"Issues of disability matter in composition studies and classrooms, first, because we have a long, proud history of making the invisible visible and of examining how language both reflects and supports notions of Other. Second, we also rightly pride ourselves on our attention to practice—and on our refusal to separate it from the theoretical assumptions that explicitly or implicitly inform it. Third . . . because we already challenge the binaries of theory/practice, writing/ thinking, and self/other, we should be well equipped—even eager— to embrace the critique of the (false) abled/disabled binary." —Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Linda Feldmeier White, Patricia A. Dunn, Barbara Heifferon, and Johnson Cheu
There is a trap that one falls into when we talk about education - the belief that everyone learns the same way. The truth is that students have different motivations when they enter school as well as different talents that they will carry outside of school and into their lives. The trick of teaching a material to students and trying to make it interesting is understanding that if the material is not interesting to the student learning the material, it will rarely if ever stick with that student. If the topic being taught has a way of connecting to that student's life and inspiring them to use in their everyday life, they will remember what has been taught and they will apply it in such a way that their future is inextricably altered for the better.
This project is about the intersection between disability and writing. The point I will illustrate is that looking at composition outside of the capitalist lens will help many to be better writers. Writers who are helped to find their voice, despite their grammatical errors, will be the ones to get into college and succeed in their lives. Some who struggle with composition will be diagnosed with learning disability and/or mental illness. While there are many who can benefit from medication and/or therapy, there is also many who will continue to struggle even after being diagnosed with mental disability and having been given medications that are supposed to make them more "orderly."
My reason for choosing this project was to explore how methods of composition and mental disorder connect. My hope is that this project does not come across as ableist or increasing mental health stigma. I do not think it is a good thing that many in education are so easily labeled with mental disability and then told they are not fit for academia. In September 2013, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I was out on a slew of medications: Ambilify, Depakote, Zoloft, Zyprexa, Risperdal, Lithium and Seroquel. With Lithium, I would feel like a zombie; with Ambilify and Risperdal, I became psychotic and with Zoloft, I experienced rapid cycling between mania and depression that lasted within a span of hours.
My grades plummeted and I was unable to receive extra help with the disability center because Bipolar is not synonymous with the psychiatric qualifications for a learning disability. Since I was unable to receive help from my university and was told that after taking certain medications that I was fine by psychiatrists; I decided to withdraw from my medications, withdraw from university and restart my academic career at Georgia State. What's interesting about me is that I'm also a writer and an incredibly good student off medications when I able to let my mania and depression cycle rapidly. I have found a way to use my skills from cognitive therapy to check myself when my thoughts get irrational. My experience with Bipolar Disorder has taught me that people aren't limited by their disability as long as they learn from their experiences and help develop strategies that make life easier for them.
It hurts me when people advocate for separate classes for mental disability only cause they look at mental disability as being "other" to normal people rather than looking at the limitations in our own education system that might lead to young people being diagnosed in the first place. I suppose it bothers me because in struggling with a Bipolar diagnosis and other people telling me how to live my life, I had to learn to look beyond the box that I was in. I was stigmatized by my diagnosis; I was freed and better once I was off my medications. My perspective stems from the belief that diagnosis can be extremely detrimental to an individual - that the diagnosis sometimes does nothing to help that individual at all. Perhaps my own beliefs about mental illness and learning disability are controversial because no one has defied the medical-educational paradigm, but I am the living proof that even psychiatrists can make mistakes. I do not identify with Bipolar Disorder but stereotypes of whom should be included in the mental illness discourse require a identification with a mental illness, so I choose to identify with Bipolar so that others can take my perspective as valid. It is extremely limiting when we define who should be vocal and who should be silent based on our own feelings and political correctness.
I want to spread awareness that psychiatric medication, special education and diagnosis is not the cure for mental disorder but rather a way of managing disorder. The reason is because many are told they will be better and are adversely affected by medications but they cannot get off them and have to suffer from mental disability their entire life. It doesn't matter if the medications help the individual - they are still effected by the medication and their brain is altered in ways that haven't been completely explored yet. There are also others whom with mental disorder who have to have government assistance their entire lives. Those with mental illness/mental disability have absorbed the stigma of having a mental illness and are not encouraged to succeed because they are labeled a burden by family, friends and society.
Many of us will experience a mental disorder in our lifetime. One day you can be completely able and the next, you could have to deal with a mental disorder. It's important that composition and other disciplines adapt to the reality that there are shifting needs of the student population that must take precedence over product-oriented education. Doing so will shift education away from the cogs of a capitalistic machine towards real-world application that will help students in every part of their lives. Staying the way we are will persist difficulties for those with and without mental disorder.
Education has an unfortunate aspect of being focused through a capitalist lens. Composition has been taken for granted as being a method for other disciplines - with a focus on grammar and practical application. Many that are unable to conform to the capitalist rules of grammar are held back and diagnosed with learning disabilities. Therefore - we must reduce the stigma of learning disabilities by acknowledging the multiple ways one can approach the writing process in a way that is disability inclusive, not exclusive. On this website, I will acknowledge the consequences of product-driven writing, the struggle of those with disabilities and how including disability-inclusive writing pedagogy in the classroom, most students will succeed.
Composition has come a long way. The first methods of composition were not methodical at all - rather they were based off the idea of Belletristic learning: the idea that by imitating or absorbing the works of writers like Shakespeare and Plato - one could eventually write a good piece. Later, Composition was focused on as mechanical, grammar rules that help increase literacy in other areas. Composition is trying to move toward the idea of the rhetorical process, yet it is still focused on process-driven education. This has led to many students falling behind because they cannot grasp rudimentary, grammatical functions.
In Margaret Price's book Mad at School, she identifies herself as "crazy" (Siebers xi) in order to "expose discrimination against those with mental disabilities" (Siebers xi). "Crazy" (Siebers xi) seems to signify that those with disabilities "obstruct learning" and "need to be eliminated from academic life" rather than acknowledging the value of neurodiversity to academia. She demonstrates that in the media coverage of school shootings, the rhetoric of the media is used to support the idea that mental illness breeds violence and justifies violence as "directed at them" (Price 2). Lawrence Davis builds upon the anger by stating that the Diagnositic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in their classification of "deviations from the 'normal,' ... seem to suggest that human life is a form of mental illness" (Price 3). What Margaret Price asserts is that academia discriminates directly at mental illness by assuming that all people think the same way and that any divergence from thinking the 'proper way' justifies a psychiatric diagnosis and exclusion from academia.
Price sees Psychiatry as directly opposed to the idea that those with learning disabilities and mental disorders could have their own voice. "A former patient is always expected to become a future patient and the sick role is ongoing " (Price 14) (Morrison 5) and "This paradox, in which belief of one's own wellness may in itself be considered evidence of unwellness, lies at the hart of psychiatric diagnosis" (Price 14) (Morrison 5), demonstrate that a diagnosis can increase the pressure of those with mental illness and learning disabilities to already censor themselves should they have a diagnosis that confirms their divergence in thinking as "disorderly." Price cites Pendergast in stating that "a diagnosis as mentally ill ' necessarily supplants one's position as rhetor'" (Price 26). Therefore, the challenge in supporting the rhetoric of disabilities is changing the perception of mental disability in academia. Since academia relies on the assumption that rational thinking does not include emotions or isn't outside the ability to be well-behaved and quiet 24-7, it is diametrically opposed to the idea of mental disabled rhetoric and covertly silences those that challenge their perceptions of what is normal.
With mental disability, we want to acknowledge that there will likely be a continuation of errors but also that there must be a focus on the rhetorical argument. A way of easing the rhetorical argument for those with mental disability is acknowledging the different methods of expression. There are different ways one can express themselves: through pictures, music, video and other forms of multimodality. With mental disorders - we want to acknowledge that many suffer cognitive dissonance with mental disability. Therefore the intersection of disability and writing should focus on the cognitive dialectical process of making an argument in order to become rhetorically effective individuals.
The design of my course is simple: it focuses on the clinical aspects of mental illness and the rhetorical choices that those with mental illness make in their memoirs. Since Price mentions in Mad at School that those with psychiatric diagnoses are limited in their ability to express their experiences and ideas (Price 26), the look at memoirs and diaries of those who suffered mental illness and learning disability would demonstrate the struggles of mental illness from the perspective of the author and would give an understanding through analysis of the memoirs how the memoirists supplant themselves rhetorically. The clinical articles, though more psychology-based, would give an analysis of how behaviors and actions of the mentally ill is actually measured and how those behaviors and thought patterns of those who are neuro-divergent would be seen by other people that are not mentally ill. Ultimately, the students who would take this course would feel more empowered to connect writing to students' lives and future interests irregardless of whether or not they have a disability.
The reflection journals would serve the interests of summarizing the arguments of the memoirs, analyzing the clinical aspects of mental illness and revisiting some composition articles that reimagine composition outside of the capitalist-belletristic modes. There would be no final project because we don't want to assume that there is one way to tackle the subject of writing and disability but it would be through imagining the different perspectives of mental illness and the limitations that are faced both clinically/biologically that teachers would be better prepared should one of their students be undiagnosed, for example. The journals would take the focus of the class - having to be well articulated, well-researched and with serious effort invested in them.