freedom of expressivism
01/04/2011
Some say that poststructuralism and social constructivism have supplanted expressivism as the mode of teaching writing; however, I say that it's time to reexamine the radical potential of expressivism in today's academy. As most know, postructuralism and social constructionism both contend that experience is discursively constructed and can only be known through discourse. Expressivism, it has been said, privileges experience as a mode of knowing and expressing. But what about expressivism as privileging a form of experience that exceeds and transgresses academic constructions of knowledge? What happens when expressivism allows students to openly express their inner truths that go against the grain of traditional knowledge making practices in the academy? More on this later.