciphering sophisticated information. Our pride takes a hit when we struggle because we know that we have put effort and years into our field of study.
Personally, I am a literature person, so comp theory was completely new to me. I assumed because I was becoming adept in the literature discourse community that I could navigate all sub-communities of academic English. I completely identify with Hesse’s claim to salvation: “What “saved” me was a realization that the field needed to be learned from within and that a considerable amount of mucking around––reading and writing as if things made sense––was necessary” (227). Without knowing, I adopted this approach to entering the comp community. In no way do I understand everything about composition, but by throwing myself into it, I now feel more comfortable discussing and writing about the subject than I did at the beginning of last semester.
I was reminded of my struggle with new material even at this level for one purpose: to be more sympathetic towards my own students. Resistance is a defense mechanism and a sign that students are having difficulty engaging in the material of a new discourse community. Does this mean that none of our students have a lazy bone in their bodies? Probably not, but if we can show them that we honestly understand their resistance then we have found a starting point for entering the conversation. In addition, as teachers/students we are in the unique position to share with our students what we do when faced with resistance and other academic challenges. We can prove to them that we are on their side, not just their evaluators.