Cynthia Jo Mahaffey

Wearing the Rainbow Triangle: the Effect of out Lesbian Teachers and Lesbian Teacher Subjectivities on Student Writing in the First-year Composition Classroom Cynthia Jo Mahaffey

This long-time college teacher of writing and women's studies examines out lesbian teachers in the college composition classroom from a viewpoint of feminist teacher research and "queer geography."  Drawing together scholarly threads from the fields of composition studies, queer theory, education, women's studies and cultural studies, Mahaffey illustrates the ideological nature of lesbian teacher subjectivities in the composition classroom.  Her case studies of lesbian teachers and students in lesbian teachers' composition classrooms break new ground in uncovering the ways students' choice of writing topics, student writing and student subject positions are affected by the presence of out lesbian composition teachers.  Mahaffey takes readers into a new geography of the classroom that offers ways to give all students, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and straight, an authentic voice in  heir own writing, while allowing teachers to work from their own powerful, authentic selves.