Voice as Process

Composition Studies, Spring 2006 by Childers, Amy A

Voice as Process, by Lizbeth A. Bryant. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 2005. 160 pages.

Bryant achieves what has been sorely needed in the study of voice: the collection and analysis of real case studies from which are derived inductive insights into the construction of written voice. With a foreword by Peter Elbow, this book establishes Bryant as a knowledgeable voice incomposition studies. Bryant clearly places herself in the theoretical traditions of student-centered pedagogy, social constructionism, and postcolonialism (11) through the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, L. S. Vygotsky, Walker Gibson, Donald Murray, Gloria Anzaldua, David Bartholomae, Mary Louise Pratt, Wendy Bishop, Kenneth Bruffee, Peter Elbow, Patricia Bizzell, Ken Macrorie, Toby Fulwiler, Min-Zhan Lu and Mike Rose. Unlike Darsie Bowden who holds that voice is not a helpful theoretical term, Bryant argues that the concept of constructed voice as a border zone is very useful pedagogically to the writing teacher when focusing on process rather than product (7-11). Briefly, Bryant argues that teachers must give students room to experiment with voice, to construct a new voice that is appropriate to academic circles and yet still true to the individual. In all, this text is very useful, both pedagogically and theoretically. Bryant displays a thorough knowledge of the related compositional theory and applies her theoretical knowledge clearly to student case studies.

Her argument, as established in the introduction, rests on the methodological premise that case studies are as necessary to the study of voice-in-writing as theoretical discussions. In her studies, she discerns a tension between what she calls "home voices" and "school" voices, applying two of Elbow's voice categories, "dramatic" and "authority," to further characterize this tension (4, 9). Her goal is to document the progress of two students, Jason and Leah, who attempt to integrate these two (or more) voices into an acceptable, and individual, academic voice. Her methodology involves oral transcriptions of class discussion and written portfolios (9).

Chapter 1, "Disruptive 'Sexual' Voices in English 101," is an insightful and practical chapter that offers help to teachers who have been stymied by student resistance in the classroom. Bryant begins by narrating a class experience involving sexual innuendo. She decides that silencing the "inappropriate" language inadvertently silenced the class's construction of their new academic voices (16). She borrows from Mary Louise Pratt the phrases "pupiling"-student resistance and subversion-and "contact zone"-a metaphor for the discomfort experienced when home/colloquial/dramatic voice meets school/academic/authoritative voice (17,18). Bryant concludes that by speaking inappropriately, the students were attempting to join in the academic discourse by using the only critical voices they had (19). Instead of silencing, Bryant (and all teachers) could have maximized the teaching moment by discussing the linguistic role of "one-upmanship," "power relations," or "subversion" (20).

Chapter 2, "Jason's Voices," provides a clear example that Bryant's approach to teaching writing is beneficiai to students, and that the "contact zone" metaphor makes real sense in classroom behavior. Bryant introduces Jason, who combined sarcasm and political science. At this point in Bryant's teaching career, she had committed herself to encouraging her students' voices rather than silencing, allowing even vulgarism as part of the construction process. She notices in Jason's work the use of parentheticals, inserted personal comments, as explored by Arthur L. Palacas in "Parentheticals and Personal Voice." Jason struggles to include an academic voice in his colloquial voice, which often took the form of long lists (27). Jason balked at providing analysis or a thesis. Bryant concludes that it was her responsibility to give Jason the room to explore the distance between the two voices. By the end of the semester, Jason was successfully able to provide an argument for his lists and focus his discussions, without sacrificing his home voice.

Chapter 3, "Leah's Story," is perhaps the most compelling chapter (Leah returns in the afterword to write a sophisticated letter to the reader, which implies that she now has firm control of her voice). Bryant introduces Leah, who already possesses a creative, "barnyard" voice which she struggles to combine into an academic voice (46). Leah denies her own authority, and focuses on her home voice, telling stories instead of drawing conclusions (42). Leah demonstrated a dependence on rhetorical questions, further divorcing herself from a voice of authority (48). Bryant describes Leah's situation as nepantla-an Aztec word Anzaldua defines as meaning "torn between ways" (49). Leah's path to voice was recursive, not linear (71).

In chapter 4, "Studying Our Voices," Bryant continues her discussion of the recursive process of constructing voice and outlines her own struggles in coming to an academic voice. This chapter could be judged as too personal or even self-indulgent in its confessions; however, Bryant upholds her process as she studies her own voice history. Although she risks revealing so much of her own struggle, she accomplishes just what she asks other teachers to do: examine the path that led to your scholarly voice. She suggests that each teacher should inventory his or her own voice development, should study theory, and should support students in their voice construction (72). She explains her difficulties in graduate school: at the master's level she was encouraged to create a teaching voice as her academic voice (75). However, at the doctoral level, when she tried using teaching stories to address theoretical concerns, she struggled to combine her pedagogical voice with a new Ph.D-level scholarly voice (82). She likens her resistance to the choices made by Toby Fulwiler and bell hooks who both chose to keep a strongly personal voice (83). Bryant's struggle to remain true to that personal voice is evidenced throughout her book: she includes her own poetry, as well as an imagined dialogue with herself debating which voice to use in the book-personal or scholarly (84). Largely, the scholarly voice wins out, but the personal periodically breaks through. Bryant seems to have achieved her goal of forging a new voice that combines the personal and the scholarly. She largely accomplishes this by embracing risk and experimentation, just as she encourages her students to do.