Out of the Closet and Into the Network Q & A

Why should teachers and students of writing consider sexuality in a networked classroom?

I believe the purpose in all writing exercises is self-expression.  Writing gives me a voice.  It allows people to hear my thoughts on paper.  Unfortunately, cultural norms constrain and condemn voices who want to speak openly about their sexuality. In the article, Out of the Closet and Into the Network, Johnathan Alexander invites his audience to think about how discussing sexual orientation in an anonymous computerized network classroom can give the homosexual community a voice to safely to express themselves without being persecuted for their sexuality by heterosexuals.

Alexander does not provide an in-depth study like Shepherd does. How could his piece have benefited from a structure like Shepherd’s?

I believe if Alexander surveyed his students and gave his students a voice to state their opinions about whether networked classroom communities helped or hindered them expressing their sexual orientation to others.  Also, I believe gaining the opinions of heterosexuals after participating in a network classroom to see if gaining knowledge and understanding about homosexuals would have changed their views about homosexuality and their views about sexual orientation.

How is his argument kairotic?

Alexander wrote this article in 1997.  Civil Rights for the homosexual community have been a hot topic for decades.  It is now 2017 and the same topics of gay marriage and gays in the military are still relevant.  I believe technology such as the internet and synchronized networks have helped the homosexual community ban together and gain support of government.  Thus, laws have been passed and they have given them a voice. 

What is his exigence?

Alexander felt it was a prime time to mend two communities in a computerized network classrooms.  The anonymous platform gave communal support to homosexuals and helped heterosexuals “to understand how social norms and pressures condition the ways everyone speaks-whether gay or straight” (Alexander 214).

How does his identity shape his argument?

Because Alexander is an openly gay male, he has experienced the alienation of being a homosexual in a heterosexual society.  His own personal experiences shape his argument of being mistreated and isolated because of his sexuality.  Alexander really drove home the point that “identity is related to sexual orientation” and it “is socially construed, constructed, and controlled (212).