what to do, what to do

For Tuesday's rough draft, I am leaning towards using Abindar and Mori to relate to Gee. I have found these two readings most relatable to myself. I have also found them the most interesting! Personally, when I truly find something that I can connect to, it is much easier to write about. I think both of these authors do a good job of sharing their stories of change throughout life. Because they had gone through the struggles of being accepted by others, and accepting themselves, they were also challenged by primary and secondary discourse. After reading both of these stories, I began to think about my American sign Language class. For people who are deaf, their primary language is sign language, however most people do not know that they are deaf. People in the deaf culture must fight the challenge that others cannot always relate to them, and can rarely speak to them. After thinking about this, I am now trying to connect different discourses in my life, and when I may have had the same feelings as Abindar or Mori; such as when I went to Germany, and lived in a host families home. I also think it is important to recognize the differences between Abindar and Mori. While they both have the same backgrounds in some aspects, they also strongly differ on their views! I am looking forward to letting my ideas float onto the paper, as I work on my essay!

Pondering Discourses

For my second essay, I am going to tackle prompt #4:


4.)  Write an essay in which you use two or more course texts (and perhaps an outside text of your choice if you want) to explore the complicated process of moving from one’s “primary discourse” to a “secondary discourse,” particularly a secondary discourse that is “dominant” in Gee’s terms. Additional questions to consider:  whose (or what kinds of) “primary discourses” do we tend to recognize, affirm, and “teach” in classrooms? Why does this matter? What are the losses that come with the acquisition of a secondary discourse (especially a secondary discourse that is dominant) for some students? What are the costs of that transition? Conversely, what are the benefits of such a transition? Why do educators need to be aware of both the costs and benefits? Try to be as concrete and specific as possible.


I will likely use Rodriguez and Mori (not sure about Abinader) as examples of Gee's theories (which will be the main backbone of my piece in terms of exploring the journey from primary to secondary Discourse), perhaps including Delpit's examples as well (although I am not convinced of the validity of all of her claims).  I will explore what entails a stereotypically "dominant" Discourse, and which Discourses tend to be favored in the classroom.  I am particularly intrigued by the 'losses' mentioned in the prompt in terms of the journeys by both Rodriguez and Mori, as well as the benefits.  I will attempt to answer all of the questions laid out in the prompt (because I find them to be most interesting) but perhaps in the interest of focusing my essay, I will not be able to cover all the areas suggested... I'm excited to write this paper, and hope that I will be able to turn out a more polished first draft than my previous essay.

can someone help me with the citations- where should i go other than course reserve?

What an effective teacher really is?
One of the most important articles I have ever read was selecting star teachers for children and youth in urban poverty by Martin Haberman. The part I think is most important in this article is when he says that States expect future teachers to go into urban setting to learn how to teach and that only that way they will become perfect teachers , and have the ability to teach anywhere at any time. This is such a bad assumption; it’s just like saying that all children are the same, or worse? Should we really blame students for the misleading interpretations of literacy? Which in this case literacy is defined by correct grammar or proper language; an article that I have found most useful in defining what effective teaching is James Paul Gees Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction and what is Literacy? Gee, literacy is, simply put as, "the mastery of or fluent control over a secondary discourse." This tells me that in order to understand this ideology, we must understand that Discourse is the "saying-doing-being-valuing-believing combination," or how people function within a society and relate to others (Gee 526). Which will imply on what good grammar/ language really is. He also says that, ”Discourses are ways of being in the world; they are forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes” (pg. 526). From everything I have read I can only say that effective teaching is not what surrounds us as educators, but what we do with the surroundings. If proper language/ grammar can only be learned through school why must students feel obligated to never really understand the importance of leaning the norms of literacy?
This brings me to another article which I believe really explains the misconnections of what happens when effective teaching is not implemented (by the teacher) into the understanding and the betterment of the student, just because a teacher refuses to take in mind the surroundings the school is based on. In Richard Rodriguez’s article The Achievement of Desire; he states that “although I was a very good student, I was also a very bad student. I was a “scholarship boy”. A certain kind of scholarship boy. Always successful, I was always unconfident (Rodriguez 432).” This alone shows me that he only did what he was trained to do, pushed himself forward with what he was told and expected to do, never once making the coherency of what he was actually doing. Therefore when he arrived at a more scholastic level of learning, college, it was then when he only understood what he was always meant to do, which was to learn something the way he comprehends the certain subject.
To sum it all up through my field work experience I have noticed good effective teaching. My teacher is so connected with her students that she never loses control of them, and she is never afraid to help them overcome their struggle. Ms. Marguerite Temple is the special education teacher at Bruce Elementary School (north side of Milwaukee) and she has become my all time favorite person when it comes to waking up in the morning and seeing her, she always has a can do attitude and that fresh start of the day smile. Every time I am there I constantly find her deviating from her initial plans to accommodate for her students. The first day that I walked in I saw her teaching the alphabet. She quickly pulled me aside and told me that she wanted to have the kids go up one by one so that she can see who knew the alphabet, who was using their tool on their desk (the tool had their name, a ruler and the alphabet), whom would choose whom to go next and most importantly she was trying to see the attitudes of the two new students she received that day. Ironically I wasn’t the only new person in the classroom, so I quickly adapted to the atmosphere. I could lie to you and say that it was what I expected on my first day, but it wasn’t. I was so amazed to actually see and touch on all the topics of affective teaching we discussed in all of my Currins class’s almost immediately when I walked into that classroom. Ms. Marguerite Temple amplifies all the things I aspire to be, I couldn’t agree more to everything she has said to me and everything I’ve read. Being a good educator, means to be involved in your surroundings, constantly adapting to the things that come up every day in your classroom, and most importantly loving every minute that you’re in front of the class and you have ten little kids with the brightest smiles to learn.

Paper Topic

I've got a vague idea I'm hoping I can translate into a paper by Tuesday. What I would like to do is look at the idea of Discourse in the classroom and the effect if any the primary Discourse has on the ability to acquire secondary Discourses and the conflicts that exist between Discourses. Also whether or not a primary Discourse can inherently be dominant or nondominant and how we can make choices about our primary Discourse. Maybe this is too much. I'll be using Gee, Rodriguez, and Mori as texts. Gee will help to define Discourse, Rodriguez and Mori will help to illuminate how conflicts between Discourses effect how we can acquire Discourses and live in them comfortably, or not.

Conceptualizing Literacy: Make It Plural

I am going to write my second paper on literacy using Gee and Gere's articles along with the ideas of Myles Horton and Paulo Freire in their book We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change, some of Foucault's thoughts on materialism and education, in addition to some rich ideas from James A. Berlin's "Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class." I just wrote a longer paper on the social function of an English education historically and its contemporary importance that I got really into, so I am looking forward to translating some of the ideas generated on that topic into this paper about my own personal conceptualization of literacy and how it will inform my future career as a teacher. I do not have time to generate this draft now, though, so I will hope this basic plan is good enough and that it will be enough to have posted a plan and made good on it by the time the draft is due Tuesday evening. :) I have to type out some midterm essay response questions before my dude gets home from work because he might need to use my computer to do stuff for his classes and I want to make sure he is able to get his work done because he is a procrastinator!

My working title for this paper (I can't start writing until I have a title, my thesis is always a two or three sentence expansion of whatever my title is): "In Search of the Other Three Corners: Making Literacy Plural, Meaningful, and Personal in Collaboration with Students."

I will be utilizing/criticizing this saying by Confucius:

"The Master said: Only one who bursts with eagerness do I instruct; only one who bubbles with excitement, do I enlighten. If I hold up one corner and a man cannot come back to me with the other three, I do not continue the lesson."

Possible Essay Topics

After reading several of the posts already up on the blog, I think a good idea for a paper would be more generalized than what some people have suggested. That way, people can be creative and put their own touches on the ideas of Gee, Delpit, and Rodriguez. I think an essay summarizing one's own ideas of literacy Discourses and their applications would encompass all three authors. 

Also, I was thinking about a second part of the essay perhaps including what we already have learned in this class (Gere, Bartholomae, Eubanks & Schaeffer), and how we can compare it to our more recent articles. 

2nd paper

For our second essay I am not exactly sure what i plan to write about. I was thinking that it may be somewhat interesting to apply Gee's theories of primary and secondary discourse to Rodriguez. I think this will be a good idea because i have a great understanding about the two.

For the Second Paper

I was thinking about what we would possibly write for our second longer essay. I think it would be interesting to compare and contrast Gee, Delpit and Rodriquez. I had a very difficult time writing the last essay because I did not like the previous articles I had to work with. This time I felt using the base understanding this next set of articles would be easier to write about. Also, I like the idea of primary and secondary discourse and how it can be seen through out the articles. I think an interesting topic would be to expand about Delpits article which discussed how teachers influenced students through out history to change their lives. I enjoyed reading about the various stories she told of people who came from rough neighborhoods but with the aid of good teachers were able to become leaders in their community.

Possible Ideas for paper #2- Lucia Torres

I really don't know what i would like to write about, but i would really like to incorporate Rodriguez's article. I really don't have many ideas, maybe i should incorporate gee and her ideologies of literacy discourse. I really believe that most of what I have written already will help me construct a decent introduction, does anyone have any ideas on what i could write about to extend the ideas both articles have on literacy.

Topics

Since our last formal paper assignment we have been picking apart and discussing (sometimes at length) Gee, Delpit, and Rodriguez, how they relate, what they mean. Maybe we can dig into these a little more. Gee vs. Delpit to show the differences or Gee vs. Rodriguez and show how what Rodriguez had to say supports Gee's ideas. We could take Gee's basic point about acquiring Discourses and attempt to prove or disprove his argument based on either Delpit or Rodriguez, or both if possible. I thought Molly's suggestion that we take what we have read and contemplate how we might apply it to classroom teaching. I realize this may not work since not everyone in the class is an education major. If I had my way I think we'd be doing a 4-6 page paper on the feasibility/difficulty of acquiring secondary Discourses, whether we are inside or outside of the primary Discourse.

Indecision

I am not precisely sure on what I would like to write for my paper, but I suppose since I did not get a chance to write in the most recent discussion (...) I have a few things to say relating Gee, Rodriguez, and possibly Delpit (as well as integrating my personal experience, which is most closely related to that of Rodriguez).  One thing that I think would help me would be a slightly longer page limit, because I struggled a bit with the first paper's six-page limit.  I'm a bit stumped as to anything more specific or original (although I would maybe enjoy integrating one of the earlier articles with any of the more recent ones), but I do know that I would like to have more choices available than just one prompt (I think everyone in the class having the same prompt was part of what made peer assessment a bit difficult, because in my group we all wrote about the same two articles, and had differing views on some points).

paper 2

I haven’t come up with a specific topic I would like to write my second essay on, but I think tying together Gee, Delpit and Rodriguez’s articles with the discussion of primary and secondary discourses would be interesting. Also talking about the role teachers/educators have in shaping their students secondary discourses and whether or not teachers actually do help students by doing this.

Paper #2

For the second paper I think that it would be interesting to use all of the articles and how they would relate to us being future educators and how we could apply or not apply some of the concepts that the authors talk about. I also think it would be interesting to compare one or two of the authors articles and how they apply to your life.

For the upcoming essay I am a tad stumped on what I would like to write about. After reading both Gee and Rodriguez' pieces, I think that I would like to touch base on both of them. Because I can relate my nephews to the fact that neither of their parents will have a college degree, and they will have to strive on their own through college, I could connect this to Rodriguez. I have become their role model with going to college, and have decided that because of this I need to make sure that I am doing my best to show them this. I think a paper in relation to my family and to the readings would be most interesting and beneficial for myself. Whenever I can relate a topic to my personal life, I find it easier to learn. Because of this I would like to suggest connecting both pieces to our own lives in some sort of way.

Paper 2 idea

I'm not entirely sure on what I want to write my second paper on but I have a vague idea relating to the last discussion post we had assigned. The post of using Rodriguez's essay to define Gee's article is one that I feel that I could definitely write a ten page paper on. I feel that I did barely anything for the discussion post since it was supposed to be only 100 words or so and I know that I had a lot more things to say. So I guess that is my idea on what I would want to write on. A further analysis on Gee's article about Primary and Secondary Discourse and to use Rodriguez's paper as my main support.

Paper #2 topics

I wish I could come up with something more out of the box, but I am most interested in solidifying my conception of the articles by Gee, Delpit, and Rodriguez. The best way to do this, I suppose, would be to write a paper concerning student identities, and how they can be changed by the experience in the classroom—citing each Gee, Delpit, and Rodriguez, and comparing/contrasting the ideas of each writer.

I feel like there is a more "expansive" suggestion in me somewhere... if I uncover it by the end of the night, I'll make sure to post it!

Paper #2

For this paper I would like to write about the essays we've read and how they relate to teaching. We could pick two(three?) or more essays and discuss what we would do, after having read the essays, in order to be effective English teachers. That way we could incorporate examples from each essay without writing about what the essay means again. The topic we write about is then very open. We could discuss how we would try to filter the B.S. out of our students writing, or try to effectively incorporate ebonics and standard english into a classroom setting, or even write about the need for less impromptus on Heart of Darkness and more impromptus on students interests. I think this allows us, as students, to write about our interests and pull the meaningful bits and pieces out of each essay; we can talk about what really stuck with us and why it's important. Also, we could potentially incorporate multiple topics if we feel like the are related. I would be interested to see what my classmates write about.

Paper #2 Thoughtssssss

Well. I suppose I am not sure what all is coming up in terms of reading material, I haven't read Mori or Abinader yet. However, I have clearly been quite absorbed in the Gee, Delpit, and Rodriguez articles and could write a paper about any of those connections enthusiastically. I would like to write about the cultural differences in disposition towards school and schooling and how it demonstrates Gee's notion (made real through the example of Rodriguez) that it is a difficult process for a student to acquire the dominant discourse without abnegating their sense of identity with the home culture and the primary discourse.

Literacy

So far this semester, all of the articles we have read contained material about literacy and literacy acquisition. After reading them, my idea of literacy has completely changed.  Before this class, I always thought of literacy as either an understanding of something or being able to come off as intelligent. However, the authors of these articles have really shown me how much depth there is to these words.

Literacy is more complex than I ever imagined it could be. I resonated most with the idea of literacy being an “identity kit.” It is made by your “home” discourses and school discourses. I think at home you learn your values and the casual way of talking. School is the more formal idea of literacy that I used to associate with. I think one can improve their literacy by practicing through performances. To me, I think an example of this and literacy acquisition could be traveling to a foreign country and staying with a host family. Through this family, this person will be immersed in that culture and become much more literate in the language and style of life. 

As far as academic discourses for literacy, I found the idea of bullshit very amusing and actually true. I think bullshit is an honest definition for much of the work that students do in the university. A lot of times, students are very knowledgeable in their area of study and are well on their way to gaining literacy for that study. However, when learning something one isn’t going to be a master of that topic and it only goes that bullshit will occur. Like home discourses, practice is needed and a good way to increase performance is through peer reviews.

I never really questioned my idea of literacy and its acquisition. However, through the articles we reviewed I dove into the ideas being presented to me and it has changed the way I look at my own discourses in my life.

An evolving definition of Literacy

When I began this course in September, I had actually not given the definition of literacy much thought. To be literate in my view was to have the ability to read and write language. Other forms of literacy exist. We often hear the term "computer literacy" which refers to the amount of working knowledge one has with computers. There is also musical literacy; written music shares the term "literature" with written language. So, I had heard these terms before, and had a basic idea of what they meant.

From there I have decided that there are different degrees of literacy. Being able to write one's name is a form of literacy, and so is being able to write a graduate thesis, but there is quite a bit of room in between. In the assigned reading so far we have seen very basic literacy develop in the Anne Ruggles Gere article. Writers who may have been discouraged from writing in academia write in workshops and are evaluated by their peers. They acquire literacy in this fashion. The feedback from their peers offers an opportunity to expand and improve literacy.

From Gere we read Eubanks and Schaeffer and Bartholomae who took on the subject of academic writing directly. They posited that academic writing is full of difficult jargon and dense, complicated sentence structure that somehow, someway makes academic writing Very Good and not bullshit at all. If the writers have acquired that level of literacy that is, otherwise they are full of it. Bartholomae suggested new methods of teaching at the college level to help the poor struggling academic illiterate develop this literacy.

Along comes Gee. Gee seems to agree with my current belief that there are different levels (degrees) of literacy. He calls them Discourses. Discourses are acquired, not through classroom learning as suggested by Bartholomae, but through saying-writing-doing-being-valuing-believing. He suggests that to live outside of a Discourse is to be unable to acquire that Discourse, or level of literacy. Gee is taken to task here by Lisa Delpit who gives examples of minority students in poverty who acquired literacy on other Discourses within the school environment.

To me, at this point in the semester, literacy is a level of working knowledge. How literacy is acquired is a tougher question. We have read several viewpoints on this and none of them may be right, and there is very little actual evidence given to support the positions given. My opinion, right now, is that how literacy is acquired may very well vary well, depending on the individual.

My definition of literacy

Through out the course of English 201, I have discovered the meaning of literacy is quite different from what I originally thought it was. I always thought that being literate was having the ability to read and write. I figured as long as you could do that then you were considered literate. Not until I began reading the various articles in this class did I realize that literacy is much more involved than that. To be literate means you have to under how to correctly speak and write in certain situations. As you grow up, you become literate in one certain language or discourse around your community and home. Then later once you enter into the school/academic setting you are forced to learn a new language or discourse. It seems like for the most part being literate stems from school or the academic community. Students are forced to put on a mask in order to speak the proper language in school. As a future educator, these articles are especially important since they seemed to be geared towards me. They write about how we need to change how students are taught in the classroom so they become literate and good writers. This is not only useful in school but in the rest of their lives. It may change the outcome of the child completely. In the Gee article she gives specific examples of students who came from poor neighbors and were not excepted to graduate high school. Then a few inspiring teachers came along and changed the outcomes of these students who turned out to future leaders in the community. I think if I remember that when I become a teacher, I can change students lives as well.

Literacy 10-17- Lucia Torres

Before this course the word literacy means to have the ability to read and write. Now that I have had the chance to experience the readings from the source English 201 I have come to the consensus that academic writing, speech, and the ability to read is what educators define as “proper literacy”, because not just any type of literacy is acceptable. Which is why I choose the quote "If academic writing is bullshit, then bullshit is what we teach” (Eubanks & Schaeffer 374), because this shows where exactly these reasoning’s are coming from. I also came to a different conclusion that literacy is not only something that is more than just reading and writing, but it’s getting students to make that ultimate understanding/ connection of what makes any piece of literature comprehensible. This is what I will call “making the connection” which is why I find the quote from Gere’s article most important; “A Help to Young Writers, a self guide published in 1836, found fault with the rapid subjects assigned by teachers and tendency with the schools to teach composition as though it bore no relationship to good conversation (Gere 81).” The importance from writing not only comes from deriving the abilities of how to read and write, but also to making proper connections to what the acceptable academics. Whether or not we want to accept the fact that “proper academics exist”, they do and as a dominant we have to push them, so as an entire society we can proper in a more common ground, even if it’s wrong.

Literacy October 17, 2010

This English class has been much different from any I have ever taken before. I have learned so much about myself as a writer this semester and have also developed my own take on what literacy means to me. Before this class literacy was simply the ability to read or right. Now taking this class and based on everything that we have read this semester literacy, to me, is much more than the ability to read and write. Literacy can also be the way that you speak or act in a certain situation which before this class those two things would have never fallen under the definition of literacy for me. Literacy can also be something that people use to try and place themselves in a certain social circle. I understand the concept of literacy and literacy acquisition much more now than I did when I had originally enrolled in this course. The various articles that we have had to read have really brightened my understanding of literacy and I think that this will be very helpful for my future career as an educator. I think that knowing that are various opinions on what literacy is will be very helpful when helping struggling children learn to read, write, and even speak the English language. I believe that having a wider range of what the definition can mean is a very good thing for everyone to know. I can’t wait to continue reading more articles to see what else I will end up adding to my definition of literacy.

literacy

This class has taught me that literacy can have different meanings to different people. For example, some can think of literacy as simply the ability to read and write, while others can believe it also includes the way people speak and act in addition to reading and writing. Before taking this class, I never thought of literacy as including speaking and acting in a certain way, but I think it is interesting how that can be seen as a part of literacy. The articles we have read so far this semester have made me think about my own literacy and academic writing as a student. Knowing now that literacy can have different definitions to others is something to keep in mind as I continue my education and my future career as a teacher.

A couple articles we have read this semester questioned whether students are truly literate when it comes to academic writing. All college students are able to read and write, but are they able to read and understand academic writing, and then produce their own equally academic-sounding writing? I think that the literacy of college students is limited when it comes to academic writing. Learning the language of academic writing is the first step for college students to become more literate and able to produce their own adequate academic writing. Another article mentioned the importance of having literacy in more than one discourse; or, being able to be literate as a man or woman, as well as an employee, a member of a club, etc. I think being literate in more than one discourse is an important skill for all people to have. This course’s discussion of literacy has taught me a lot about a subject that I had previously not given much thought.

Literacy

English 20 has helped me learn that everyone has their own definition of literacy, but somehow they are all linked. Unfortunately I do not like English which is why it is harder for me to come to terms with the definition of literacy on my own. I do not like English because of all the rules that come along with writing, I feel like you are writing under someone elses standards. This i the reason why a majority of people do not like English class. Throughout our assignments we have read and written about multiple pieces of writings. They all express what literacy means in their own terms and why it is important to have literacy in your life.

After reading all of these writings the definition I came up with literacy is, not only the ability to read and write but also the ability to read between the lines, to understand what someone is saying without them full out saying it. I may not always fully understand what people are saying but i feel that i have learned more about literacy and use my skills when it comes to reading the articles we have read and any future articles we will read.

Changing definitions

Literacy is a word that can have numerous definitions depending of course who you ask and in what context. Some people believe it is an unobtainable goal that people strive for to better themselves based on social class. Others feel literacy is a writer’s transformation from school to outside writing after critique and review. And then some think that literacy is just how well someone is able to bullshit their way through an essay.
It seems that my understanding of the definition would have to be how well a student is able to grasp basic writing concepts (i.e. grammar and sentence structure), their ability to learn and grow in composition, and a student’s ambition to write like an educated scholar along with being able to read and comprehend complicated meaningful essays. This is different from my first understanding of the word literacy from back before I begun this class. Before I thought literacy was being able to read and write coherent sentences, basically the literal definition.
Now considering the simple definition that I had of the term literacy pre this semester and the more complicated definition that I have now after reading several essays on the subject and I am sure that my definition will once again transform by the end of the semester and the closing of the class. Literacy does not have one simple definition; again it does matter considering the context in which the word is brought up in.

Literacy/Acquisition

Prior to starting this semester, the concept of "literacy" was not something I had much considered.  I really only thought about it in terms of ability to read language.  However, my definition has developed through the course of this class into something that has much more meaning.  I currently define literacy as the ability to competently read or speak (and comprehend) at a specific level.  This broadens my previous perception quite a bit by implementing levels of literacy.  A person who can read and speak at a basic level is literate in the most basic sense of the word, but may still be illiterate at different levels of comprehension.  That is to say, a student who has the capability to read English in children's books may still be illiterate in terms of his/her ability to read and comprehend texts within the classroom.  This can relate to the analogy used by Gee of the acquisition of a second language: a student of a language, e.g. Spanish, may well be able to use or read the language at a basic level, but would be illiterate within the setting of native speakers because the ability to use the language in context would be missing.

My basic understanding of literacy acquisition is that in order to fully and successfully acquire literacy at a certain level, a student must be immersed in the use of the discourse, rather than being taught specifics in the classroom.  I am experiencing this myself as I explore the world of academic discourse for the first time in a concerted fashion.  I have found that my ability to effectively and correctly use the discourse is improving as I read articles and respond to classmates - something that I wasn't able to master when I was simply given the tools to use the language.

Conceptualizing Literacy: The Story of Sequoyah

I feel like thus far the readings have mostly confirmed and contributed to my general sense that ‘literacy’ is a word and an area of study that is just as deeply imbued with ideology as ‘literature’ or ‘English.’ Sequoyah is good example of how ideologically based our Western notions of literacy are. Sequoyah was a Cherokee Indian who in 1821 completed his entirely independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, which made it possible to read and write in the Cherokee language for the first time. Sequoyah is widely considered to be illiterate, and if you look up biographic information about him, you will often find him described as an illiterate man. However, many people have pointed out the irony in claiming that a person who created a system of reading and writing was himself incapable of reading and writing. After its creation it was soon adopted by the tribe and the literacy rate among the Cherokee quickly surpassed that of the surrounding European settlers.

What I want to illustrate through this example is the precise way that one’s ability read and write has always been based on one’s acquisition and fluency in whatever language is dominant, and in the same ways that the language is dominant. The Cherokee people were only illiterate because they had never had a system of writing, not because they were not capable of reading and writing, or because (as in European culture) only certain people of high class status were given the opportunity to become literate. This also speaks to the different ideologies of the two cultures: Europeans had been utilizing writing technology for a long time, but had a highly stratified organization of who could possess and put such skills to use. Among the Cherokee, while they didn’t have a system of writing, once they did they immediately shared it amongst one another and used it for the benefit of everyone in their community. ‘Literacy’ and ‘education’ are always ideologically loaded terms.

evolution of literacy!

This class has sure brought me to new terms with the word literacy. I have always loved English, but I know a lot of others would beg to differ with me. A common reason for this dislike towards literacy has arisen because of all of the rules bearing English. Literacy, however, is not meant to hold people back. It in turn is meant to give people a reason to enjoy the world and express their feelings. Throughout this course we have read many different pieces telling about the journeys that people have taken with writing. They not only use it as a way to tell how they feel, but also as a way to relax. Literacy is meant to be a beloved stress ball technique, not something that gives us more stress than anything.

Overtime it has become apparent that writing has become too rule oriented. Literature has become assignments with no meaning. People are told to read them and are supposed to get the meaning right. In this class however, this is not the case. Instead we read and find our own meanings about the writing. Some people may have different views, and that is okay. By being allowed to explore how a piece of literature makes us feel and what we think about it allows us to learn about ourselves. Reading, writing, and literacy, is not about getting the right answer, but instead finding out a little bit about yourself within every piece you read; even if that means to simply realize that you don’t like old English Writing etc.

The Problem of Prescription: A Comedy of Errors

Cross-posting this from my blog because it was inspired by conversations we have been having and is very much related to those conversations.

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I just laid down with my partner to watch Monty Python's The Life of Brian, wondering if I could watch it this time without falling asleep--a difficulty I have always had when trying to enjoy Monty Python endeavors. However, this time around it caught my attention right away, and I was so captivated by this scene I could not continue watching and had to get out my laptop and post about it.





Why is this totally amazing? It demonstrates perfectly the way prescriptive notions about language work actively to disable the disempowered from, as Anne Ruggles Gere says, "alter[ing] the material conditions of their lives."



1. Writer/speaker has a message they want to share: they feel some desire to share something with the world. In this case, explicitly: they are putting words toward political action. I want us to consider, for a second, the idea that all writing is a political action, even when not explicitly about politics or toward a political aim. Politics is, at base level, decisions; all meaningful interconnected strings of words are decided by the writer/speaker, and thus inherently political. (The words we choose, how we situate them in relation to one another, what kinds of ideas we feel are okay to communicate with them, what words exist to describe our most intense experiences.)



2. Writer/speaker, who I will now call "agent," is accosted by the establishment--not for their idea, but for how they are communicating it. The message is not (yet) important, and the agent's life (physically, intellectually) relies merely on the mechanics. The agent's livelihood, or even physical life (ability to speak) is dependent on their ability to correct their spelling and verb tense. The verb doesn't matter, the action (not yet), the life in the words; it is not the act yet but the proper agreement between the act and who is doing it at what point in time and space.



3. The agent survives this round, finds the right tense, though now the tensssssion is internalized. The agent is made to comply with the grammarian's prescription; they attempt to fit their idea into the prescripted forms.



(Additionally, in this scene, the agent is punished by being forced to write the corrected phrase repeatedly--a historic punishment that took teachers way too many years to realize was generating a negative association with the act of composition. Ding!)

4. Upon seeing the revised message, the establishment is in havoc. Now that the message has been corrected, only now when the form requirements have been fulfilled, is the message analyzed for its content. Of course, the content is abhorrent to the establishment. But, the underlying assumption, it seems, is always this: the poor and working people's needs always exist in opposition to the benefits of the establishment, so methods must be found to silence their voices indirectly. Not to shut them up literally through violence (why, if it could be avoided so easily?), but to sustain a societal indifference about how they feel on the basis of some unifying trait.


Enter: the hillbilly, the welfare mother, the dishwasher from Brooklyn.


We are, in so many ways, through so many machinations of largely invisible violence, trained not to care what you say if you can't say it in bourgeois language, because the people who cannot are generally not the bourgeois.

There, I said it.

Peer Assessments

When reviewing my peers papers i felt that the questions on the worksheet did not help me fully analyze their papers. I know that when it came to my reviews i wanted more information on how i could make my paper better. I liked that we were divided into smaller groups because I was able to focus on each paper at a longer piece of time.

With the information given to me by my peers, i plan to add more of my opinion after specific quotes and also to give personal examples of how academic writing and extra curricular writing has affected me.

In all i believe that working in small groups with other students was very effective, it also added a nice touch to English 201 and being able to converse individually with other students. It was also nice to hear my peers point of view when it came to my paper and get a different perspective.

Peer Assesments for Paper 1

I had mixed feelings when it came to the peer assessments. I liked the fact that we were split into small groups so it allowed more time to focus on another person’s paper, which gave more time to thoroughly think through the comments, which should have allowed for better feedback on the paper. The one thing I didn’t like was the way that the questions were set up. I was really looking forward to getting feedback on how I could make my paper better because being a rough draft I knew it wasn’t my best work. Instead the feedback that I received was basically a one sentence yes or no answer to the question that really didn’t help me in a positive or negative way. I think that maybe using the word comment function and actually submitting the paper back to the person would help a lot so that you could see exactly what parts people liked and what parts need more clarification and improvement would be very helpful.

The assessments didn’t really give me any feedback in a positive or negative manner so I am not exactly sure how I am going to use them to further revise my paper. I know that being a rough draft this wasn’t exactly my best work and I know I can improve for my final draft but I am not exactly sure how to. I wish I would have been giving negative feedback so that I know what I could improve on. I think in an online forum it should be easier to give negative remarks because you don’t actually have to see the person.

The review process

After completing my rough draft, I was a little nervous to begin the review process of our papers. I liked the worksheet but felt it was a little difficult to thoroughly analysis everyone's paper with in the given amount of time. I felt I could have used a little bit more time in order to give good feed back on everyone in my groups papers. I did like that we only had 4 people in each group. This meant that there was only 3 other papers to read. I found it interesting to see other peoples thought patterns for their papers and how they analyzed the articles. I would have liked to explain myself and my own thought patterns more to the people who were reading it. And maybe write an explaination about parts that I thought I had trouble with while writing my paper. I would have liked it if the other people reading mine could have written their thoughts or things would have changed right onto my paper. This way I could reprint it out and either use or not specific parts of the paper that needed to be edited and changed. I would have found that more benfitical to actually see their thoughts specifically onto the paper.
I think I will use the feedback from the other group members to help me edit my paper. I hope that their suggestions will make my paper better. I knew that when I uploaded my paper it was not as good as I would have liked it to be. Hoepfully I can take their ideas and put them to good use.

Peer Assessments

After completing my rough draft and peer assessment, I was pleased with how the whole process worked. In other writing classes I had, we essentially did the same thing but we were able to sit down in class after reviewing each others' papers and talk about our thoughts and what we meant to say in the paper. Because the discussion forum closed at midnight, I feel like our assessments had to stop with the worksheet. There was no way we could discuss the way we were trying to go with our papers, and if there was we could have tried to help each other even more.

I think it was also hard because all of our papers were drastically different. Erin put a more personal spin on her paper with less summary than Ashley and I. Ashley used less citations, and I felt mine was much more of a direct approach to answering the post. In a way I think this will help each of us, noticing how different we are stylistically. I think I am going to go back and take out several of my citations and add more insight into the connections and less to the summaries. 

Overall, I think the small groups and the ability to review each others' papers with the worksheet was very effective with an online class. It was nice to have feedback and constructive criticism from others who took the assignment a lot differently than I did.