close to the heart: teacher authority in a classroom...

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CCC 61:2 / deCember 2009

Steven L. VanderStaay, Beverly A. Faxon, Jack E. Meischen, Karlene T. Kolesnikov, and Andrew D. Ruppel

Close to the Heart: Teacher Authority in a Classroom Community

In this article we provide a “portrait” of an exemplary writing teacher and the social construction of authority he established with students in two courses. The portrait demonstrates that teacher authority is most essentially a form of professional authority granted by students who affirm the teacher’s expertise, self-confidence, and belief in the importance of his or her work. We find that professional authority is neither op-pressive nor incompatible with de-centered methods, effective instruction, or the kind of assertive teacher authority required to effectively lead a class. In this way, effective instruction and teacher authority become mutually reinforcing reciprocal processes.

One might read the history of modern composition studies as a series of attacks on classroom uses of power.

—Patricia Bizzell, “Power, Authority, and Critical Pedagogy”

The Prison House of PowerFew problems have proven more vexing within composition than the right use and exercise of power. Whereas practitioners in the 1960s and 1970s sought to eschew the “damage that has been done to students in the name of correct writing” (Shaughnessy 9), composition instructors now have to worry about their complicity in macro-social forces of racism, sexism, and class oppression (Olson 297). In response, many compositionists have sought to “de-center” their power through collaborative, dialogic, and student-based methods (Bizzell,

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Copyright © 2009 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

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“Power” 55; Bruffee 636; Lunsford 76). Others have cautioned that de-centered methods may also oppress students (Gale 136) or trivialize the academic stand-ing of female instructors (Sciachitano 299; Kopelson 126–27) and, by extension, composition itself (Holbrook 211). The upshot is a prison house of power, an “impasse” (Bizzell, “Power” 54); our fears about power impede our efforts to use it to serve our students and advance our field.

Fortunately, scholarship on the problem of pedagogic power, defined here as teacher authority, has revealed cracks in this impasse. Patricia Bizzell and Carmen Werder have advanced useful distinctions between power, expertise, control, and persuasion that permit an enabling and assertive use of teacher authority. More broadly, a consensus has emerged that both the “common good” (Bizzell, “Power” 54) and a “good education” (Pace 22) require teachers to “use their authority in teaching for the purpose of enhancing learning and empowering students” (Gale 57).

Yet this theoretical progress has not been matched by parallel accounts of practice. Scholarly calls for research on an instructive and consensual use of teacher authority remain vague and idealized. Despite wide agreement that composition instructors must balance a healthy wariness of their authority with a renewed commitment to use it effectively, no one has ventured a description of what an enabling exercise of teacher authority looks like in real classrooms. We seek to fill this gap by providing a “portrait” (Lawrence-Lightfoot) of Wil-liam Smith, a widely respected and award-winning composition and technical writing instructor.

What We Talk about When We Talk about AuthorityAlthough Plato framed authority as derived from a person’s ability to sense the ultimate good, most modern accounts of authority derive from Max Weber, who saw authority as a form of power legitimized by the agreement of those it controls. According to Weber, rules and laws uphold legal or bureaucratic authority; time and tradition legitimize traditional authority; and charismatic authority rests upon the devotion and assent of followers. Sociologists later posited a fourth form, professional authority, describing the expertise needed to achieve consensual aims (Pace and Hemmings 6–7).

Ideals of Authority across the DisciplinesMost educational discussions of authority derive from John Dewey’s De-mocracy and Education and his often-quoted view that “since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute

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in voluntary disposition and interest” (87). In contrast, sociological accounts of teacher authority follow from Emile Durkheim’s view that education intro-duces the child to society, linking the family to the city and state. Therefore, schools—constituting a child’s first experience of the larger society—hold a special responsibility to model a fair and legitimate authority.

Durkheim’s view that education should provide an ideal experience of authority is universally implicit within composition. In the 1970s, for instance, academic feminists and others began advocating de-centered methods as a re-sponse to the “patriarchal power” invested in the teacher (Bizzell, “Classroom” 847). Summarizing this period, Bizzell noted that by 1982 composition scholars had declared a revolution in methods defined by “students’ control of their own writing processes” (“Power” 55). By 1990 the notion of a de-centered classroom had moved beyond writing methods to describe larger classroom dynamics, celebrated by Lundsford as “radically democratic,” “non-hierarchical” and “intensely collaborative” (76). Influenced by expanding accounts of the complic-ity of schools, universities, and discourses in sexist, racist, hetereosexist, and colonial oppression (Foucault), teachers were charged to commit themselves to “ending the student’s oppression” (Ellsworth 309). Others warned that any relinquishment of classroom authority placed composition and rhetoric in a deferential position in the academy. Louise Wetherebee Phelps challenged composition instructors and writing program administrators (WPAs) to be-come “unafraid of our own power,” while Edward M. White admonished that we “use it or lose it” (qtd. in Werder 10). Reflective of the current historical moment, caution remained dominant. In 1991, Bizzell noted that “it seems to be crucially important to our sense of ourselves as professionals that we do not exercise power oppressively in the classroom” (“Power” 55).

Some instructors claimed success with de-centered and anti-oppressive methodologies (Shor); others reported frustration and failure. Reflecting on her own attempt to embrace critical and “anti-racist pedagogies,” Elizabeth Ells-worth concluded that “strategies such as student empowerment and dialogue give the illusion of equality while leaving the authoritarian nature of the teacher/student relationship intact” (306). Ellsworth’s concerns were widely shared. Kirk Branch described how his early efforts to de-center proved counterproductive for the adult literacy center students he taught; they became frustrated, and he felt purposeless (229). Zin Liu Gale cautioned in 1996 that the very intent to be an “emancipatory teacher” may reinscribe traditional hierarchy by rendering the instructor a “morally superior figure” (136).

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Gender, Race, and AuthorityComposition instructors committed to feminist goals faced a similar conun-drum. Influenced by landmark feminist texts such as Carol Gilligan’s In a Differ-ent Voice and Elizabeth A. Flynn’s “Composing as a Woman,” many celebrated “woman friendly” pedagogies emphasized student-centered activities, a safe, accepting classroom climate, and a “feeling” orientation (Hollis 342). Other feminists attacked these pedagogies. Introducing the CCC “Symposium on Feminist Experiences in the Composition Classroom,” Marian Sciachitano ar-gued that de-centered methods perpetuate the diminished position of feminist academics and composition itself (299). Karen Hayes argued for writing classes that embrace “Difference with a capital D” (301), maintaining that the model of a teacher actively confronting racist and sexist students inspires others “to begin to assert themselves as well” (303). Since confronting students requires a substantive and assertive teacher authority, these arguments directed com-position teachers to embrace their institutional power—even at the risk of reinscribing the kind of teacher-centered authority earlier feminists critiqued.

Academics of color raised similar concerns. Asserting that de-centered methods privilege the language, learning styles, and social capital of white, middle-class children, Lisa Delpit cautioned that black children “expect an au-thority figure to act with authority” (289). Asking whether the Delpit hypothesis holds for introductory college composition students, Thomas A. Lugo followed a cohort of African American men studying composition with a white, female teaching assistant who favored a “de-centered classroom pedagogy” (iii). Trac-ing these students’ dissatisfaction, frustration, and self-destructive opposition, Lugo concluded that this teacher’s reluctance to exercise traditional classroom authority created a poor cultural fit for her male students of color.

A Way ForwardStrengthened by the criticisms of feminist teachers and academics of color, attacks upon de-centered methods deepened the impasse over power, bringing urgency to theoretical efforts to find a way forward. In the most well known of these efforts, Bizzell asserted that composition maintains “an insufficiently differentiated notion of power” that collapses important distinctions between coercion, persuasion and authority (“Power” 56). In her view, while coercion is oppressive, authority weds persuasion to collaboration and trust (57), “a concept of usable power” (55). Carmen Werder also challenged the assumption that student empowerment requires relinquishment of teacher authority (9). And

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summarizing the current moment in research on teacher authority in a recent meta-analysis, Judith L. Pace and Annette Hemmings asserted that theoretical elaborations like those described above comprise some of the “most promis-ing possibilities” for resolving the problem of power in the classroom (22). The next step requires “the investigation of what really happens inside classrooms as participants interpret and manage the forces that shape teacher-student relations” (22). It is our purpose in this article to take this step, braiding an account of practice to discussions of theory and utilizing “portraiture” as an interpretive approach ready-made for doing so.

Portraiture“Portraiture” was the term Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot used to describe the research method of her book The Good High School. Lawrence-Lightfoot believed that the traditional social science emphasis upon disease and disorder distorted educational research, fostering inaction and cynicism. In response, she formulated portraiture as “an intentionally generous and eclectic process that begins by searching for what is good and healthy” (9). Portraiture directs researchers to document the “mix of ingredients” and “institutional character and culture” in which students thrive and succeed (Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis 8). Ethnographically, a portrait is an extended and highly detailed, de-scriptive narrative account. Ideally, a portrait makes peers of researchers and readers, providing sufficient detail and documentation to enable readers to assess the writer’s conclusions or generate competing findings of their own. Similarly, portraiture invites subjects to act as collaborators and share their own thoughts on the research.

Portraiture has won praise for drawing attention to the aesthetic features of ethnographic writing and for respecting readers and subjects (e.g., Ladson-Billings; Harding). Critics have faulted the method for its close association with a single author and for lacking a postmodern conception of truth (English). We thought portraiture was our best research method for several reasons. To begin with, the method fit our intention to document an enabling use of teacher authority. Portraiture’s current standing within research on culturally relevant teaching (Ladson-Billings; VanderStaay) emboldened our hope that we might study empowerment without ignoring oppression. And the method’s require-ment that we treat participants as collaborators reduced the hesitancy we felt regarding our own authority to author research about a colleague’s teaching.

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Finally, portraiture’s emphasis upon the observation of nuance and gesture challenged us to attend to what we feel as well as to what we think, to address the emotional heart of the matter.

The Selves We Bring to This StudyConcerns about teacher authority are “close to the heart” for us because they touch on our wishes and fears as writing teachers. Composition instructors and a literacy scholar who teaches writing methods, we seek expertise that allows a teacher to use “authority in teaching for the purpose of enhancing learning and empowering students” (Gale 57). Admittedly, we also want our students to respect us, follow our instructions, and attend to our advice, but we fear the dis-empowering uses of authority. We are also interested in ways an experienced teacher addresses challenges such as tardiness and texting dur-ing class and in forms of authority a successful and nurturing writing teacher demonstrates. Following the dictum that the best teacher is a good model, we sought to answer these questions by studying William Smith.

William SmithHired to restructure and revive a freshman writing program, William Smith came to Western Washington University eighteen years ago, following success-ful positions as a composition instructor, technical writer, writing program administrator, and Shakespeare scholar. At Western he won our distinguished teaching award, became a widely respected director of composition, and later developed the technical and professional writing program. Smith is described by a former department chair as “born to be mild” and by a WPA colleague as teaching with an “informed and self-less approach.” In the quarter of our study Smith taught two sections of Introduction to Technical and Professional Writing. Two of us observed each section for three weeks, collecting field notes and conducting semistructured interviews with focal students and the teacher, whom students call “Bill.” Coauthors not engaged in fieldwork completed litera-ture reviews and met twice weekly with the ethnographers, permitting a fluid and ongoing weave of informed observation and disciplinary reflection. We analyzed all transcripts and field notes as a team, meeting together in seminar fashion or presenting to each other in colloquia. Each author contributed to the analysis, which was collated and summarized by one author and then revised and affirmed by the research team.

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A PortraitA Day in the Life of English 302Bill enters the classroom for his 8:00 a.m. Introduction to Technical and Profes-sional Writing class wearing pressed khaki pants, a cadet blue button-down shirt, silver wire-rim glasses, and dark lace-up shoes. His hair and mustache are full and gray. He wears hearing aids in both ears. English 302 meets in a media lab ringed with computers, and Bill operates a computer, projector, and docu-ment camera from the room’s center; students working at computer stations line the walls of the room, their backs to the teacher. Bill moves around the classroom as he makes his opening remarks, his voice soft but clear. He hands out assignments he has reviewed and graded, greeting students by name as he returns their work. He recommends that students come to see him. “My office hours are pretty sacred: they are set aside for you,” he says, adding that he can arrange for other meeting times. These remarks emphasize his availability and willingness to evaluate their work and mentor their progress.

Next Bill outlines the quarter’s remaining assignments, projecting the course schedule onto an overhead screen. He reminds his students that they have “about a dozen documents to prepare” for possible inclusion in a final portfolio. He focuses on the next major assignment, a brochure on volcanoes and Mt. Baker that “is about two weeks out,” employing language that suggests a professional expectation rather than a classroom assignment’s due date. “Any questions?” he asks. “Is this making sense to you?”

As Bill speaks he gestures outward with his right hand slightly cupped and then slowly brings his hand to heart, a gentle but emphatic motion that is surprisingly intimate. Watching a silent movie of the class, one would guess that Bill is telling a personal story or sharing a deeply held belief. Bill’s move-ments come across as exceedingly sincere and are quick without being abrupt; they punctuate his conversation with a gentle, flowing quality, reminiscent of signing. He uses humor freely, but the humor is not sarcastic and is never cruel. At all times he conveys a sense of gentleness in speech and demeanor. When a student tells Bill that he has forgotten to post an assignment on Blackboard, he thanks the student and deftly corrects the error, as if modeling how to accept criticism with aplomb.

Bill affirms his students in speech and body language. He says “yes” more than “no.” Phrases and terms he frequently uses include “Absolutely,” “Whatever you decide,” “That will work,” “This should be fun,” “Let’s brainstorm,” and “Let’s take a look at . . .”

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When lecturing or making announcements, Bill is declarative and upbeat. When affirming a student, he raises his voice and relies on “absolutely” and “that will work.” With a struggling student he becomes quieter. We asked him if this was his intent, and he smiled. “It is deliberate,” he admitted. “The struggle should be private—it’s a private moment in a public space. If I’m quieter my relationship with the student is more intimate. Then they’ll try things on the computer they wouldn’t try otherwise.”

“And raising your voice?”“It’s kind of a group ethos: ‘Look, it can be done!’ It’s infectious. ‘Other

people can do it!’ Even today, students are terrified of technology,” he added, explaining that these public affirmations build confidence in individuals and the class. Similarly, his pet phrases reinforce this sense of group ethos. For in-stance, the phrases “let us” and “let’s take a look at . . . ” suggest a community working together toward a common goal.

Plagiarism and Power SharingBill tells students to consider the image of themselves they want to project in their portfolios and to write and revise with that image in mind, linking their portfolios to the professional identity they will establish in the workplace. Next Bill sets up an assignment involving process description. He reviews natural description and textual partitions, reminding the class that “chunking” infor-mation allows a writer to “divide and describe.”

“Natural processes are really tricky,” Bill adds, illustrating the point by explaining how difficult volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and tornadoes are to describe. He then cautions students about plagiarism. Trained to make such announcements in our own classes, we are surprised that his comments don’t come off as a threat. Instead, he defines plagiarism and offers strategies for identifying and avoiding it. He provides several specific examples of what plagiarism looks like in the context of their current research, informing stu-dents that he will identify plagiarized material and hold them responsible for producing original work. Students look at him with focused attention, rapt but not frightened. No one asks the kind of nervous questions we so often get in our own classes (e.g. “But what if you accidentally . . . ?”) Then Bill describes his high expectations for the assignment. He presents these expectations as information to be shared and not as a veiled threat, suggesting a collective as-sumption that everyone in the class intends to avoid plagiarism and produce excellent work.

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Engagement with StudentsHalfway through his afternoon class, Bill announces, “I’m going to come around and peek over your shoulders for a minute.” He begins with Hagrid, a student returning to school after a decade of professional experience in web design and journalism. Well over six feet tall with a full beard and hair to his shoulders, he towers over Bill, who is trim and compact. Bill and Hagrid laugh as they look at Hagrid’s computer, and we hear Bill say, “Okay, can I get you to share this with the others?” Hagrid hesitates but agrees. As Hagrid walks to the instructor’s station, Bill brings a screen up for him on the projector, turns down the lights, then moves to the periphery by the door, his arms folded and relaxed at his chest. When Hagrid asks if anyone in the room has heard of Creative Commons, Bill raises a hand in response. Hagrid continues, sharing information for find-ing graphics that can be freely used on the web. When he finishes, Bill comes forward, smiling, “That’s great, great information.” Bill goes on to talk about copyright infringement, extending Hagrid’s information while acknowledging its importance. He finishes by saying, “Thank you once again.”

When we talk to Hagrid about Bill’s authority, he describes Bill as being more interested in the “choric” than in the “dialogic,” typified as a “traditional classroom—teacher in front speaking, students in a row.” When we ask for examples of “choric,” Hagrid immediately brings up the moment when Bill invited him to share his expertise. “I’ve never had a teacher ask me to explain something like that in class, to acknowledge that I knew more about that particular topic then he did,” he said. “He kind of took me aback. . . . Honestly, my first thought was: is he trying to teach me a lesson? I have had teachers slap me down—‘I’m the teacher; you’re the student.’ Bill recognized very early because of my age and professional experience—he’s read my résumé—instead of seeing me as a threat to his authority, he’s chosen to use me as a resource.”

Later, we ask Bill about this moment. He grins. “I was absolutely delighted. I want students to share what they know. I was also delighted that he was so articulate.” Bill continues, “It was good for the other students; he broke the ice. That was the turning point. Yesterday, volunteers [to show their work] came fast and furious, and they’re sending me websites they think might interest me. They’re teaching me more now.”

Bill goes on to discuss his hearing aids, which he often jokes about. He explains, “I had a difficult time when I first got my hearing aids. You become a cyborg. But now I always tell students that if I miss something or if I’ve mis-understood them, they should let me know. This empowers them. My own dis-

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ability works in my favor because it puts me on a much more equal footing with my students. The aids have helped me learn to rely on students more to teach.”

Bill can be insistent about this reliance. He frequently asks for examples of student work, waiting patiently until someone shares one. Students send these to him from their computer stations as email attachments, and he opens them on the class screen. One day, he says, “Is there a woman in here who would like to send one? We have all these guys sending, and I would like an example from a woman.” A moment later he turns toward Dana and asks her to share her paper.

“In front of people?” she says.“Yes, so we can talk about it.” Addressing the class he explains, “Dana’s

paper makes a really interesting point,” and adds quickly, “Has anyone sent me something?” He checks his computer and says, “Oh yes, good. A couple more?”

Later, we ask Bill about this moment, and he says, “Sometimes women are stronger in language, and in this group the women are the stronger writ-ers; they’re writing circles around the men. I was concerned that they weren’t sharing their work. . . . I felt I should intervene and ask and encourage them. Now I’m getting lots of participation. Students are sending me work freely, and the class is much better for it. There are times when you have to ask for what you want, and this was one of them.”

HeatherOne afternoon Bill comes into class and places a brown bag on the table. He has designed an assignment in which students describe a mechanical object with moving parts. “Let me start by giving you a little more information on mechanical description, what it is and how it works,” he explains. “The mechani-cal processes of hose clamps and paper clips have no terms that holistically describe their uses—which is what we’re going to do today. Right now, you’re looking at me and saying, ‘I hope he gets a phone call.’” Students laugh, and he continues, “Think about your audience: what does an audience need to know?”

Bill circulates around the room, stopping at each student’s station to sur-vey what he or she is doing, engaging some in conversation. Bill does not wait to be invited to look at his students’ work. He alerts them when he reads over their shoulders but does not ask permission. When looking at student work in this way, he asks frequent questions. “What would happen if . . . ?” “How do you think your reader will understand this diagram?”

Bill reaches the desk of Heather, a student who has found previous assign-ments difficult. “So to define it I tell you its use?” she asks.

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“Not quite” Bill says. Then, indicating the clip, he asks “What is this?” “I have no idea.”Bill responds, “Sure you do.” His tone is encouraging and reassuring, not

critical or sarcastic. “Just look at it, tell me what it is,” he says. Heather balks.Bill sticks with her. At this point, he is sitting beside her, their eyes level,

a stance he often takes when a student is confused. He continues to ask her questions about the file clip. He spends a long time with Heather, patient and interested, as if the file clip’s function is an important question. She says some-thing quietly to Bill, and he nods his head in agreement. She begins typing, and he moves on to other students.

When we talk with Bill about Heather, he says, “Heather was resisting. By the end of the day she did a good job. She didn’t know what I wanted. She wanted me to tell her how to do it. I finally convinced her to start writing. . . . This was a good moment for her—more competence.”

Heather smiles a little ruefully when we ask about that day in class. “I wasn’t getting it,” she says, adding that Bill “dumbed it down” for her but wouldn’t tell her what to do—he made her do that. We ask about Bill’s author-ity in the classroom, and she declares, “Definitely authoritative. It’s obvious he knows his stuff. He has examples on everything. Not ambiguous at all. You learn a lot.”

FindingsForms of AuthorityConfirming previous research, teacher authority in this study proved com-plex, the locus of control for Bill’s authority surprisingly diffuse (e.g., Pace). In speaking to us about the class, Bill offhandedly attributed his authority to the university, saying “Well, I have the institution behind my authority here. So now the question is, how do we build a community in spite of it?” We found this comment telling because it made clear that Bill sees his legal and traditional authority as an impediment to the rich and supportive classroom community he seeks to create. Yet, while Bill did downplay and relinquish much of his legal and traditional authority, he nevertheless achieved a remarkable class-room presence and spoke and acted with great authority. Students attentively listened to him, followed his advice, sought his assistance and approval, and otherwise respected him. Consequently, his classroom authority must derive from sources outside the institutional power he wields.

Weber accounted for authority distinct from institutions and tradition, calling it charismatic. Sociologists have ascribed charismatic authority to

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qualities that encourage people to obey and follow a leader. In Bill’s case, his charismatic authority stems from his subject-area knowledge, experience, and professional expertise as both a writer and teacher of writing. Some charismatic authority may also derive from his humor, gentleness, and friendly demeanor. Yet “obedience” is altogether out of place as a description of Bill’s relationship to his students. Bill’s classes are markedly student centered. He encourages students to ask questions of each other before turning to him, and he makes frequent use of peer work, peer response, and peer editing. Students control topics for discussion and writing, their approach to research and writing, and many of their assignments and due dates. Use of class time is strikingly student controlled, as evidenced by the time students have to read and write in class. Terms long associated with Weber’s notion of charismatic authority, including “loyalty,” “followers,” “leader,” “duty,” and “obey” also misrepresent the dynamics in Bill’s classroom. In this sense, the authority granted Bill by his students, while sharing features with Weber’s notion of charisma, requires a very different kind of vocabulary.

Midcentury modifications to Weber’s theory added a fourth form of au-thority, professional authority, which Pace and Hemmings have described as the “expertise needed to achieve consensual aims” and an authority that derives from “a strong command of subject knowledge and pedagogical skills” (7). Bill’s pedagogical skills are exemplary and include expertise in all components of the class including course design, lesson planning, lecturing, running discussions, writing assignments, conferencing, responding to student writing, facilitating peer interactions, and grading. We believe this sense of professional authority accounts for most of the classroom authority we observed, particularly in light of two additional refinements to Weber’s account: Carl Friedrich’s assertion that authority more accurately derives from agreement than obedience, and the notion of professional trust, as accounted for by Bidwell and others. Bidwell pointed out that the trust upon which teacher authority rests is uniquely col-lective, rather than individual (qtd. in Pace and Hemmings 7–8). While Bill draws from all four grounds of authority—legal, traditional, charismatic, and professional—his professional authority proves most dominant. And he deftly plays his traditional and legal authority against his professional and charismatic authority when responding to small gestures of classroom disobedience.

Embracing ContrariesWe frequently experience small acts of student misbehavior in our classrooms as threats to our authority, finding ourselves unsure how to respond when students

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arrive late, ignore our instructions, or use class time to send cell phone texts or emails. Consequently, we wondered how Bill would respond to such moments. In fact, we were surprised by how frequently we saw students using class time to email, text, and flit about the Internet. We were more surprised to find that these transgressions neither bothered Bill nor diminished his authority. Early in the quarter we saw Bill look over a student’s shoulder as the student read an email. Turning to the class, Bill said that he had an important announcement. The student grew increasingly uncomfortable, the class quiet and tense. Bill told the class to bring up a blank Word document, to access the Internet, and then, while looking at a website, to quickly hit “Alt+Tab” (which immediately returns the screen to the Word document). “That’s what you should do if you find that a professor is about to catch you on the Internet,” he told the class, which erupted in laughter and exclamations. Alt+Tab became a running joke over the remainder of the term.

This vignette can be read from competing perspectives. On the one hand, the moment asserted Bill’s knowledge, demonstrating he is not easily fooled and buttressing his powers of surveillance. But the incident was also a hall pass of sorts, a license to use the Internet in class. The upshot was not the dimin-ishment of his authority but its aggrandizement: the moment expanded his charismatic and professional authority to a far greater degree than it diminished his traditional and legal authority.

Heather and HagridBill’s classroom interactions with Heather and Hagrid provide further insights into the kinds of authority Bill relinquished and marshaled and the manner in which student authority emerged in response to Bill’s assertions of his profes-sional authority. With Heather he was both assertive and facilitative, refusing to give her answers or tell her what to do. She concluded that Bill is “definitely authoritative.” Heather granted this authority based upon her assessment of Bill’s expertise as a writer and teacher of writing, and the procedural skill with which he teaches the class.

Hagrid initially mistrusted Bill, believing he had called on him to shut him down. In fact, while very pleased with the class and Bill’s willingness to use him as a resource, Hagrid remained uncomfortable with Bill’s tendency to downplay his traditional and legal authority. “I’m someone, give me an inch and I’ll take a mile—until an authority figure sets a boundary,” Hagrid explained. And yet he earned a high grade in the course, met all deadlines, and further

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advanced his skills and abilities as a technical writer. The responsibility Bill relinquished to him proved effective, even if it did render him uncomfortable. Hagrid’s notion of authority remained traditional and legal, but his willingness to seek and follow Bill’s advice reflected respect for his expertise in writing and his professional authority.

Know Thy StudentsBill’s success with Hagrid and Heather revealed an additional source of his professional authority: his deep knowledge of his students. Interviewing and speaking with Bill, we were continually impressed by his ready access to his students’ needs, abilities, and motivations. He could list each student’s topic and the changes their drafts had undergone. Bill garnered his knowledge of his students through the hard work of attending to their writing, conferenc-ing over long office hours, and paying close attention to the dynamics of their classroom behavior and participation.

DiscussionRhetorical AgencyCarmen Werder has argued that the conceptual system she calls “power talk” has truncated the discussion of the right exercise of teacher authority. Accord-ing to Werder, power talk has framed teacher/student interactions in adversarial terms, collapsing a teacher’s many forms of agency into binary conceptions of obedience and control. Joining Bizzell, Gale, Pace and Hemmings, and others, Werder proposed language that permits the possibility and discussion of an enabling use of teacher authority. To this end she posited “rhetorical agency,” which she has defined as “rhetoric as persuasion in cooperative terms” (14). For Werder, rhetorical agency is “not about controlling others; it’s about under-standing our common needs. It’s not about forcing others; it’s about choosing with them from an array of perspectives available . . . and figuring things out together” (14).

Werder’s conceptual system fits much of what we observed in Bill Smith’s classroom. Certainly, Bill expressed and exercised his power in an assertive, enabling manner, and he did so largely on the basis of the information he shared. The weight of his comments on plagiarism, for instance, relied upon the facts, vignettes, and advice he presented. While he did declare his responsibility to report plagiarism, he presented it as information students could use. And he spent most of the lesson sharing information about how to prevent plagia-

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rism. Consequently, the persuasive weight of the lesson remained grounded in information rather than in his traditional and legal power, thereby liberating the discussion from adversarial relations. Similarly, Bill wasn’t threatened by Hagrid’s professional expertise and made use of Hagrid’s knowledge, shaping the class as a “collaborative enterprise” (Werder 23).

Bill can be insistent and challenging, as when he asked Dana to share her paper. Yet he did so because of the quality of Dana’s insight. He was careful not to personalize his request; he used a business-like voice and quickly segued to other matters, throwing the attention off of Dana. We believe the authority backing the request was firmly based in his professionalism as a skilled teacher rather than his bureaucratic or charismatic power.

Werder’s assertion that rhetoric may be a useful guiding metaphor for approaching the right use of classroom authority also rings true for us, given our study of Bill’s teaching and our own experience as teachers. In responding to student writing, for instance, we clearly retain traditional and legal author-ity. We tell students what grade a paper or portfolio receives, where it needs improvement, and when it meets course standards. Moreover, we come into our classrooms with a pre-established sense of what effective college-level writing looks like and the steps, contexts, and processes that enable students to achieve and demonstrate it. But we also know that students learn more through problem solving and mutual assistance than through commands and obedience. The freedom and responsibility to make their own mistakes, choices, and discoveries is a requirement of their progress. Trusting us helps them in this process; we best build that trust through our subject area expertise as practitioners and teachers, the professional authority we demonstrate in teaching well, and the close knowledge we build of their skills, personalities, needs, and motivations. Consequently, we agree with Werder that this facilitative model of teaching writing provides a frame for discussing teacher authority.

Concerns that focus on traditional and legal authority overlook the more substantial contributions of charismatic and professional authority. Fears that de-centered practices threaten the standing of composition miss this point entirely. The bureaucratic authority emerges from a different source than the authority we earn when students trust and respect us. Our study suggests that trust and respect yield much more classroom power. Because the authority teachers fear misusing is legal, traditional and bureaucratic, a focus on profes-sional authority may permit teachers to exercise authority distinct from the kind of power we typically view as oppressive.

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Something MoreReviewing our portrait, we were tempted to conclude that professional au-thority is inversely related to bureaucratic authority and to recommend that composition teachers follow Bill in relinquishing their bureaucratic power. But Bill himself dissuaded us from this point. He noted that what it means to “teach well” varies by circumstance, setting and students. “I am much stricter when teaching freshman rhetoric or basic writing,” he explained. “As technical writers, these students needed to think less about me and more about their intentions and audience. Teaching well in other circumstances can require a different orientation. And I know that the approaches other teachers use to ‘teach well’ may differ sharply from mine.”

More importantly, the more we reflected upon Bill’s relinquishment of his legal authority the more we saw this relinquishment as a consequence, rather than a cause, of his classroom authority. Rereading our transcripts, we sensed something more, a further layer of internal authority, a kind of belief in himself and the importance of his work and field that we had not yet named. Required by the methodology of portraiture to attend to such feelings, we read back through the history of research on authority, looking for language that might help us get at this deeper layer, this “something more.” This led us back to Durkheim and the following quotation from Education and Society:

It is not from the outside that the teacher can hold his authority, it is from himself; it can come to him only from an inner faith. He must believe, not in himself, no doubt, not in the superior qualities of his intelligence or of his soul, but in his task and in the importance of his task (88–89)

As a teacher of writing, Bill manifests this belief in himself, “in his task and the importance of his task.” This is the “something more” we saw but could not name: Bill not only teaches writing well, but he does so in the fullest confidence that teaching and studying writing are essential tasks and eminently important.

No Easy TaskOf course, teaching writing well is not an easy task. In fact, our most frequent response to our classroom observation was awe. Like musicologists studying a recorded set of jazz improvisations, each step of analysis left us admiring the skill, artistry, and effort implicit in the myriad components of Bill’s teaching. Consider the sources of knowledge upon which he draws: his years of experi-ence as a writer and teacher of writing; his administrative experience direct-ing composition programs; the hundreds of hours he has spent observing and

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evaluating writing teachers; his broad knowledge in composition, theory, and technical writing; his reflections on his teaching; and his long hours building his deep familiarity with his students and their writing. In turn, he brings this knowledge to bear upon course design, lesson planning, responding to student writing, lecturing, running discussions, establishing class procedures, and interacting with students.

We differ somewhat in how we have applied the findings from this research to our own efforts to teach well. We all find ourselves to be working harder as teachers, reading student writing more closely, holding longer office hours, and attending more deliberately to who our students are and how they respond to our instruction. And we have all attempted to become warmer in our interac-tions with students. We find ourselves more relaxed in the classroom and more confident, more trusting of our instincts and willing to act on them. As one of us put it, “Bill showed me that an effective classroom doesn’t depend on an infallible teacher.” While we remain committed to de-centered methods and a facilitative stance, we are more convinced that such approaches require a teacher whom students trust and respect. Three of us find we respond to tardies and other infractions with a “lighter touch” than we used to, while one of us reports that he is increasingly convinced that “teaching well” for him means enforcing attendance, decorum, and deadlines. For one of us, intellectual hon-esty—teaching from a pedagogy she believes in and understands—has become a guiding goal and concern. Another reports thinking more about the needs of individual students and less about programmatic requirements. At least two of us admit to hoping that we’ve strengthened our charismatic authority and moved closer to that rare combination of engaging personality, confident poise, and gentle, ego-less persona we observed in Bill. All of us feel renewed and reinvigorated. We are no less exhausted but ever more convinced of the value and worth, the importance of our task as writing instructors.

We are similarly unanimous in believing that we honor and open a window on enabling forms of authority by attending to them. Just as the study of writing methods requires attention to the theory and assumptions behind classroom practices, the study of classroom authority requires disciplinary attention and research, informed theory, and reflections upon practice. In this article we’ve sought to contribute to this effort by providing an account of one writing teacher’s exemplary exercise of his authority, by introducing portraiture as a promising ethnographic method for producing such accounts, and by sharing the analysis that led us to conclude that teacher authority principally derives

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from the professional authority one garners by teaching well. We find that professional authority is neither oppressive nor incompatible with de-centered methods, effective instruction, or the kind of assertive teacher authority re-quired to effectively lead a class. In this way, effective instruction and teacher authority become mutually reinforcing reciprocal processes.

Limitations and Directions for Further ResearchThe scope and reliability of this study are necessarily limited. Asking what is “good and healthy” in an exemplary teacher’s exercise of power and authority, we saw Bill Smith’s technical writing classes as a best-case laboratory of ideal conditions. Writing instruction in other contexts would necessarily yield a different combination of forms of authority and power. Similarly, we wonder whether the dynamics and forms of authority we recognized in Bill’s classes are shared by other exemplary teachers, or whether there are multiple and diverse ways to demonstrate an enabling use of authority.

RacePortraits and reflections upon practice that attend more specifically to race are especially warranted. We wonder, in particular, about Thomas Lugo’s finding that de-centered methods proved counterproductive for the African American men he studied. Do the forms of classroom authority that most enable students vary according to race and gender? Do de-centered methods exacerbate home/school cultural dichotomies for students of color? Did Lugo’s teacher’s meth-ods fail because they were culturally inappropriate for her male students, or because she employed them poorly? Would Bill’s students have assented to the authority of Lugo’s teacher? Could a teacher with Bill’s charisma, expertise, and professional authority have been successful with de-centered methods in the context Lugo describes? Portraits and classroom studies of writing teachers ef-fective in multicultural settings would go far toward answering such questions.

GenderWe leave our study with similar questions about gender. While men have ar-gued that de-centered methods may threaten a teacher’s academic standing and classroom authority (e.g. Tobin), the vast majority of teachers who have asserted such views are women writing from their own experience in the class-room. A female colleague whom we asked to comment on this paper raised the same concern, suggesting that perhaps students respect Bill for his facilitative,

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student-centered approach in part because it defies their expectation. “A female teacher’s use of such methods would confirm expectations,” she countered, “positioning her as a woman first and a teacher second.”

We call for classroom research that compares diverse and contrasting demonstrations of teacher authority by male and female teachers of writing in a variety of settings. In our view, studies of this sort, attending to contexts and dynamics beyond the scope of our own research, represent the most promising directions for future research. Composition is advanced by both theoretical and applied studies of teacher authority that seek enabling routes past the “impasse” over power.

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Steven L. VanderStaaySteven L. VanderStaay is professor of English and vice provost for undergraduate education at Western Washington University. He teaches courses in literature, linguistics, and writing methods.

Beverly A. FaxonBeverly A. Faxon teaches journalism at Skagit Valley College and English at Edmonds Community College.

Jack E. MeischenJack E. Meischen currently teaches basic writing and communication at Madison Area Technical College and first-year composition at Edgewood College.

Karlene T. KolesnikovKarlene T. Kolesnikov lives and writes in Washington State.

Andrew D. RuppelAndrew D. Ruppel teaches freshman composition at Western Washington Uni-versity in Bellingham.

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