Romano, Field, and De Huergo

In the article “Web Literacies of the Already Accessed and Technically Inclined,” Romano, Field and De Huergo discuss student answers to whether or not they “sometimes choose the Spanish-language option” when searching on the web (1486).  Many of the students responded in a way that shows how they view English and Spanish as existing in a hierarchical relationship (with Spanish marginalized). A few of the students, however, responded in a way that reveals their awareness of kairos:  for these few students, there is an “understanding of language as situation specific rather than hierarchical. For them, context dictates usage” (1487).  Unfortunately, Romano, Field, and De Huergo do not know why some students “came to kairos when others did not” (1487). 

One way to help students come to kairos would be to explicitly teach it.  It appears that the rhetorical analysis unit may be a good place to introduce this concept (with all the talk of “social context”).  Understanding context seems to be a great way for students to understand how a variety of discourses can be useful.  Delpit has suggested that varieties of English other than the accepted standard be acknowledged in the classroom.  Doing this will, hopefully, help groups of students who have historically been marginalized (Delpit speaks of African Americans, but Romano, Field, and De Huergo’s discussion of the Monterrey, bilingual children applies—especially when considering how the children have marginalized their first language internally). 

Although context dictates accepted usage, Brandt and Clinton’s reminder that texts can transcend context and connect the local to the global be must acknowledged as well.  According to Brandt and Clinton, the autonomous model of texts was rightfully rejected, but texts still have autonomous traits. Brand and Clinton’s ideas do not actually contradict Delpit’s or Romano, Field, and De Huergo’s.  If students are taught about texts as being attached to certain contexts, part of the context for some texts is that they will transcend local context and become part of a global context. The idea that one language is simply superior to another is not true, and teaching students about context will, hopefully, teach students why a certain language or dialect will be more desirable in some contexts than others.  If you want your text to have a global effect, then it is wise to choose a global language.  If you want a text to affect a very specific group of people on a more local level, then in that context, non-standard English or another language altogether may be more desirable. 

I think a fun assignment might get students to start playing with context specifically.  If students had to redo an assignment based on a changing context (moving from the global to the local, perhaps?), what would they change as a result?  Why would these certain changes be more effective?  Such an assignment would help students understand kairos.