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.