1. Personal Ways of Knowing
How Do You Know?
Philosophers have asked for millennia how we know what we know. There are competing theories and ways of thinking about this very big question, called epistemology, but the overall point is that people don’t just know different things—they know things differently. Your experiences and identity shape the way you see the world—how you know what you know. Some people call these differences in perspectives “lenses.” We can try on different perspectives purposefully, like a pair of glasses with different lenses, to try to notice or think about things in a particular way. But in this opening chapter, we want to begin by noticing and honoring your own existing ways of knowing the world.
What Are We Doing in This Module?
In this module, you will learn how to bring your personal experiences to the college classroom as resources. Every student has a rich body of experiences, knowledge, and language practices that come from their home communities. Often, students—particularly BIPOC students, first-generation students, limited-income students, second-language learners, and other students whose home languages and ways of being haven’t historically aligned with those of the academy—assume they need to leave these behind as they enter college. This is not true. While college often does change you and your relationships to your home communities, you are also invited to bring your full self into the classroom and recognize that who you are is an important part of what you do, and that your own ways of knowing, behaving, and speaking are valuable.
How Will We Do It?
You will learn to bring your personal experiences to the college classroom by reflecting on your own positionality—who you are and how your identity informs what and how you know. You will use “I” in your writing to emphasize the importance of your unique perspective and experience. After some reflection, we will provide you with some examples and vocabulary—like positionality, intersectionality, paradigms—to help you critically reflect on what you are observing about your own identity and worldview.
Why Does It Matter?
As a first-year student at Santa Clara University, you are entering a specific campus community and a series of broader disciplinary communities that you’ll encounter through your courses. Whether they are local, disciplinary, or otherwise, communities’ approaches and ways of knowing are based on the identities, values, experiences, and beliefs of their members. These assignments are ways of introducing yourself to these communities and allowing them to know you and be shaped by your experiences and knowledge.
Module Goal and Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Recognize our languages and modes of expression as valuable for composing in various communication contexts
- Compose personal narratives of learning and discovery using our individual writing voices
