In some ways, responding to this prompt seems like a conscious act of othering. What’s not being looked at? What needs to be visible? Is it something we have, or think about that we want others to see? Some way we are different that makes us into an other? Is it something that we identify in our classes or our readings or our friends? A disability? An ability? A skin color, a gender, a way of processing the world? The bringing to visibility in this way feels like a impersonal analysis. A distancing.

I don’t know that there is specific thing that I want more visible. In general, I would like difference to be out and celebrated. We are not the same, and gain little from discussion of our sameness. Diversity brings out the most interesting, most dynamic creative potential. I would like writing studies to stop trying to reduce difference to sameness and stop making certain things “visible.” We have to be amorphous and responsive to our time and space. Race might matter more on a given day, or gender, or disability. I don’t know how to value one over another. Or how to say that one really needs to be visible. The goal of good writing and good reading is to see clearly and feel deeply. However we go about trying to get there seems worth while.

What I really want to make visible is process. How we think and respond. How we talk and listen. How to stay open and how to keep learning. I started my class this quarter with a thoughts on the “beginner’s mind.” The beginner knows she has not yet learned everything. She is open and curious and sees the world with bright eyes and careful observation. The beginner responds to the needs of the moment. Perhaps some of the rigidity and problematics of writing studies is because we strive so hard for expertise. Locked in to what we know and what we are familiar with. Maybe we need to allow the class to be a little more risky and allow more space for all kinds of difference.