{"id":6100,"date":"2004-05-28T23:35:37","date_gmt":"2004-05-28T23:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2004\/05\/28\/brooke-1988-und\/"},"modified":"2004-05-28T23:35:37","modified_gmt":"2004-05-28T23:35:37","slug":"brooke-1988-und","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2004\/05\/28\/brooke-1988-und\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooke, 1988, “Underlife and Writing Instruction”"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 5<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

 Brooke,
\nRobert. “Underlife and Writing Instruction.” On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998<\/i>.
\nEd. Lisa Ede. New York: Bedford St. Martin’s, 1999. 229-241. <\/p>\n

Brooke in 1998: "Now that we, as a field, understand this, perhaps the task
\nof the next ten years will be to imagine programs which increase the self’s
\npossible roles, widening the ways literacy is used in the celebration and
\nestablishment of viable, sustainable communities" (241).<\/p>\n

Big Idea
\n<\/b>In his 1987 essay, "Underlife and Writing Instruction," Robert
\nBrooke
\nbuilds on the sociological trope of "underlife" to characterize classroom
\nbehaviors in writing instruction. Brooke’s is a comp-related rendering of
\nGoffman’s Asylums and Stigma<\/i> bent on ethnographic studies of the behind
\nthe scenes substrata of discourse in the writing classroom.  Brooke
\ncontends that writing instructors must understand the fundament of "underlife"
\nbecause such scales of disruption underscore our aims in composition: attune
\nstudents to identity-staked information games, help students to ride out the
\ngrand vacillations among systematized roles, create ways for students to try on
\nmore transgressive, contestatory, even counter-hegemonic agilities (as opposed
\nto stances) toward critical literacy and toward disruptive rhetorics. Brooke
\nteases out an interesting distinction between contained<\/i> underlife
\n(resistant yet functional within the structure) and disruptive<\/i> (attempts
\nto undermine and reset the institution) underlife.  His ethnographic method
\namounts to classroom observations; he taps into the murmur and buzz among
\nstudents–the hum of quiet interchange unnoticed by the
\ninstructor.    <\/p>\n

Wondering About
\n<\/b>Reading this essay against a recent wrangle on techrhet this week, I carry
\nforward a strong impression that Brooke’s work should<\/i> resurface more
\nfrequently, that it might inform tendencies in writing instruction that bow to
\nthe pressures to vocationalize students, to make them over into so many obedient
\nwidget-makers.  I probably ought to back up and explain.  Basically, a
\nlister on techrhet left a link to
\nthis article from Fox News<\/a>.  The article makes a case for the risky
\nmessages about identity inherent in cryptic email addresses. For example,
\nbigballz@aol.com probably isn’t appropriate for a resume.  The article
\nsummarily suggests that the most decorous, normal candidates get jobs:<\/p>\n

\n “There’s no way we’d ever consider hiring someone
\n with a silly e-mail address," said a human resource manager at a major
\n financial institution, who wished not to be identified.<\/p>\n

The bottom line, experts say, is that job seeking is
\n a sales game, and resumes, cover letters, e-mails, Web sites and voice mail
\n messages are all part of the ad campaign applicants put out about themselves.<\/p>\n

"People have to remember that they are a
\n product," Holland said. "You are the most important product you will
\n ever represent.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article link and the exchange that followed was lively,
\ninteresting.  As unsettled as I am by list culture, I even participated
\nwith a remark or two.  By and large, it was far less about inappropriate
\nemail addresses than our senses–as writing instructors–that we ought to steep
\nthe classroom in hegemonic forces, that we ought to shape curricula to the
\npressures that bear down beyond academe, that we ought to mold our pedagogies to
\nthe market realities, and that anything short of best preparing students for
\nfuture employment shortchanges them and reflects poorly on academic programs and
\ninstitutions.  Nutshell of a much meatier issue, here.<\/p>\n

With that, I want to return to Brooke with the question, "underlife, under<\/i>
\nwhat?"  In other words, once the teacher and the students relish in
\ndisruption, what is the glue that congeals whatever subordinates them? What is
\nthat pressure?  Its source?  "Underlife," especially as
\nBrooke characterizes it through his observations, suggests students are
\nincredibly savvy about playing "information games" in the classroom,
\nabout being moderate<\/i>ly dutiful, about appealing to the teacher’s biases,
\nabout wooing the teacher’s approval for successful acts.  And that, I
\nguess, is the connection between the Fox article and Brooke: 1.  Students
\nare incredibly adept at negotiating identities and making plays on
\nrepresentations of themselves that will win favorable regard.  2. 
\nWriting classrooms, unlike many places, ought to be a space for tentative
\nexplorations of identities, consequences, transgression and subversions of
\nconvention.  3.  Rhetoric is inherently tensional.  A lack of
\ndiscursive resistance (no need<\/i> to compel assent, move, affect, charge,
\ncommunicate) is more or less a-rhetorical.  Yes?  <\/p>\n

Brooke’s essay helped me think about recent recastings of  backchanneling<\/i>–the
\nfuzzy ring of communication that carries off through media channels (blogs, IM,
\nconversation) following a formal speaking occasion. He notes students who work
\non assignments during class or who "disrupt" the teacher-centered
\nclassroom by talking with peers while the teacher is also talking.  So I
\nwant to tuck Brooke away for his ethnographic methods and his conclusions about
\n"underlife"–a term that, perhaps, has been left back in 1987. 
\nIt seems to be a useful term in application to blogging.  For my own
\nrecall, I want to drop in bell hooks and Antonio Gramsci, too.  Teaching
\nto Transgress<\/i> and Gramsci’s Notebooks<\/i> on hegemony seemed to run
\nfaintly (and without specific mention) through Brooke’s essay.  And I
\nprobably ought to look up Goffman’s Asylums and Stigma<\/i>.  I hadn’t
\nheard of it until now; rings of Foucault and Bentham. <\/p>\n

One last note: Early in the essay, Brooke drops in mention of "real
\nacademic success."  It involves the development of a particular kind
\nof identity according to the line that follows.  But this idea of roles and
\ndisruption doesn’t get framed in terms of "real academic success"
\nlater in the essay.  And I wondered about that.  Lots of side issues
\nmight attach to it: grade inflation, WAC, the parsed worlds of
\nacademe\/outside.  But the adjective real<\/i> stuck with me as I read,
\nespecially as I read Brooke in light of the sanitized self <\/i>arguments
\nchurning through the techrhet list.  <\/p>\n

Passages<\/b> <\/p>\n

"Writing involves being able to challenge one’s assigned roles long enough
\nthat one can think originally; it involves living in conflict with accepted
\n(expected) thought and action" (229).<\/p>\n

"My understanding of ‘underlife’ stems from Erving Goffman’s books Asylums
\nand Stigma<\/i>, although the concept has long been accepted in sociology. 
\nAs presented in these books, the concept of underlife rests on three assumptions
\nabout social interaction. First, a person’s identity is assumed to be a function
\nof social interaction.  Second, social interaction is assumed to be a
\nsystem of information games.  Third, social organizations are assumed to
\nproduce roles for individuals which imply certain kinds of identities" (230).\n<\/p>\n

"In Asylums<\/i>, Goffman studies the underlife of a major American mental
\nhospital, and comes to the conclusion that underlife activities take two primary
\nforms.  First, there are disruptive<\/i> forms of underlife, like those
\nengaged in by union organizers, ‘where the realistic intentions of the
\nparticipants are to abandon the organization or radically alter its structure.’
\nSecond, there are contained<\/i> forms of underlife, which attempt to fit into
\n‘existing institutional structures without introducing pressure for radical
\nchange" (231). <\/p>\n

"No one but the complete fanatic completely associates herself with only one
\nrole–instead , the self is formed in the distance one takes from the roles one
\nis assigned" (232).<\/p>\n

"The purpose of these evaluative comments, it seems, is the same purpose as
\nthe other underlife activities–to assert one’s fundamental distance from the
\nclassroom roles" (235).<\/p>\n

"In ‘Reality, Consensus, and Reform,’ Greg Myers shows how wanting to teach
\nwriting as a freeing process has historically been in conflict with (and
\nundercut by) the ideological purposes of the educational institution, and argues
\nthat writing teachers need to recognize that ‘our interests are not the same as
\nthose of the institutions that employ us, and that the improvement of our work
\nwill involve social changes’ (170)" (237).<\/p>\n

"Alongside these suggestions for classroom reform are powerful indictments of
\nthe traditional writing classroom for being teacher-centered rather than
\nstudent-centered, focused on the product rather than process, being oppressive
\nrather than liberating" (238). <\/p>\n

"When we look at writing instruction from the perspective of underlife, it
\nappears that the purpose of our courses is to allow students to substitute one
\nkind of underlife for another.  Instead of the naive, contained form they
\nnormally employ, we’re asking them to take on a disruptive form–a whole stance
\ntowards their social world that questions it, explores it, writes about it"
\n(239).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 5<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span> Brooke, Robert. “Underlife and Writing Instruction.” On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998. Ed. Lisa Ede. New York: Bedford St. Martin’s, 1999. 229-241. Brooke in 1998: "Now that we, as a field, understand this, perhaps the task of the next ten years will be to imagine programs which increase the self’s possible roles, widening the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[167],"tags":[601,236,242,243,241,238,240,185,239,237],"class_list":["post-6100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading_notes","tag-academy","tag-brooke","tag-contained","tag-disruptive","tag-goffman","tag-hegemony","tag-institution","tag-rhetoric","tag-roles","tag-underlife"],"yoast_head":"\nBrooke, 1988, "Underlife and Writing Instruction" - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2004\/05\/28\/brooke-1988-und\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Brooke, 1988, "Underlife and Writing Instruction" - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: 5 mins Brooke, Robert. “Underlife and Writing Instruction.” On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays, 1975-1998. Ed. Lisa Ede. New York: Bedford St. Martin’s, 1999. 229-241. 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Here's what I put together: \"Digital Underlife and Writing Instruction.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8501,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/28\/knee-pain-%f0%9f%a6%b5%f0%9f%8f%bc\/","url_meta":{"origin":6100,"position":1},"title":"Knee Pain","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"May 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Not since 2013 have I cringed through the hard pinch of knee pain like I am feeling now, since yesterday. Sprain or strain, repping the 1974-born. I bet it's from carrying those bucketfuls of 1-3\/4-2\" slate rocks for side shed's floor, top dressing the fill gravel, foot-tamping each dumpload to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Underlife"","block_context":{"text":"Underlife","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/underlife\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7359,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/08\/where-is-he-whe\/","url_meta":{"origin":6100,"position":2},"title":"Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"June 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Concerned with drift-states and their ends, Ramin Bahrani's short movie Plastic Bag traces one tote's voyage along currents, circuits, and snags as it makes its way home to the Trash Vortex, the whirling gyre of rubbish accumulating in the Pacific, which I was reminded of by Timothy Morton's blog yesterday.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Underlife"","block_context":{"text":"Underlife","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/underlife\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6458,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/26\/wall-street-jou-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":6100,"position":3},"title":"Wall Street Journal, A6","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"November 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Kevin Delaney's article, \"Big Mother Is Watching: Tailing Teens on the Web,\" ran today on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.\u00a0 It reports on teenagers, families and weblogs--the blurring of public\/private mixed up in self-publishing for the variously scaled publics of the web.\u00a0 Sure, the article's premise brushes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "On Weblogs"","block_context":{"text":"On Weblogs","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/on_weblogs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10431,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/31\/spooky-action-in-your-face\/","url_meta":{"origin":6100,"position":4},"title":"Spooky Action In Your Face","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"October 31, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Figure 1. Screamer. \"Spooky action at a distance,\" the phrase credited to Albert Einstein, reduces to a shorthand phrase a much more complex phenomenon. More complex because not conveniently observable, shades incommunicable. More complex because strings are only sort of followable. The 'theoretical' in theoretical physics allows for quantum leaps.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Belt of Verbs"","block_context":{"text":"Belt of Verbs","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/belt_of_verbs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screamer-2-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screamer-2-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screamer-2-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screamer-2-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screamer-2-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screamer-2-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7024,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/29\/miller-textual\/","url_meta":{"origin":6100,"position":5},"title":"Miller, Textual Carnivals","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"August 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Miller, Susan. Textual Carnivals: The Politics of Composition. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1991. Susan Miller's award-winning \"study\" hinges on program-data gathered from an exhaustive national survey while following an extended metaphor, the medieval carnival, to account for the lowly, grotesque, and stigmatized conditions of composition studies relative to literary\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing Technologies"","block_context":{"text":"Writing Technologies","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/writing_technol\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}