Severe Constraints, Radical Possibilities: Reimagining Critical Pedagogy In The First-Year Writing Class

Critical pedagogues often bring political questions into the classroom and seek to disassemble the very paternalistic, repressive nature of education itself. However, while these scholars and the texts they write are well-intentioned, the possibility of achieving political goals in a first-year writing class are severely constrained by forces within and outside an instructor's control: committees, composition directors, university administration, state & federal governments, economic & social conditions, etc. That said, looking at the material history of writing studies, there have been moments of radical possibility, opportunities to fundamentally change the status quo for the better. In this dissertation, I argue that despite these constraints, many of which are outside of our control, there are opportunities to enact the political program of critical pedagogy in the first-year writing classroom and even work toward larger programmatic reforms. However, the key to enacting this program is in understanding the material history of writing studies, building on the work of anti-racist teacher-scholars, and then, most importantly, embracing the Marxist roots of critical pedagogy. Through reconnecting critical pedagogy to Marxism, I argue that critical pedagogues benefit from definitional & programmatic coherence in the first-year writing classroom, a better understanding of how political action takes place, and, ideally, allows room for critical pedagogues to work on radical projects outside of curricular reform