For one of my assignments during winter quarter, I was to write a blog-post that discussed my relationship with the discourse of historical writing. Within this prompt, “Discourse” referred to the style, methods and modes used to communicate in a specific field or genre. I made the claim that my acquisition “of the historical discourse came out of my own need for self-discovery, rather than out of necessity for class.” When I was discussing my blog-post with another student in the class, they made a remark about how young I was when I acquired this discourse used in the historical genre. They then asked me how I plan to help students who did not have that early ambition to acquire the discourse. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to respond.
Flash forward to the Master’s Thesis and Dissertation Conference. I am sitting down for lunch with Erin Herman, Jen Finstrom, and some of the attendees. One of the attendees we were having lunch with was new to DePaul, and she shared some difficulties she had with a professor at another university. She remarked how much more relaxed her professors at DePaul were in regard to her writing. She felt she was putting her authentic self into the writing, while still adding valuable thoughts to the field of Women and Gender studies. I dared to question whether my students need to totally acquire an established discourse in order to be a part of the history field. Because I was still developing my own communication style when I was first influenced by the historical field, my experience of acquiring the historical discourse did not involve adding my own style. However, that doesn’t mean that each of my writers and students will have the same experience of acquiring a style that is largely outside of themselves. Just like the historical discourse influenced the development of my own style of discourse, what if writers can influence the discourse of the historical field?
Rather than framing the discourse as an established genre that students and writers must acquire, perhaps we should lend people more agency to change the nature of the discourse within the field of genre itself. Any relationship between an established genre or field and the writer/student is dialectical. Empowering writers to use their agency to influence the genre by the use of new discourse promotes the value of writer agency. So, to answer my classmate’s question mentioned at the beginning, instead of convincing that student to use an already established discourse, I would give them agency to communicate in the historical field with whichever method, style, or mode they justify as necessary for communicating their insight.