Meet Chris
To outside observers who would look at his portfolio from that course, Chris may seem a rather uninvested, uninvolved student-writer. He wrote the shortest cover letter for his portfolio, one sparse paragraph. His early drafts of projects demonstrate an inattention to detail and a desire to write the minimum pages for each assignment. His revised drafts do not always demonstrate a fluency with standardized academic grammars and his logical structures crave more revision. And yet when I read his work and look at the person he performed for me as a student-writer throughout the semester, I know that to see these texts as an indication of what he didn't learn is to miss out tremendously on the potential of Chris's story for writing instructors, especially those committed to social justice. An African American male from Florida, Chris attended the university on a football scholarship, and when he took the Gender in the Humanities course, he was beginning his third year at school and on the team. He sat in the back of the class every day with two other male students, both also members of the football team. Frequently, Chris behaved in ways that suggested he didn't take class seriously: he flirted with whatever female student sat nearest him, and often joked with the other football players.
