Modern Language Association honors faculty members
December
11 ,
2009 -- Research
conducted by Associate Professor of English Jennifer Seibel Trainor will
be recognized with a national award from the Modern Language Association
(MLA).
Trainor will be awarded the 2009 Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize for her book, "Rethinking
Racism: Emotion, Persuasion and Literacy Education in an All White High School," which
explores the effect of multicultural literature on white student beliefs
and attitudes about race. The prize is awarded for an outstanding book in
the fields of language, culture, literacy or literature with strong application
to the teaching of English. It is the top book prize in the field of Rhetoric
and Composition.
An instructor of graduate program composition at SF State, Trainor began research
on racism, whiteness and literacy early in her career when she taught composition
and introductory courses in literature simultaneously at two distinctly different
junior colleges. "I was fascinated to find that the reactions to the same
piece of literature were so strikingly different between the racially mixed students
at an urban campus and the predominantly white students at a suburban campus," she
said.
The book focuses on Trainor’s observations made during a year-long study of junior
and senior English classes in a 99 percent white, suburban high school. Classroom
discussions and written assignments about multicultural texts by both black and
white authors suggested that the students were caught between the expectations
of their teacher, who wanted them to think about racial injustice, and the wider
culture of the school, which insisted that students always focus on the positive.
“’Rethinking Racism’ lives up to Mina’s fierce commitment to higher education’s
role as a path to social justice for all students,” said Dean of Humanities Paul
Sherwin, who was a close colleague of the late educator Mina P. Shaughnessy,
for whom the award was named. “This is a rare scholarly book that should be read,
then reread for a proper appreciation of the extraordinary complexity of Trainor’s
argument, design and methodology.”
Trainor, who devoted her doctoral dissertation to how white students read multicultural
text, is a recipient of the Promising Researcher's Award from the National Council
of Teachers of English. Previous research was published in the journals, College
Composition and Communication, College English and Research in the Teaching
of English.
She will accept the Shaughnessy Prize, which includes a cash award and membership
in the Modern Language Association, at the MLA's annual national convention in
Philadelphia in January 2010.
"Rethinking Racism: Emotion, Persuasion and Literacy Education in an All
White High School" was published by Southern
Illinois University Press.
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