“Tlilli Tlapslli: The Path of the Red and Black Ink” is an article written by Gloria Anzalda, from her book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza—the general public—that talks about writing to the author; why it is “a blood sacrifice” to her soul (Writing About Writing, 225). Writing, to her, does not have the “aesthetic of virtuosity” (221), where its has to “move humans by means of achieving mastery in content, technique, feeling” (211) through any means necessary, or “importing Greek myths” (222) away from its’ origins, but towards different kinds of spiritual shifts. So as the text transforms into Spanish language, then back to English, the idea that a “lack of belief” in the creative self “is a lack of belief” in the “total sense and vice versa” (222). Ah she explains to interviewer Andrea A. Lunsford in “Towards A Mestiza Rhetoric”:
I am always rethinking and responding to something that I value, or rethinking
somebody else’s values. If the value is competition, then I start thinking about
how when you compete, there is a certain amount of violence, a certain kind
of struggle. Okay, behind that violence and that struggle I experience some
kind of emotion: fear, hesitancy, sadness, depression because of the state of
the world, whatever. In order to backtrack to the theoretical concepts, I have
to start with the feeling. So I dig into the feeling and usually the feeling will
have a visual side while I’m pulling it apart. (232)
Once that visual side becomes visible, where ”the metaphorical mind precedes analytical consciousness” (222), Anzalda would then transform into the purest form of her character: The nahual (220) who writes out of “psychic unrest” (224) towards personal expression; her identify, based on heritage, that belongs to nobody but the writer.
This self-journey of figuring out identify of writers brings me back to the last couple of Reading Responses, and how those same identifies can be brought back to group thinking through a simple concept: applying identify to dominant/nondominant discourse communities. “The various Discourses which constitute each of us as persons,” according to him:
are changing and often are not fully consistent with each other; there is often
and tension between the values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, uses of
language, and ways of being in the world which two or more Discourses
represent. Thus, there is no real sense in which we humans are consistent or well
integrated creatures from a cognitive or social viewpoint, though, in fact, most
Discourses assume that we are (and thus we do too, while we are in them).
(Writing About Writing, 485)
The assumptions that form those community principles results in different theories towards writing constructs; what inspires one author will be too manipulative to another writer. As such, an article like Lisa Delpit’s “The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse,” where Gee’s idea of a individual “born” into a discourse threatens political environments, shows that at some point, acknowledgment at “students’ home language without using it to limit students’ potential” (Reading About Writing, 186) will not reflect an entire community; some can perceive Lisa’s article as “matters of sheer mechanical ‘correctness’” (192) that has nothing to do with the true construction of a language. Even trying to further understand the members’ identification, “informed by prevailing, politicized, and personal definitions of gender and sexuality” (198), will only result in further questioning that might threaten the order of certain communities towards disconnections of both the members and their community. If those questions are not raised, then those communities will target their superiority of their own self towards “gender-ambiguous individuals” that must “face significant harassment” (202) to survive, or to a new, developing discourse “with its own preferred forms of socialization and language use” (268). Those fights is what Anzalda struggles over; while one discourse “is always whole and always ‘in power’” (221), she has to find herself inside a community that lets her “become the me of me” (177), and once she does, she can find her soul, her body, in “mythological soil” (222) and rise as an unique member of a discourse community. Until then, she must write a story that looks inside herself, and be the person she really is: Gloria Anzalda, the individual of her “people, the Indians” (220).
Is her position inside her own discourse community let us see any distinctions between the art of Western culture, and her community’s tribal art? Through her writing, painting the “[e]thocentrism” (221) the defines western culture as cutting “themselves off from their spiritual roots” (222) compared not to their favor, but towards her own. So while Anzalda condemns the “housing their art works in the best structures designed by the best architects” (221), where the best are needed to get by, the tribe’s thinking of “scarification” becomes appealing to readers. As her tribe’s artifacts becomes “transported into an alien aesthetic system where what is missing is the presence of power” (221), the separation of the symbol and nature belongs to myths beyond their own understanding; not seen with their own eyes, but through the power told by others. In other words, instead of exploiting the “body of the earth” (222), western civilization should “share and exchange and learn” (222) in ways that benefits all races towards better understanding. That is what art culture has to face; as a more individualistic culture, they risk the possibility of falling apart through personal means. If they want to be free of this fight, and become more communal, they have to be free of the traits that allow corruption to exist, find ways of showing art beyond exploration, and believe not only in the character that form artists, audiences, and stories, but also in powers they do not understand at all. If that is not possible, then difference will not matter, as long as the author’s expression resonates audiences, no matter how individualist the members of that audience may be. That defines current literacy, a discourse community, into both art culture: as long as the art brings together everyone into spiritual agreement, no matter how personal the author is towards the art towards the self, then the distinctions becomes fascinating, as cultural studies, to communal thinking, leading for individual growth, benefiting all towards the understanding of art (in theory). So to answer the question of “current literacy and/or art culture becoming more communal or more individual,” I say it applies to both in exhilarating ways.
Exhilaration, as a concept, is what Anzalda aims to capture in her article. To make it work, to get that “voice, a style, a point of view” (233), she has to use literacy devices to become herself. A stranded academic format would only distract the motivation of her writing; it is not the application of other’s ideas that attracted her to writing, it was the connection of words and images that did. In her own words:
An image is a bridge between evoked emotions and conscious knowledge;
words are the cables that hold up the bridge. Images are more direct, more
immediate than words, and closer to the unconscious. Picture language
precedes thinking in words; the metaphorical mind precedes analytical
consciousness. (222)
All in all, Anzaldúa’s article is the perfect way to end these Reading Responses: if you write powerful work, express yourself in a way others cannot, the words will carry beyond the intention and become personal not just to the author, but to everybody. If the author can shift themselves into territory that appeal to a core emotion, based on circumstances, surroundings, characteristics, and objects of the individual that defines the author’s self, then a community, or a member inside that community, will listen and be responsive either intentionally or in their subconscious. Anzaldúa understood that, both visually and textually, and after working on these reading responses throughout this semester, I understand with her. She has expressed herself through her article, and I have too. To the both of us, I say, Mission Accomplished.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Reading Response #23
"VIEWPOINT The Laugh of the Medusa" is a 1976 article written by Helene Cixous--for Signs, published by the University of Chicago Press that suggests an academic audience in mind- dealing with the the language of women's writing, how that potential of such writing can allow women to write herself in a dominating masculine world. Basically, as a way to put sexual opposition into academic material, Cixous believes that women should put themselves "into the text-as into the world and into history-by her own movement" (Reading About Writing, 247) as a chance to "fall apart upon discovering that women aren't men" (253) and be free of sexual modesty to the other gender to a return of both their sexual ideals and bodies. Once that liberation sets in, where a form of insurgent writing "will allow her to carry out the indispensable ruptures and transformations in her history" (250), then the "desire for a 'loving desire' and not a jealous one" (258), or a "desire the other for that is, everything that lives, and wanting it alive" (258) can allow expose the purity of the expansive mind of the female mind, letting them write for themselves; "your body is yours, take it" (248) in her own words.
It is that topic of allowing women to have the freedom of sexual tensions that only explains one of the main points that makes Cixous's article; an article based on an influential statement of feminist theory. But in comparison with other writers on the topic, the idea of the female "body without end, without appendage, without principal 'parts'" (256) might be too much text to accept for some gender to accept; the central construct the gender relationship males and females have in regards to others around them might have answers to solve, but the attitudes that form each gender is hindering us from the security of other genders--such as being in an wide social audience of both male and female--that can truly understand the pure identify of those genders. Some writers even reject this line of thinking, opting instead to analyze techniques that define other discourse communities as a way to understand "an expansive notion of gender that prompts us to question restrictive norm and categories" (202) both as a political and personal creation of individuals inside certain community. Others, meanwhile, do see the differences that define each gender, but instead of pleading for liberation away from one group, there is a sense of communication within different sets of gender; instead of looking at the "incomparable intensity" (254) that define the gender, there should be a self-awareness of the gender inequality that can result in thinking about questions that never ignore the "suppression of women's separate ways of thinking and writing" (162). Yet, no matter how these studies are seen, the goal of women fighting "the torment of getting up to speak" (250) against any kind of already established discourses forms the central foundation of gender studies, and the writing's job is to provide those of opposite sexes an opportunity to see perspective they might never considered before, or else they are doomed to ignorance of the "infinite and mobile complexity" of more sexual studies.
Did such studies make me uncomfortable, such as the usage of Freud's theories in Cixious's article? On the contrary, I actually felt at ease with Cixous's article, and if anything, I felt like I had a general understanding of where she was going, regardless on how graphic some of text was. Reading the article for myself, the subject material that might cause a question of being uncomfortable was not the core of the article--it was all about the construction of a particular gender, and as a way to explain the inner mind, such material is needed. It explained how one gender sees her own character, using theories that appeal to her own self while pondering about what attracts herself, and that soul-searching by any means necessary always get my attention. Same principle applies to seeing a level of discomfort of the text itself; it is needed to further expand the mindset of one writer--that is, women escaping the demands man has dominated over--whenever or not on how one sees the crudeness of using certain ideas or not.
So what happens when women are given a chance to write themselves? What does it mean for the to write themselves? It all relates back to the freedom that can be earned; a chance to speak in a voice "is no longer suppressed, its point turned in against your breast, but written out over against the other" (254). It might bring fear towards others, but the purity of that expression is enough to grab attention in some circles of ideological groups, who might notice the "element which never stops resonating, which, once we've been permeated by it, profoundly and imperceptibly touched by it, retains the power of moving us" (251) and plea with others to pay attention to that freedom. Once that freedom is seen, the identify of the female writers will be realized by the "decensored relation of women to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength" (250) and thrive into a mythos far beyond any female could ever dream of.
That sense of women overcoming adversity and finding a way to becoming themselves, all in all, is what made this article particularly interesting to me. I am delighted that I got a chance to look into writing that gives me an opportunity to expand upon my knowledge of what exactly constitutes the female gender and how, again, it is the virtuous feelings women always have to challenge among others, their relations, and themselves that define their search for facing against loneliness as a respond to certain groups and work towards something greater. Only then can that search bring into the fact that "the continent is not impenetrably dark" (253) and allow myself to join their quest into a richer self based not on surface quirks that is near to us, but on deeper characterizations that defines on what we see ahead of us, to truly see who we are. And it is Cixous's writing that helped me realized that clearly, making me all the more socially active for knowing these topics.
It is that topic of allowing women to have the freedom of sexual tensions that only explains one of the main points that makes Cixous's article; an article based on an influential statement of feminist theory. But in comparison with other writers on the topic, the idea of the female "body without end, without appendage, without principal 'parts'" (256) might be too much text to accept for some gender to accept; the central construct the gender relationship males and females have in regards to others around them might have answers to solve, but the attitudes that form each gender is hindering us from the security of other genders--such as being in an wide social audience of both male and female--that can truly understand the pure identify of those genders. Some writers even reject this line of thinking, opting instead to analyze techniques that define other discourse communities as a way to understand "an expansive notion of gender that prompts us to question restrictive norm and categories" (202) both as a political and personal creation of individuals inside certain community. Others, meanwhile, do see the differences that define each gender, but instead of pleading for liberation away from one group, there is a sense of communication within different sets of gender; instead of looking at the "incomparable intensity" (254) that define the gender, there should be a self-awareness of the gender inequality that can result in thinking about questions that never ignore the "suppression of women's separate ways of thinking and writing" (162). Yet, no matter how these studies are seen, the goal of women fighting "the torment of getting up to speak" (250) against any kind of already established discourses forms the central foundation of gender studies, and the writing's job is to provide those of opposite sexes an opportunity to see perspective they might never considered before, or else they are doomed to ignorance of the "infinite and mobile complexity" of more sexual studies.
Did such studies make me uncomfortable, such as the usage of Freud's theories in Cixious's article? On the contrary, I actually felt at ease with Cixous's article, and if anything, I felt like I had a general understanding of where she was going, regardless on how graphic some of text was. Reading the article for myself, the subject material that might cause a question of being uncomfortable was not the core of the article--it was all about the construction of a particular gender, and as a way to explain the inner mind, such material is needed. It explained how one gender sees her own character, using theories that appeal to her own self while pondering about what attracts herself, and that soul-searching by any means necessary always get my attention. Same principle applies to seeing a level of discomfort of the text itself; it is needed to further expand the mindset of one writer--that is, women escaping the demands man has dominated over--whenever or not on how one sees the crudeness of using certain ideas or not.
So what happens when women are given a chance to write themselves? What does it mean for the to write themselves? It all relates back to the freedom that can be earned; a chance to speak in a voice "is no longer suppressed, its point turned in against your breast, but written out over against the other" (254). It might bring fear towards others, but the purity of that expression is enough to grab attention in some circles of ideological groups, who might notice the "element which never stops resonating, which, once we've been permeated by it, profoundly and imperceptibly touched by it, retains the power of moving us" (251) and plea with others to pay attention to that freedom. Once that freedom is seen, the identify of the female writers will be realized by the "decensored relation of women to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength" (250) and thrive into a mythos far beyond any female could ever dream of.
That sense of women overcoming adversity and finding a way to becoming themselves, all in all, is what made this article particularly interesting to me. I am delighted that I got a chance to look into writing that gives me an opportunity to expand upon my knowledge of what exactly constitutes the female gender and how, again, it is the virtuous feelings women always have to challenge among others, their relations, and themselves that define their search for facing against loneliness as a respond to certain groups and work towards something greater. Only then can that search bring into the fact that "the continent is not impenetrably dark" (253) and allow myself to join their quest into a richer self based not on surface quirks that is near to us, but on deeper characterizations that defines on what we see ahead of us, to truly see who we are. And it is Cixous's writing that helped me realized that clearly, making me all the more socially active for knowing these topics.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Reading Response #22
"Transgender Rhetorics: (Re)Composing Narratives of the Gendered Body" is an article written by teacher Jonathan Alexander--for College Composition and Communications--that aims to figure out, or at least come up with, a easily identifiable version of "the relationship among gender, bodies, and politics," like the case of this article: transgenders (Reading About Writing, 196). Using composition that talks about "gender as a narrativized social construction," (196) a discussion of the narrative form, creating the core of transgender theory, and gender-based stories that were written by her students, using a form of writing (from Will Hochman) that allow "students collaboratively construct fictional stories through a series of teacher prompts," (203) making "'paired fiction writing'"--a reachable goal is. That developed goal involves pedagogues that "seek an expansive notion of gender that prompts us to question restrictive norms and categories," where anyone can "understand how gender is used as a politically and personally normalizing category" to "develop a deeper consciousness of the embodied nature of gender identify" (202). This approach, overall, can "expand students' sense of the multiple ways that women--and men--exist as gendered beings in the world," (210) resulting in the realization that "rhetorical dimensions" (212) are not defined by a specific discourse, but by the individuals, within the discourse, that, if possible, remind others of "the embodied and material self that is also written, composed, and narrated" (212-213).
This idea of understanding some written theories, enhancing the self in ways that can extend the reality of the individuals inside a particular discourse community, relates back to the challenges of applying the concepts in Lisa Delpit's "The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourses." Looking towards the bright side, Delpit believed that if individuals learn the "superficial features" of dominant discourses, transforming their characteristics into controlled disciplines based on "significance of teachers in transforming students' futures," (183), then the "discourse-stacking" that limits the potential of students can be fully addressed, resulting in much needed discussion within the classroom in regards to their own thoughts on more social problems that define, to others, some of their communities. While Delpit would only sees those issues as a process to set up ideas on what exactly one community truly is by applying those ideals into another community (instead of trying to discover a method that allows each community to learn without political means), there is a possibility that interrogating "the constructs of gender that we often take for 'granted as 'natural' or 'normal'" (200) might result in discussion that "explore and interrogate the sociocultural articulation of gender." In other words, expressing the construction of one discourse community can reveal the attitudes most of the individuals within that community share with one another, and the only way to see it is to find methods of exposing those injustices and either use it for personal good or for better understanding for others.
However, according to Alexander, the significance gender pedagogy all students within a classroom should focus on-- specially the trans community--revolves around the concept of binary relationships; "each displaying the appropriate gender characteristics of its half of the pairing" (198). The parings identify a concept--the student's identify--would be then be politicized, or manipulated, towards the greater power inside the classroom, leaving the writing of that classroom into a limited writing, where "a mode of exploration, communication, invention, and discovery" (198) is denied for fundamental reasons. So once that sense of exploration is open, that key moment of "normally" gendered students are aware of trans theories, everyone, including minority discourses, can think about their personal characteristics, along with their political background, to be "appreciated in a crucial dimension" (199) of the trans pedagogy and become dives re in their understanding of the community beyond their own gender.
So what happens when gender is classified as a "construct" that is “deeply personal and profoundly political” (400)? Looking into "construct", as a noun, the definition explained in Writing About Writing, presumably written by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, puts it as "mental frameworks that people build in order to make sense of the world around them," or on the same page, constructing ideas that "quickly begins to seem 'natural' or inevitable, rather than made-up" (Writing About Writing, 35). With this framing, the "construct" in Alexander's article can allow the "many self-identified trans activists and theorists are to create cracks in the monolithic structure of gender identify" (Reading About Writing, 200) and bring awareness of the imbalance specific gender communities have towards a surrounding. Once this "political" atmosphere comes to focus, the subject matter becomes "personal," creating multiple solutions to make their presence known seemingly aware, but not overtly. Because of this lack of presence, genders are only confined with the experience only known to themselves, and if they at least have a general idea on what makes the construct of others (which is where the synthesis of "personal" and "political" nature of awareness come in), then the expansion of text for writing classrooms work in favor towards everybody within and outside that discourse community.
All in all, I appreciated the complexity on the viewpoint on how people like myself should view each gender, and I feel like I'm one step closer into understanding the various aspects of the concepts of what defines the characteristics traits of gender beyond male and female. As the Reading Responses begin to wrap up, I hope to encounter more article like this and further my knowledge on how to think not as simply as a man viewing a women, but what constitutes as man, women, and other, figure out what it is we do, and how we can use that knowledge to learn more about various communities around us.
This idea of understanding some written theories, enhancing the self in ways that can extend the reality of the individuals inside a particular discourse community, relates back to the challenges of applying the concepts in Lisa Delpit's "The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourses." Looking towards the bright side, Delpit believed that if individuals learn the "superficial features" of dominant discourses, transforming their characteristics into controlled disciplines based on "significance of teachers in transforming students' futures," (183), then the "discourse-stacking" that limits the potential of students can be fully addressed, resulting in much needed discussion within the classroom in regards to their own thoughts on more social problems that define, to others, some of their communities. While Delpit would only sees those issues as a process to set up ideas on what exactly one community truly is by applying those ideals into another community (instead of trying to discover a method that allows each community to learn without political means), there is a possibility that interrogating "the constructs of gender that we often take for 'granted as 'natural' or 'normal'" (200) might result in discussion that "explore and interrogate the sociocultural articulation of gender." In other words, expressing the construction of one discourse community can reveal the attitudes most of the individuals within that community share with one another, and the only way to see it is to find methods of exposing those injustices and either use it for personal good or for better understanding for others.
However, according to Alexander, the significance gender pedagogy all students within a classroom should focus on-- specially the trans community--revolves around the concept of binary relationships; "each displaying the appropriate gender characteristics of its half of the pairing" (198). The parings identify a concept--the student's identify--would be then be politicized, or manipulated, towards the greater power inside the classroom, leaving the writing of that classroom into a limited writing, where "a mode of exploration, communication, invention, and discovery" (198) is denied for fundamental reasons. So once that sense of exploration is open, that key moment of "normally" gendered students are aware of trans theories, everyone, including minority discourses, can think about their personal characteristics, along with their political background, to be "appreciated in a crucial dimension" (199) of the trans pedagogy and become dives re in their understanding of the community beyond their own gender.
So what happens when gender is classified as a "construct" that is “deeply personal and profoundly political” (400)? Looking into "construct", as a noun, the definition explained in Writing About Writing, presumably written by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, puts it as "mental frameworks that people build in order to make sense of the world around them," or on the same page, constructing ideas that "quickly begins to seem 'natural' or inevitable, rather than made-up" (Writing About Writing, 35). With this framing, the "construct" in Alexander's article can allow the "many self-identified trans activists and theorists are to create cracks in the monolithic structure of gender identify" (Reading About Writing, 200) and bring awareness of the imbalance specific gender communities have towards a surrounding. Once this "political" atmosphere comes to focus, the subject matter becomes "personal," creating multiple solutions to make their presence known seemingly aware, but not overtly. Because of this lack of presence, genders are only confined with the experience only known to themselves, and if they at least have a general idea on what makes the construct of others (which is where the synthesis of "personal" and "political" nature of awareness come in), then the expansion of text for writing classrooms work in favor towards everybody within and outside that discourse community.
All in all, I appreciated the complexity on the viewpoint on how people like myself should view each gender, and I feel like I'm one step closer into understanding the various aspects of the concepts of what defines the characteristics traits of gender beyond male and female. As the Reading Responses begin to wrap up, I hope to encounter more article like this and further my knowledge on how to think not as simply as a man viewing a women, but what constitutes as man, women, and other, figure out what it is we do, and how we can use that knowledge to learn more about various communities around us.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Reading Response #21 (Delpit)
"The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse" is an article written by Lisa Delpit--for those in a classroom discourse, from Freedom's Plow: Teaching in the Multicultural Classroom--that tackles a question that can be raised towards the idea of discourse community itself: can the writings set up by writers such as Gee, Swales, or Flynn cause alienation for those who are not fluent in those communities? For Delpit, looking up Gee's writings gave those who cannot adapt easily "will find it exceedingly diffract, if not impossible, to acquire such a discourse," resulting in those individuals to never bother contributing to the discourse and find another (182). Using examples of those who managed to work towards highly respectable jobs many years later, Delpit find a common thread: instead of classrooms, a "significance of teachers in transforming students' futures" is instead valuable (183). By teaching those individuals the features of superficiality-"grammar, style, mechanics"(183) --and pushing hard towards "the more subtle aspects of dominant discourse," (183) such as appearance, eloquent writing, metrical thinking, and expressing character, then they will be a part of specific communities. The teacher, meanwhile, to "help economically disenfranchised students and students of color" have to do what Delpit later proposed to acquire those skills easily. If the teacher:
1. "acknowledge and validate students' home language without using it to limit students' potential" (186).
2. "recognize the conflict Gee details between students' home discourse and the discourse of school" (187).
And....
3. "acknowledge the unfair 'discourse-stacking' that our society engages in" (187)
then both the teachers and those students "can provide a way both to turn the sorting system on its head and to make available one more voice for resisting and reshaping an oppressive system" for them to be a part of many communities (188).
Meanwhile, Genva Smitherman, writer of "'God Don't Never Change': Black English from a Black Perspective," talks about how "matters of sheer mechanical 'correctness'" (192) interferes with her language. In her perspective, she is telling her audience that the "ultimately unimportant set of surface grammatical features" (191) that she must deal with complicates the "Black Lexicon" that "lies in situational context, in the Black Cultural Universe," (192) not the linguistic methods that works as a "manifestation of white America's racism (undergirded by or coupled with class elitism)" (190). With these two perspectives of figuring out on how to include other students into a discourse comfortably, the central points of each brings up a conflict of an identify; should the members treat the work of different dietetics based on what matters in whatever they worked on, or should they accept their positions and think about them just as fairly as the other members of the community? By the action of those members, how will the nonmembers react? With Delpit, observing the details of Gee, she brings up that "the members of society need access to dominant discourses to (legally) have access to economic power," along with the knowledge that "have the ability to transform dominant discourses for liberatory purposes" (186). In other words, those individuals have the power to participate in those discourses and can function as significant roles, providing that the members within the community are not aware of that advantage, but are willing to give them the ability. With Smitherman, that advantage might be tempting, but the "clash of the emphasis nature of the American politico-social sensibility," where the collective agreement of classrooms and group thinking reflects a lack of understanding on why she, and others, refuse to participate the society that forms writer culture, opting instead that the problem lies with the members looking past the text itself and focusing the linguistics that form it. To Smitherman, speaking properly does not transform on the constitution of her own community, and they no do wish to fix it, and the frustration lies when others do not see it that way, opting instead to change it to better reflect another community.
Do I agree with what Delpit is saying? Well, I agree with her idea that members inside of a discourse, particularly teachers, can offer possibilities such as learning the superficial principles, or the "discourse stacking" (187), that can transform individuals into specific voices the people themselves can develop. That way, those individuals can bring a sense of a voice within the interpretations of the rules that binds one group together. The stories she shares, where the people she talks to grew up to respectable jobs, despite less than ideal backgrounds, helps support her claim that it is not the location that determines the potential of someone, but the work ethics they are willing to be involved in that will give them opportunities they desire. The organization that set the stories up in that order certainly gives the article an appeal that works in favor to those who wish to look into the subject more, if they desire. While it gives the standards of Gee's article less bite, her own text might not reflect those who do take the subject seriously, and just herself as a lone voice. Basically, instead of using other academic papers to appear as another part of the continuous discussion of the topic, she instead uses primary sources that strength her argument, making the work inside the context of the article strong in emotion, but less academic in some circles, where her points can trace back to others who do think independently of her own research. Either way, to answer the question, I see no logical faults to argue over, so my answer is 'yes'.
So, to reiterate, if teachers want students to master the transformation of some discourses, they need to...
1. "acknowledge and validate students' home language without using it to limit students' potential" (186).
2. "recognize the conflict Gee details between students' home discourse and the discourse of school" (187).
And....
3. "acknowledge the unfair 'discourse-stacking' that our society engages in" (187).
That way, teachers can assume authority not to dictate students that benefits his own positions, but to benefit the language by giving the students tool to write their own voices in a way only they know.
All in all, Delpit's article provided me with an angle I never consider, which was being in a situation where my grades would still be determined by how much I take the work seriously, but can be strengthen not just through the will of my own, but with the opportunity given by the members, not one specific member of one community. That mindset, along with its' details, brought a highly satisfying article, and I enjoyed thinking on how political the whole ideal truly was all this time.
1. "acknowledge and validate students' home language without using it to limit students' potential" (186).
2. "recognize the conflict Gee details between students' home discourse and the discourse of school" (187).
And....
3. "acknowledge the unfair 'discourse-stacking' that our society engages in" (187)
then both the teachers and those students "can provide a way both to turn the sorting system on its head and to make available one more voice for resisting and reshaping an oppressive system" for them to be a part of many communities (188).
Meanwhile, Genva Smitherman, writer of "'God Don't Never Change': Black English from a Black Perspective," talks about how "matters of sheer mechanical 'correctness'" (192) interferes with her language. In her perspective, she is telling her audience that the "ultimately unimportant set of surface grammatical features" (191) that she must deal with complicates the "Black Lexicon" that "lies in situational context, in the Black Cultural Universe," (192) not the linguistic methods that works as a "manifestation of white America's racism (undergirded by or coupled with class elitism)" (190). With these two perspectives of figuring out on how to include other students into a discourse comfortably, the central points of each brings up a conflict of an identify; should the members treat the work of different dietetics based on what matters in whatever they worked on, or should they accept their positions and think about them just as fairly as the other members of the community? By the action of those members, how will the nonmembers react? With Delpit, observing the details of Gee, she brings up that "the members of society need access to dominant discourses to (legally) have access to economic power," along with the knowledge that "have the ability to transform dominant discourses for liberatory purposes" (186). In other words, those individuals have the power to participate in those discourses and can function as significant roles, providing that the members within the community are not aware of that advantage, but are willing to give them the ability. With Smitherman, that advantage might be tempting, but the "clash of the emphasis nature of the American politico-social sensibility," where the collective agreement of classrooms and group thinking reflects a lack of understanding on why she, and others, refuse to participate the society that forms writer culture, opting instead that the problem lies with the members looking past the text itself and focusing the linguistics that form it. To Smitherman, speaking properly does not transform on the constitution of her own community, and they no do wish to fix it, and the frustration lies when others do not see it that way, opting instead to change it to better reflect another community.
Do I agree with what Delpit is saying? Well, I agree with her idea that members inside of a discourse, particularly teachers, can offer possibilities such as learning the superficial principles, or the "discourse stacking" (187), that can transform individuals into specific voices the people themselves can develop. That way, those individuals can bring a sense of a voice within the interpretations of the rules that binds one group together. The stories she shares, where the people she talks to grew up to respectable jobs, despite less than ideal backgrounds, helps support her claim that it is not the location that determines the potential of someone, but the work ethics they are willing to be involved in that will give them opportunities they desire. The organization that set the stories up in that order certainly gives the article an appeal that works in favor to those who wish to look into the subject more, if they desire. While it gives the standards of Gee's article less bite, her own text might not reflect those who do take the subject seriously, and just herself as a lone voice. Basically, instead of using other academic papers to appear as another part of the continuous discussion of the topic, she instead uses primary sources that strength her argument, making the work inside the context of the article strong in emotion, but less academic in some circles, where her points can trace back to others who do think independently of her own research. Either way, to answer the question, I see no logical faults to argue over, so my answer is 'yes'.
So, to reiterate, if teachers want students to master the transformation of some discourses, they need to...
1. "acknowledge and validate students' home language without using it to limit students' potential" (186).
2. "recognize the conflict Gee details between students' home discourse and the discourse of school" (187).
And....
3. "acknowledge the unfair 'discourse-stacking' that our society engages in" (187).
That way, teachers can assume authority not to dictate students that benefits his own positions, but to benefit the language by giving the students tool to write their own voices in a way only they know.
All in all, Delpit's article provided me with an angle I never consider, which was being in a situation where my grades would still be determined by how much I take the work seriously, but can be strengthen not just through the will of my own, but with the opportunity given by the members, not one specific member of one community. That mindset, along with its' details, brought a highly satisfying article, and I enjoyed thinking on how political the whole ideal truly was all this time.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Reading Response #20
"Composing as a Women" (and "Contextualizing 'Composing as a Women'") is an article written by Elizabeth A, Flynn--for College Composition and Communication, suggesting that the primary audience is for those who study feminist theory (the contextualization was printed in Feminism and Composition: A Critical Sourcebook)--that points out the similarities feminist inquiry and composition studies have. In looking into the relationship each studies represent, she finds out that "composition specialists expose the limitations of previous product-oriented approaches by demystifying the product and in so doing empowering developing writers and readers" (Reading About Writing, 156). The result of this demystifying is a look into the questions a more feminist mode of composition have to face, mainly towards the methods, approaches, and thinking both male and female act towards one object to another. Observing student writing of how each gender feel about a specific approach of one situation, along with using Nancy Chodorow's The Reproduction of Mothering, Flynn discovered a form of identification; an identification process that sees girls "develop through and stress particularistic and affective relationship to others," while boys work with "the denial of affective relation, and categorical universalistic components of the masculine role" (158). Once people are aware of these way of thinking, only then can composition writing of feminist theory can "become self-consciously aware of what their experience in the world has been," (164) crafting writing that can never ignore the different genders into "a suppression of women's separate ways of thinking and writing" (162). But as she puts it much later in time, this line of thinking should be viewed in a context, where "a
strong case for differences between men and women, even if we would
later need to qualify, refine, and even contradict those claims" (168) was strongly in favor sometime in the past, it might not reflect on how the writer truly expresses on what the writer might really thinks about some theories that was still developing. So while feminist composition is "embraced to a greater or lesser degree in most fields in the humanities and the social sciences," (167) the writing should be remembered as an article that aims at looking at difference of some gender in a time where it was needed to further research, instead of an opinion of something trying to search for a common ground of different sexes.
This contextual approach of the influence each gender has towards their writing invokes the writings of previous Reading Responses. As Flynn talks about how "the composition and feminist studies are not engaged in a serious or systematic way" (157), she mentions that some feminist research suggest that "men have chronicled our historical narratives and defined out fields of inquiry," just like when James Gee described his Discourses having "conflict and tension between the values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, use of language, and ways of being in the world which two or more Discourses represent" (Writing About Writing, 485). With this conflict, the enculturation--from Wardle's research--between the two genders (or discourses) is now complicated into a power struggle for authority, or, sourcing her paraphrase from Bourdieu's "Language and Symbolic Power," maintain "appropriate expressions of authority" of those genders (526). Until that sense of authority is gone, where the difference of men and women is seen past through "their relational capacities" (Reading About Writing, 159) and the "massive increase in fundamentally uncertain yet persuasive discourse" (261) is the main source of understanding how writing works within the individual can each gender assume a sense of power not through definition by who they are, or what they represent throughout history, but what exactly the tools and available they can harness for the benefit of those genders.
Does this have anything to do with the gender difference in the classroom, as an example? From my recollections, I wouldn't really say. Although there were a greater influx of female teachers than male as I grew up, the general attitude of the students generally stayed the same, but things changed when it came to social events. The men would usually hang around with each other and play as much physical activities as they could, and the women would go socialize with one another and stay far away from other groups as they could, finding a niche within one another they could talk about with one another. The activities each of them partake usually have a majority that appeal to the ideals of one specific gender--I recall the females took the social obligations of the choir activities much more seriously than the guys (it extended to the plays too), and the football player very rarely had female player with them. Yet once the time came for situations where they do have to be with one another, the process usually far in favor for whatever mainly interested one gender--a dominance depending on which one had an specific interest in, usually for personal, or social, reasons.
It's probably that search for gender based authority, in conflict with the more physical-based authority males have, that caused Flynn to comment that feminist research have women's perspectives be "suppressed, silenced, marginalized, written out of what counts as authoritative knowledge," where "Difference is erased in a desire to universalize" (157). In analyzing this statement, I get the impression that what Flynn wants her audience to realize is that because males "have chronicled our historical narratives," (157) the structure falls in favor to the thought patterns of our society, out of a sense of being comfortable to one's fiction on what he/she believes to be true--if you are [gender], then we assume you are capable of doing [this activity], [this action], and [these emotions], never [this other activity], [this other action], or [those other emotions]. Once society place this principles into action, then the desire to be what is not mainstream grows; "universalize" not by what is deem acceptable, but by what fits in an applicable purpose that can benefit the excitement of one community.
With this concept in mind, I managed to figure out the oppositions that define the core of what feminism is out to achieve as an academic course. They seek to place their own gender into a position that can grant them the rights any other discourse communities receive (or get the same rights men do), but in order to arrive at those rights, each women will have to figure out on which rules apply to them in ways that can benefit them as their own community, without striking an imbalance that will easily corrupt themselves into power that define the same problems men face daily. It's that construction that got my interest to this article, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to see it in a social context that only continues to develop in a path that will further expand my own thoughts toward women. Perspective is key, and I'm ready to look at it that way.
This contextual approach of the influence each gender has towards their writing invokes the writings of previous Reading Responses. As Flynn talks about how "the composition and feminist studies are not engaged in a serious or systematic way" (157), she mentions that some feminist research suggest that "men have chronicled our historical narratives and defined out fields of inquiry," just like when James Gee described his Discourses having "conflict and tension between the values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, use of language, and ways of being in the world which two or more Discourses represent" (Writing About Writing, 485). With this conflict, the enculturation--from Wardle's research--between the two genders (or discourses) is now complicated into a power struggle for authority, or, sourcing her paraphrase from Bourdieu's "Language and Symbolic Power," maintain "appropriate expressions of authority" of those genders (526). Until that sense of authority is gone, where the difference of men and women is seen past through "their relational capacities" (Reading About Writing, 159) and the "massive increase in fundamentally uncertain yet persuasive discourse" (261) is the main source of understanding how writing works within the individual can each gender assume a sense of power not through definition by who they are, or what they represent throughout history, but what exactly the tools and available they can harness for the benefit of those genders.
Does this have anything to do with the gender difference in the classroom, as an example? From my recollections, I wouldn't really say. Although there were a greater influx of female teachers than male as I grew up, the general attitude of the students generally stayed the same, but things changed when it came to social events. The men would usually hang around with each other and play as much physical activities as they could, and the women would go socialize with one another and stay far away from other groups as they could, finding a niche within one another they could talk about with one another. The activities each of them partake usually have a majority that appeal to the ideals of one specific gender--I recall the females took the social obligations of the choir activities much more seriously than the guys (it extended to the plays too), and the football player very rarely had female player with them. Yet once the time came for situations where they do have to be with one another, the process usually far in favor for whatever mainly interested one gender--a dominance depending on which one had an specific interest in, usually for personal, or social, reasons.
It's probably that search for gender based authority, in conflict with the more physical-based authority males have, that caused Flynn to comment that feminist research have women's perspectives be "suppressed, silenced, marginalized, written out of what counts as authoritative knowledge," where "Difference is erased in a desire to universalize" (157). In analyzing this statement, I get the impression that what Flynn wants her audience to realize is that because males "have chronicled our historical narratives," (157) the structure falls in favor to the thought patterns of our society, out of a sense of being comfortable to one's fiction on what he/she believes to be true--if you are [gender], then we assume you are capable of doing [this activity], [this action], and [these emotions], never [this other activity], [this other action], or [those other emotions]. Once society place this principles into action, then the desire to be what is not mainstream grows; "universalize" not by what is deem acceptable, but by what fits in an applicable purpose that can benefit the excitement of one community.
With this concept in mind, I managed to figure out the oppositions that define the core of what feminism is out to achieve as an academic course. They seek to place their own gender into a position that can grant them the rights any other discourse communities receive (or get the same rights men do), but in order to arrive at those rights, each women will have to figure out on which rules apply to them in ways that can benefit them as their own community, without striking an imbalance that will easily corrupt themselves into power that define the same problems men face daily. It's that construction that got my interest to this article, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to see it in a social context that only continues to develop in a path that will further expand my own thoughts toward women. Perspective is key, and I'm ready to look at it that way.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Reading Response #19
"Memoria Is a Friend of Ours: On the Discourses of Color" is an article written by Victor Villanueva--from College English 67.1, suggesting an academic audience in mind--that talks about "the connections between narratives by people of color and the need to reclaim a memory, memory of an identify as formed through the generations" (Reading About Writing, 172). Using memories, stories, poems, and the writings of the writer himself to figure out who he is as an individual, "from where, playing out the mixes within," he begins writing down what happened to him in the past; a story on "how racism continues and the ways in which racism is allowed to continue despite the profession's best efforts" (Reading About Writing, 170). Yet, as he writes down this story, where his knowledge of language was used to describe people he knew well, not literacy concepts that are easily citable, the text within those memories and the unpleasant memories themselves began an conflict of presentation; a means to express his frustration with the respect it deserves. As he puts it, "Memory simply cannot be adequately portrayed in the conventional discourse of the academy," so as a respond, pondering on how it differs from the logocentric Aristotelian idea, he realizes on the impact of that knowledge of language (Reading About Writing, 172). Ethically, to create the "essential element in the intellect - cognition and affect," a voice-- one that strides for emotional appeal will attract greater impact on audiences--must form, and if successful, the tensions that underline many members of specific discourses will come to attention, leading into actions that puts the memories of those members into a more sympathetic context they can easily accept; new memories to enrich old memories into contexts that reflect a community, not a specific member (Reading About Writing, 174).
However powerful negative memories are, a danger lurks among the subconscious that Vilaneuva didn't mention. Unless the person's memories was used to combat for future events, where remembrance of one event comes in handy where a dire event of epic magnitude happens, a lack of strong pathos (or emotional honesty) for the events around those memories will undermine those remembrance into thoughts that might not reflect the truth of what actually happened. So as the individual becomes "compatible with the identities they envisioned for themselves," based on the memories they think they got themselves into, they now have the ability to become involved with communities that can be an extension of those memories; react those events in any way they can (Writing About Writing, 525). Therefore, the communities' dedication to a specified goal can vary--the "identity kit" that corresponds with the interpretations of specific memories of somebody--, where a primary Discourse could focus on changing the world for the better of society, or a secondary Discourse (or nondominant Discourse) becomes available as a mean to get away from the dire events, allowing the individual to develop a set skill for his own benefits. Even if the tension or conflict forms out of a sense out of whatever or not one event did not cause a bigger event to unfold, what the memories create inside those Discourses set up new memories that will either enrich or disrupt the original purposes of the first set of memories, which is then extended into the memories of the member inside those communities will remember for their own purposes, positive or negative.
So what are the primary and secondary Discourses that define Vilaneuva? Using Gee's definitions, where a primary Discourse "constitutes our original and home-based sense of identify" and a secondary Discourse involve "institutions in the public sphere, beyond the family and immediate kin and peer group," simplifying a complex purpose, it'll be classified as this (Writing About Writing, 485):
Primary Discourse: -The "contradictory consciousness" discourse that tries to live among "mixes of races that make for no race at all yet find themselves victim to racism" (Writing About Writing, 176).
Secondary Discourses: --The academic discourse that provides "resources the conventions of citation make available" (Reading About Writing, 172).
&
--"The ideocentric discourse that displays inductive or deductive lines of reasoning, a way to trace a writer's logical connections" (Reading About Writing, 172).
With these Discourses, I feel like I learned a better understanding on how discourse work in favor for the individual instead of the community at large. All in all, this article told me that being aware of the honestly of your emotions can not only do good for the community that someone is in, but when you think about it, it's really a spiritual adventure for the person himself. If that person thinks that his/her purpose of being in that community was really because of memories of the past, to be themselves in a community that is open to subjects they think about, or because the subject materiel actually interests that person not for aesthetic reasons, but for pure satisfaction on just his/her behalf. It's finding that balance that compels the reading for outright clarity, which makes the whole article a pleasure to read. If there's more like it in the future, I'm up for it, either as an individual, or as a member of my Writing 1510 Class community.
However powerful negative memories are, a danger lurks among the subconscious that Vilaneuva didn't mention. Unless the person's memories was used to combat for future events, where remembrance of one event comes in handy where a dire event of epic magnitude happens, a lack of strong pathos (or emotional honesty) for the events around those memories will undermine those remembrance into thoughts that might not reflect the truth of what actually happened. So as the individual becomes "compatible with the identities they envisioned for themselves," based on the memories they think they got themselves into, they now have the ability to become involved with communities that can be an extension of those memories; react those events in any way they can (Writing About Writing, 525). Therefore, the communities' dedication to a specified goal can vary--the "identity kit" that corresponds with the interpretations of specific memories of somebody--, where a primary Discourse could focus on changing the world for the better of society, or a secondary Discourse (or nondominant Discourse) becomes available as a mean to get away from the dire events, allowing the individual to develop a set skill for his own benefits. Even if the tension or conflict forms out of a sense out of whatever or not one event did not cause a bigger event to unfold, what the memories create inside those Discourses set up new memories that will either enrich or disrupt the original purposes of the first set of memories, which is then extended into the memories of the member inside those communities will remember for their own purposes, positive or negative.
So what are the primary and secondary Discourses that define Vilaneuva? Using Gee's definitions, where a primary Discourse "constitutes our original and home-based sense of identify" and a secondary Discourse involve "institutions in the public sphere, beyond the family and immediate kin and peer group," simplifying a complex purpose, it'll be classified as this (Writing About Writing, 485):
Primary Discourse: -The "contradictory consciousness" discourse that tries to live among "mixes of races that make for no race at all yet find themselves victim to racism" (Writing About Writing, 176).
Secondary Discourses: --The academic discourse that provides "resources the conventions of citation make available" (Reading About Writing, 172).
&
--"The ideocentric discourse that displays inductive or deductive lines of reasoning, a way to trace a writer's logical connections" (Reading About Writing, 172).
With these Discourses, I feel like I learned a better understanding on how discourse work in favor for the individual instead of the community at large. All in all, this article told me that being aware of the honestly of your emotions can not only do good for the community that someone is in, but when you think about it, it's really a spiritual adventure for the person himself. If that person thinks that his/her purpose of being in that community was really because of memories of the past, to be themselves in a community that is open to subjects they think about, or because the subject materiel actually interests that person not for aesthetic reasons, but for pure satisfaction on just his/her behalf. It's finding that balance that compels the reading for outright clarity, which makes the whole article a pleasure to read. If there's more like it in the future, I'm up for it, either as an individual, or as a member of my Writing 1510 Class community.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Reading Response #18
"Autism and Rhetoric" is an article written by Paul Heilker and Melanie Yergeau--Paul as an associate professor of English, and Melanie as a PhD candidate in rhetoric (Reading About Writing, 261)--that aims to expand the preconception of how others--especially to the public discourse at large-- see those who have autism and instead suggest that "autism is a profoundly rhetorical phenomenon"; a "way of being in the world through language" (Reading About Writing, 262). This method both writers believe in relates strongly with the concept Krista Ratcliffe calls rhetorical listening, where as she puts it, "signifies a stance of openness that a person may choose to assume a relation to any person, text, or culture" (Reading About Writing, 265). Using this openness, as the writers see it, they can them "shine a bright and insistent light on how brazenly rhetorical any utterance [...] about autism really is," (Reading About Writing, 262) and in looking at autism as a unique rhetoric language, the possibility to "fundamentally challenge some of our most foundational assumptions about autism and autistic" will offer a discourse that can stand on its' own just fine with other discourses, expanding representations that benefit various communities (Reading About Writing, 266).
With the help of the relationship Heilker has with his autistic son, along with the experiences Melanie got involved in as a response to her own thoughts about autism, both writers agree that if autism is to be seen as a rhetoric, it will "allow us to reconstrue what we have historically seen as language deficits as, instead, language differences" (Reading About Writing, 269). It's that definitive language someone like John Swales, writer of "The Concept of Discourse Community," sees inside those discourse communities. So, as he explains one of his characterizations of a discourse community, which involves "using lexical items known to the wider speech communities in special and technical ways," he is referring to language--or actions--only that community understands (Writing About Writing, 473). So when Heilker talk about how his son "recites long strings of stock discourse - reciting the entire script of the movie Toy Story," the son is expressing a structure that is wholly comfortable with himself, aware no one but him is willing to cite the whole script if the mood strikes. It might be because the son do not want to deal with what James Paul Gee sees the "more overt and direct conflicts between two or more of their Discourses than do others," where those conflicts invoke dominance as a primary survival tool to feed against other discourse, which does not reflect on how the son want to deal with those communities. Or it might relate on how Wardle, using sociologist Etienne Wenger's theory of belonging, sees the participation needed for a community to function, such as engaging "a 'common enterprise' that newcomers and old-timers pursue together to develop 'interpersonal relationships'," invading in the discourse an individual with autism formed by himself (Writing About Writing, 524). Either way, Heilker and Yergeau are aware that because of an "absence of stable scientific or medical knowledge about autism," there's still a long way to go for those who have autism feel like they can be comfortable belonging among a public that still hasn't fully grasp the expression their community work under (Reading About Writing, 262).
All in all, this article provides a new context towards a subject I've been interested in, but written in a way that relates to my writing studies. Looking into further, it's interesting to see an article that claims to represent both of the authors slowly form into different narratives if necessary precautions are needed. By that, I mean that when the time comes for the writers to express themselves regarding a topic inside the text, a shift of objective academic writing form, where the factual basis of the main text will then involve in a more first person affection related to the authors, usually towards the actions they do with others, or the observations they notice towards a subject they are involved with. This shift results in an article that puts a community in a sympathetic light, appealing my sense by seeing, for myself, how those who have understanding of those who have autism can bring to a community, resulting in a delightful article that makes me glad writers like Heilker and Yergeau are around to try and make the world a little more bearable. Speaking of which, it was starling to see so many pop culture names listed throughout, reminding me that I have no complaints to using such subjects to further illustrate a community. I'm confident that with the awareness I mentioned, both authors will achieve the goals they talked about, and I'm rooting for them to be the underdog and overcome those feelings, no matter how hard it will be.
With the help of the relationship Heilker has with his autistic son, along with the experiences Melanie got involved in as a response to her own thoughts about autism, both writers agree that if autism is to be seen as a rhetoric, it will "allow us to reconstrue what we have historically seen as language deficits as, instead, language differences" (Reading About Writing, 269). It's that definitive language someone like John Swales, writer of "The Concept of Discourse Community," sees inside those discourse communities. So, as he explains one of his characterizations of a discourse community, which involves "using lexical items known to the wider speech communities in special and technical ways," he is referring to language--or actions--only that community understands (Writing About Writing, 473). So when Heilker talk about how his son "recites long strings of stock discourse - reciting the entire script of the movie Toy Story," the son is expressing a structure that is wholly comfortable with himself, aware no one but him is willing to cite the whole script if the mood strikes. It might be because the son do not want to deal with what James Paul Gee sees the "more overt and direct conflicts between two or more of their Discourses than do others," where those conflicts invoke dominance as a primary survival tool to feed against other discourse, which does not reflect on how the son want to deal with those communities. Or it might relate on how Wardle, using sociologist Etienne Wenger's theory of belonging, sees the participation needed for a community to function, such as engaging "a 'common enterprise' that newcomers and old-timers pursue together to develop 'interpersonal relationships'," invading in the discourse an individual with autism formed by himself (Writing About Writing, 524). Either way, Heilker and Yergeau are aware that because of an "absence of stable scientific or medical knowledge about autism," there's still a long way to go for those who have autism feel like they can be comfortable belonging among a public that still hasn't fully grasp the expression their community work under (Reading About Writing, 262).
All in all, this article provides a new context towards a subject I've been interested in, but written in a way that relates to my writing studies. Looking into further, it's interesting to see an article that claims to represent both of the authors slowly form into different narratives if necessary precautions are needed. By that, I mean that when the time comes for the writers to express themselves regarding a topic inside the text, a shift of objective academic writing form, where the factual basis of the main text will then involve in a more first person affection related to the authors, usually towards the actions they do with others, or the observations they notice towards a subject they are involved with. This shift results in an article that puts a community in a sympathetic light, appealing my sense by seeing, for myself, how those who have understanding of those who have autism can bring to a community, resulting in a delightful article that makes me glad writers like Heilker and Yergeau are around to try and make the world a little more bearable. Speaking of which, it was starling to see so many pop culture names listed throughout, reminding me that I have no complaints to using such subjects to further illustrate a community. I'm confident that with the awareness I mentioned, both authors will achieve the goals they talked about, and I'm rooting for them to be the underdog and overcome those feelings, no matter how hard it will be.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Project #3 Intro/Conversation Draft
Stripping discourse communities down to its' essentials, the whole concept is a relation of those inside the community--or to outsiders--that share the same communications, beliefs, and purpose toward a sense of a shared understanding of an overall goal. The range of this concept even extends within the members inside the communities, where the majority of members share similar practices, ideas, interests, personalities, and plans with one another. So as the members come together, the community will then focus on a subject each person have specific thought patterns. With these patterns, the communities can differ on the subject, whenever the dependency is focused on a quest for enlightenment of a writing topic, or gossip towards a infamous pop star a lot of the members the community agrees on. Therefore, the sophistication of words chosen to express the subject--the language, grammar syntax, and discipline--will differ from one community to another. Yet, no matter on how wide the age, class, or education an individual receives, one rule stands above all else within each of those communities, which revolves around understanding the principles and applying that for the benefit of the community at large. Basically, if someone wants to join a club and feel like they belong to that specific club, the individual has to pay attention on how the community speaks to one another, how they express their thoughts towards a subject matter within that community, and be aware of the relationship of each member and their beliefs with those principles.
But like the various communities that deal with different assumptions of separate duties, different writers have different interpretations on how to fulfill on what exactly a discourse community is, mostly commented by professors who specializes in English. John Swales, writer of "The Concept of Discourse Community," notices many different interpretations of a discourse community--one involves on how it relates with the evolution of speech communities--and as a response to each, he creates his own version into six characteristics: public goals, intercommunication, information, genres, specific lexis, and members of dicoursal expertise (Writing About Writing, 471-473). With these characteristics, members of each discourse can vary in number, resulting in individuals belonging in different communities on their level of interest (476).
James Paul Gee, writer of "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics", however, believes that individuals cannot be recognized as a member of a Discourse, or "saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations," unless a center conflict of those members and the individual form for the purposes of that community (484). As such, different levels of Discourse communities--dominant Discourses and nondominant Discourses--brings different members at different levels of mastery, further demanding the conflicts into battles of greater importance to the community if the individual has his way, resulting in members never outright being a pure member of a Discourse fully.
Amy Devitt, Anis Bawarshi, and Mary Reiff, the writers for "Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities," meanwhile, looks at analyses based on genre that results in a conflict of a nonmember and the community over a specific topic. This conflict can which range from voting on a ballot, judging words with court members, a Patient Medical History Form, or researching ethnography--studying a community by using material within, such as text, composition, and language--to figure out what genre can do to further extend on a technique that can contribute to the matters in some way.
Getting away from techniques, Elizabeth Wardle, the writer of "Identify, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces," looks into different discourses with the construct of an individual's thought pattern. Using a theory from theorist David Russell, she writes that the individual has to go through modes of belonging--engagement, imagination, and alignment-- to participate within many communities, resulting a conflict of the individual who wanted something out of the community than what the group that forms the community did want (523-524). Using a specialist to further expand on that conflict, Wardle uses the subject to further expand on her thoughts of an individual being an authority figure, the rebellion against those who do have that figure, and the identities formed by that person, and those within the community, to figure out why learning inside discourse communities involves more than relying the thought patterns of an individual, leading towards more involvement towards the community's process to be enculturated as a fully realized member, or risk not being one at all.
With these discourse community theories, I plan to look into my own family and figure out if being an offspring of members inside that particular community has any effect to the conversation the writers have in regards to discourse community. Does the offspring have responsibilities nonmembers do not have to worry about at all? Has the thought pattern of an individual within that community have any overall say in the state of the discourse once it grows up, or is is forever determined by an authority before a certain age and becomes obsolete when a member grows up? Is being an offspring of members allow looser restricts to the principles that form the community, or is it even more strict, knowing that the responsibility looms that member into submission of authority? Using the theories, along with doing some research, such as looking into emails or text written by each member, I will find out if that is indeed the case, classifying it as a unique discourse community, or find out that I do not have the enculturation needed to be a member of that community.
But like the various communities that deal with different assumptions of separate duties, different writers have different interpretations on how to fulfill on what exactly a discourse community is, mostly commented by professors who specializes in English. John Swales, writer of "The Concept of Discourse Community," notices many different interpretations of a discourse community--one involves on how it relates with the evolution of speech communities--and as a response to each, he creates his own version into six characteristics: public goals, intercommunication, information, genres, specific lexis, and members of dicoursal expertise (Writing About Writing, 471-473). With these characteristics, members of each discourse can vary in number, resulting in individuals belonging in different communities on their level of interest (476).
James Paul Gee, writer of "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics", however, believes that individuals cannot be recognized as a member of a Discourse, or "saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations," unless a center conflict of those members and the individual form for the purposes of that community (484). As such, different levels of Discourse communities--dominant Discourses and nondominant Discourses--brings different members at different levels of mastery, further demanding the conflicts into battles of greater importance to the community if the individual has his way, resulting in members never outright being a pure member of a Discourse fully.
Amy Devitt, Anis Bawarshi, and Mary Reiff, the writers for "Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities," meanwhile, looks at analyses based on genre that results in a conflict of a nonmember and the community over a specific topic. This conflict can which range from voting on a ballot, judging words with court members, a Patient Medical History Form, or researching ethnography--studying a community by using material within, such as text, composition, and language--to figure out what genre can do to further extend on a technique that can contribute to the matters in some way.
Getting away from techniques, Elizabeth Wardle, the writer of "Identify, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces," looks into different discourses with the construct of an individual's thought pattern. Using a theory from theorist David Russell, she writes that the individual has to go through modes of belonging--engagement, imagination, and alignment-- to participate within many communities, resulting a conflict of the individual who wanted something out of the community than what the group that forms the community did want (523-524). Using a specialist to further expand on that conflict, Wardle uses the subject to further expand on her thoughts of an individual being an authority figure, the rebellion against those who do have that figure, and the identities formed by that person, and those within the community, to figure out why learning inside discourse communities involves more than relying the thought patterns of an individual, leading towards more involvement towards the community's process to be enculturated as a fully realized member, or risk not being one at all.
With these discourse community theories, I plan to look into my own family and figure out if being an offspring of members inside that particular community has any effect to the conversation the writers have in regards to discourse community. Does the offspring have responsibilities nonmembers do not have to worry about at all? Has the thought pattern of an individual within that community have any overall say in the state of the discourse once it grows up, or is is forever determined by an authority before a certain age and becomes obsolete when a member grows up? Is being an offspring of members allow looser restricts to the principles that form the community, or is it even more strict, knowing that the responsibility looms that member into submission of authority? Using the theories, along with doing some research, such as looking into emails or text written by each member, I will find out if that is indeed the case, classifying it as a unique discourse community, or find out that I do not have the enculturation needed to be a member of that community.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Reading Response #17
"Identify, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces" is an article written by Elizabeth Wardle--as a web page formed with academic authority in mind--that brings attention to a "complex view of communication" that pits newcomers of any subjects against conformation of experienced members of a discourse community (Writing About Writing, 521). If the story of "Alan" described in the second half of the article explained anything, it proves to the reader that no matter where the location of this battle comes in, issues of "identify and authority" always come into play, where conflict arrives when the thoughts on the individuals, from others, contradicts with the beliefs of the individual himself (Writing About Writing, 522-523). For example, when Alan refused to work "successfully behind the scenes," such as sending poorly written emails to graduate students than following the convention of traditional proofreading, ignoring to speak to the problems and clung to his own opinion on the writing, a conflict was created behind his back. Responding to this problem--using a theory from Etienne Wenger--Wardle suggests, for both the individual and the community, to apply "three interrelated modes of belonging": engagement, imagination, and alignment" (Writing About Writing, 524). If applied correctly with these practices, which ranges from personal feelings and new practices beyond the person's control, the newly formed identify must now negotiate with the authority above him, and community below him, to get what he wants, no matter how harsh the demands may be, even if the person is aware on how much he has "confined most of his directives" to parts of the community (Writing About Writing, 532). As seen with Alan quitting his employment for "non-participation," the risk for not meeting those demands will result in a lose of that authority; trying harder to get along, or give up and move on (Writing About Writing, 531).
All in all, bringing together this idea of entitlement between an individual and a discourse community this article brought leaves an interesting dynamic to the concept of what exactly those communities are. If Wardle was trying to teach its' readers "that learning to write in new communities entails more than learning discrete sets of skills or improving cognitive abilities" (Writing About Writing, 533), then it simply adds to John Swales's article ("The Concept of Discourse Community") of staying away from the "communities [that] are only to be associated with intellectual paradigms or scholarly cliques" (Writing About Writing, 473). In other words, looking at Swales' six characteristics of discourse community, he would argue for the freedom of individuals away from one specific community, for various reasons, into other communities that better fit the genre they belong to. With these freedoms, they would led into what James Paul Gee ("Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics") describes as not "be let into the game after missing the apprenticeship and be expected to have a fair shot at playing it," where the individual will have to go beyond of learning his own craft, his fluency, to gain the trust of the community around him--a point Wardle empathizes in her story with 'Alan' (Writing About Writing, 487). Even the use of genre, where the use of the theory "may yield insight into teaching, research, and social interaction" (like when Devitt et al used their professions--lawyers and teachers--to further extend ethnomethodology as a research tool) has a place within Wardle's article (Reading About Writing, 98). Essentially, as a reflection of the community, each genre has a set of rules that "participants beyond a narrow community" have to solve on their own, whenever it involves voting on a ballot, filling out a PMHF, or using research as a student.
Yes, this conflicts a bit with Wardle, where it's the individual against the establishment, instead of someone trying to understand a concept within their hands to solve. And if someone rereads Gee's purpose of "how the languages from different Discourse transfer into, interfere with, and otherwise influence each other" (Writing About Writing, 490), they will discover what Gee really calls in favor of. Basically, the Discourses that "constitute each of us as persons are changing and often are not consistent with each other," which can then be applied to "values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, uses of language, and ways of being in the world," instead of a center attitude of an individual controlling those discourse that is against that individualistic thinking (Writing About Writing, 485). Even then, both points are against the purpose of what Swales wanted to do with discourse communities. As he mentions, he just wanted "to clarify, for procedural purposes, what is to be understood by discourse community," setting up characteristics that appeals more to discourse communities that revolves under the participation of the individual within a community--deciding to add or leave at his own will-- that is not set up by socialized communicates of high expectations. But as Wardle puts it, it will be up to authority the individual THINKS he has that will define his place within the community, not the "norm-developed" criterion the individual has to work with to be with (Writing About Writing, 477). In other words, the person's own character, to Wardle, determines what will happen to the person within the community, while Swales believes that the group as a whole controls the individuals who work there.
Either way I put it, Haters Gonna Hate.
All in all, bringing together this idea of entitlement between an individual and a discourse community this article brought leaves an interesting dynamic to the concept of what exactly those communities are. If Wardle was trying to teach its' readers "that learning to write in new communities entails more than learning discrete sets of skills or improving cognitive abilities" (Writing About Writing, 533), then it simply adds to John Swales's article ("The Concept of Discourse Community") of staying away from the "communities [that] are only to be associated with intellectual paradigms or scholarly cliques" (Writing About Writing, 473). In other words, looking at Swales' six characteristics of discourse community, he would argue for the freedom of individuals away from one specific community, for various reasons, into other communities that better fit the genre they belong to. With these freedoms, they would led into what James Paul Gee ("Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics") describes as not "be let into the game after missing the apprenticeship and be expected to have a fair shot at playing it," where the individual will have to go beyond of learning his own craft, his fluency, to gain the trust of the community around him--a point Wardle empathizes in her story with 'Alan' (Writing About Writing, 487). Even the use of genre, where the use of the theory "may yield insight into teaching, research, and social interaction" (like when Devitt et al used their professions--lawyers and teachers--to further extend ethnomethodology as a research tool) has a place within Wardle's article (Reading About Writing, 98). Essentially, as a reflection of the community, each genre has a set of rules that "participants beyond a narrow community" have to solve on their own, whenever it involves voting on a ballot, filling out a PMHF, or using research as a student.
Yes, this conflicts a bit with Wardle, where it's the individual against the establishment, instead of someone trying to understand a concept within their hands to solve. And if someone rereads Gee's purpose of "how the languages from different Discourse transfer into, interfere with, and otherwise influence each other" (Writing About Writing, 490), they will discover what Gee really calls in favor of. Basically, the Discourses that "constitute each of us as persons are changing and often are not consistent with each other," which can then be applied to "values, beliefs, attitudes, interactional styles, uses of language, and ways of being in the world," instead of a center attitude of an individual controlling those discourse that is against that individualistic thinking (Writing About Writing, 485). Even then, both points are against the purpose of what Swales wanted to do with discourse communities. As he mentions, he just wanted "to clarify, for procedural purposes, what is to be understood by discourse community," setting up characteristics that appeals more to discourse communities that revolves under the participation of the individual within a community--deciding to add or leave at his own will-- that is not set up by socialized communicates of high expectations. But as Wardle puts it, it will be up to authority the individual THINKS he has that will define his place within the community, not the "norm-developed" criterion the individual has to work with to be with (Writing About Writing, 477). In other words, the person's own character, to Wardle, determines what will happen to the person within the community, while Swales believes that the group as a whole controls the individuals who work there.
Either way I put it, Haters Gonna Hate.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
You May Dream
This is the first frame in the first episode of an anime, directed by Hideaki Anno of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame, called Kareshi Kanojyo no Jijyo--or Kare Kano to speed up time to discuss the show with fans--and right away the central question of the show is out there in the open, with no context or meaning at sight. That is, at least until someone shouts out "Miyazawa," which then cuts to the next scene:
Which is then followed with text and a more scenic frame (all in the same cut too):
Now a context is formed, where the introduction of this character is given a graceful introduction. But then as the episode progresses, drawings that paint the character against that context, like this:
Even this:
contradicts with that first impression. And through each image, there's a moral, which is spelled out before the second half of the episode begins:
I've been thinking about this aspect of the show for a while now, and it only got me thinking even more deeply when I found a website that has the director, Anno himself, walk around various high schools in Japan and get a better grasp on what high school students think about nowadays, compared to his own feelings as a student himself many years ago. Coming off of a starting point on how to make anime through talking of other people, Anno had this to say (with the part that interests me the most in bold):
I can’t stand people who run away, who refuse to face reality. Surely you’ll find
something for yourself if you face reality head on. If nothing else, take a good look at
your immediate surroundings. Don’t turn away from unpleasantness. Have a look at it
too. With this in mind, ultimately I want to show a little reality in my works. If
nothing else, I don’t feel any realism in something that has no reality mixed in with it.
Thus, while my next production will be a girl’s manga about a high-school girl, it’s also
partly real.
So if he wants to express reality, why go as far to use such abstraction to reach that specific goal? I have my theories on why that is, and if times permits in the future, I'm going to write down some of those theories to figure out something: Is there something deeper going on within this anime that the people who made this anime wanted to get across? Where is Anno going with all these tools out on their own?
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Project #3 Proposal
Introduction
As the studies for discourse communities continue, the time has now come to observe a community the writer is interested in. As a starting point, Swales' six characteristics will be used to write down how the language that community can be constrained for the purposes of figuring out the various functions that are used within the community. Using ethnographic studies, the principles will be used to help further prove how students should use their research to bring a community into a compelling context, bringing that community one is involved in into an understanding of each individual in a way other folks outside of a specific discourse community might not think of. Therefore, the community chosen for this project will be the writer's own family. Why his own family is chosen will be explained by demonstrating how the family can be classified as a discourse community, the writer's own thoughts on the community, how it functions as a member himself, the members chosen for a personal interview, and transcriptions used for research towards the study of the community.
Qualification
As identification of a group of individuals, John Swales proposed six characteristics of a discourse community to clarify how he understands discourse community as a literacy concept. For the purposes of this proposal, the writer will use each pointer and explain on how each principle applies to his own community:
1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.
Even if they are not explained explicaily at one time, the writer's family do have goals they need to achieve if they want to live together. As a family, the goals of the family, as a whole, will reflect on how each member will be persevered as a group, so as an example, when one member mentions to the other that he must go out and grab objects at a market, that person is adding to the survival not to himself, or herself, or to the one who sent him or her out to grab it, but to those inside the community that needs it, based on urgency. Even if the goals of the indivdiual might not reflect the hopes of another, each member is allowed to help out, out of a sense of loyalty, love, or any concept similar to the previous two.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.
No matter how important an event might be, meetings of some individual will form if one person thinks it will benefit the community as a whole. This can range from an one on one meeting to discuss on an recently conspired event, to a festive holiday such as Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide
information and feedback.
If one member acts in a state of embarrassment, or if one member can not set out one particular goal--because of circumstances beyond their control--then another member must come in and help out on whatever the situation needs, whatever it involves cutting the grass or alerting the community on how much loud noise one person is making.
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the
communicative furtherance of its aims.
Each person within the community have a set of beliefs that belong only to that individual, so as a family, each member must figure out a balance that can not only create a satisfactory response of the individual, but also reflects good on the family as a whole. So if the budget and time will create safety for someone to go out to the mall and hang out with friends, there now lies the choice of whenever or not another individual wants to come along, for completely different purposes (such of wanting to buy something for his own amusement).
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific
lexis.
For this principle, one general rule applies: the quicker one sentence can be used to express what it is one member wants to communicate to another, the better that communication will be for both members. This communication can also apply to nicknames, as well if it can further express the affection one member has to the other.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of
relevant content and discoursal expertise.
When one member of the community leaves, that does not mean that he or she can no longer benefit the community in colder terms. If the possibility of younger offspring arrives, each member can then be promoted into a greater role for that young member, creating more responsibility for each member to work around with.
Interest
Living under the same place with the other members for decades, the writer's main interest really lies on whenever or not his own personal opinion of the family will conflict with the observation other make take with other communities if they were not a descendent of each member of that community. As as offspring of two of its' members, he wants to know whatever or not his personal involvement as a member will make him reflect on that community in a way it might not be is he was simply an observer far away, or non-related, from the family itself. Does he now have authority over the other members, or he is forever labeled as a 'child' of those same members? Has the feelings of his siblings changed over time, or is the battle each of them had at a young age still there? Has the community grown, now that each member is no longer legally classified as a child? Can the writer himself find out a way to express his thoughts of the family without upsetting anybody involved? It is these questions he wants to solve, determined to see if it was all worth it or not.
Interview
Regarding interviews, the writer wants to use one or more specific members in mind: the writer's sister, his own parents--consisting of a mother and father--and his grandparents.
Texts
For text, the writer is open to the possibility of using the following tools: emails, posts from various websites, PowerPoint presentations, the answers of homework problems, the text of books one member likes, notes written all over the location of the community, and cellphone texts (or Facebook comments) if needed.
Conclusion
As an English freshman, the writer believes that since he has a major impact as a member of one specific community, he will bring a complexity to the text that will bring interest for readers to go through. Once finished, he hopes, the project will help further expand his education on how he should approach discourse communities; help clarify his own thoughts on that involvement as a member. Then he can figure out if his opinion will help him out when he goes out on his own, as an individual of society.
Sources
Wardle, Elizabeth, and Doug Downs. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 468-80. Print.
As the studies for discourse communities continue, the time has now come to observe a community the writer is interested in. As a starting point, Swales' six characteristics will be used to write down how the language that community can be constrained for the purposes of figuring out the various functions that are used within the community. Using ethnographic studies, the principles will be used to help further prove how students should use their research to bring a community into a compelling context, bringing that community one is involved in into an understanding of each individual in a way other folks outside of a specific discourse community might not think of. Therefore, the community chosen for this project will be the writer's own family. Why his own family is chosen will be explained by demonstrating how the family can be classified as a discourse community, the writer's own thoughts on the community, how it functions as a member himself, the members chosen for a personal interview, and transcriptions used for research towards the study of the community.
Qualification
As identification of a group of individuals, John Swales proposed six characteristics of a discourse community to clarify how he understands discourse community as a literacy concept. For the purposes of this proposal, the writer will use each pointer and explain on how each principle applies to his own community:
1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.
Even if they are not explained explicaily at one time, the writer's family do have goals they need to achieve if they want to live together. As a family, the goals of the family, as a whole, will reflect on how each member will be persevered as a group, so as an example, when one member mentions to the other that he must go out and grab objects at a market, that person is adding to the survival not to himself, or herself, or to the one who sent him or her out to grab it, but to those inside the community that needs it, based on urgency. Even if the goals of the indivdiual might not reflect the hopes of another, each member is allowed to help out, out of a sense of loyalty, love, or any concept similar to the previous two.
2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.
No matter how important an event might be, meetings of some individual will form if one person thinks it will benefit the community as a whole. This can range from an one on one meeting to discuss on an recently conspired event, to a festive holiday such as Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide
information and feedback.
If one member acts in a state of embarrassment, or if one member can not set out one particular goal--because of circumstances beyond their control--then another member must come in and help out on whatever the situation needs, whatever it involves cutting the grass or alerting the community on how much loud noise one person is making.
4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the
communicative furtherance of its aims.
Each person within the community have a set of beliefs that belong only to that individual, so as a family, each member must figure out a balance that can not only create a satisfactory response of the individual, but also reflects good on the family as a whole. So if the budget and time will create safety for someone to go out to the mall and hang out with friends, there now lies the choice of whenever or not another individual wants to come along, for completely different purposes (such of wanting to buy something for his own amusement).
5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific
lexis.
For this principle, one general rule applies: the quicker one sentence can be used to express what it is one member wants to communicate to another, the better that communication will be for both members. This communication can also apply to nicknames, as well if it can further express the affection one member has to the other.
6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of
relevant content and discoursal expertise.
When one member of the community leaves, that does not mean that he or she can no longer benefit the community in colder terms. If the possibility of younger offspring arrives, each member can then be promoted into a greater role for that young member, creating more responsibility for each member to work around with.
Interest
Living under the same place with the other members for decades, the writer's main interest really lies on whenever or not his own personal opinion of the family will conflict with the observation other make take with other communities if they were not a descendent of each member of that community. As as offspring of two of its' members, he wants to know whatever or not his personal involvement as a member will make him reflect on that community in a way it might not be is he was simply an observer far away, or non-related, from the family itself. Does he now have authority over the other members, or he is forever labeled as a 'child' of those same members? Has the feelings of his siblings changed over time, or is the battle each of them had at a young age still there? Has the community grown, now that each member is no longer legally classified as a child? Can the writer himself find out a way to express his thoughts of the family without upsetting anybody involved? It is these questions he wants to solve, determined to see if it was all worth it or not.
Interview
Regarding interviews, the writer wants to use one or more specific members in mind: the writer's sister, his own parents--consisting of a mother and father--and his grandparents.
Texts
For text, the writer is open to the possibility of using the following tools: emails, posts from various websites, PowerPoint presentations, the answers of homework problems, the text of books one member likes, notes written all over the location of the community, and cellphone texts (or Facebook comments) if needed.
Conclusion
As an English freshman, the writer believes that since he has a major impact as a member of one specific community, he will bring a complexity to the text that will bring interest for readers to go through. Once finished, he hopes, the project will help further expand his education on how he should approach discourse communities; help clarify his own thoughts on that involvement as a member. Then he can figure out if his opinion will help him out when he goes out on his own, as an individual of society.
Sources
Wardle, Elizabeth, and Doug Downs. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 468-80. Print.
Reading Response #16
"Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities" is a series of articles written by Amy J. Devitt, Anis Bawarshi, and Mary Jo Reiff--all either a professor or assistant professor of English at a university (so there's a strong possibility these articles were written for specific academies)--that attempts to mold discourse communities into more tangible concepts, simplifying its' purpose into a craft; a set of tools for those who cannot fully grasp the potential within the complex context those communities have. The answer the articles thinks about then relates to genres, specially, how to be "responsive to such questions and link patterns of language use to patterns of social behavior," or simply "provide discipline and focus to the study of discourse communities" (Reading About Writing, 98).
To respond to the suggestion that "genre analysis contributes to the use of ethnomethodology as a research technique that focuses on language and society," the main article use the main point of all three separate articles to further prove on how useful each would alert on genre inside each discourse community works (Reading About Writing, 98). To summarize, Devitt comments that "much of our civic lives involves genres that come out of a community of specialists, whether lawyers, legislators, or government employees," (Reading About Writing, 100) leaving the social matters of voting at a ballot, or serving as a jury member in court, to be at odds with the "users who would ideally reproduce the ideologies and agendas of the legal community" (Reading About Writing, 103). As such, the genres "created within one professional community to be used by nonmembers of that community" (Reading About Writing, 99)--the jury process and the ballots--must now be self-conscious to the problem that "the communal agendas of those who create genres may conflict with the interests of those who use them," leaving those who want to provide good effects to people lives to study their cases at hand and work towards a better understanding of each side (Reading About Writing, 103).
Meanwhile, Bawarshi, instead of paying attention to socially relevant events, looks at a Patient Medical History Form (PMHF)--"a commonly used medical genre"--to "demonstrate how genre analysis gives access to the workings of discourse communities in a way" to "characterize what we are referring to in this essay as discourse communities" (Reading About Writing, 104). To bring this idea into the forefront, she mentions that since the document "helps organize and generate the social and rhetorical environments within which patients and doctors speak to one another," the PMHF becomes "a genre [...] within the medical profession" that forms life as a "part of other social practices (relations between doctors and patients, nurses and doctors, doctors and other doctors, doctors and pharmacists, and so on)" (Reading About Writing, 105). Therefore, using genre analysis, students can now "reduce their abstract, symbolic, status" and make those communities "more visible and accessible to ethnographic inquiry" (Reading About Writing, 106).
Reiff, relating back to the inquiry, sees that "ethnography has become an increasing presence in composition as a research method and a pedagogy," between "the general as well as the particular" (Reading About Writing, 107). So, if one uses her idea that "ethnography is both a genre "a research narrative) and a mode of genre analysis--a research methodology used to grasp cultural beliefs, and ideologies," (Reading About Writing, 107) along with using the label of 'mini-ethnographies', which revolves around studying more specific literacy events, to carry about certain teaching instructions, then ethnographics can be teached inside the classroom while the students are using it within that discourse community with the tools, such as observation or interviews, with them. In other words, if done correctly, students "assume the role of investigators who are learning to speak from their authority as researchers" to further grasp what it is for them to "compose communities while composing in communities" (Reading About Writing, 109)
All these articles sets out exactly what John Swales wanted discourse communities to be in "The Concept of Discourse Community." After laying out his own version of how discourse communities should be conceptualized, he reminds the reader that "those interested in discourse communities have typically sited their discussions within academic contexts, thus possibly creating a false impression that such communities are only to be associated with intellectual paradigms or scholarly cliques" (Writing About Writing, 473). But the approach the cluster of writers all share with one another, compared to Swales, is that simplification of how discourse communities can expand beyond certain contexts into individuals going into their own communicates only stabilizes "an imaginary consensus and a shared purpose that do not reflect real experience within communities" (Reading About Writing, 98). Therefore, the solution does not lie on the individual, but on an ethnomethodology technique that "contribute to the pedagogy of text-dependent subject matter" not for the student's benefit, but for teachers, researchers, AND the student (Reading About Writing, 98).
All in all, I find it interesting that for this article, instead of one writer articulating his point to come across the article, the person editing this article decides to look at the purposes of three individuals writers, find relations to one another, and puts them all into a context that serves to apply what the article is all about: genre within discourse communities. With those various perspirations, I can see what exactly the editor wants to accomplish in that article, and appreciate reading different opinions to further expand my own personal opinion on the concept. Hopefully those purposes will help me out on how I should frame discourse communities to everyday objects beyond certain individuals, and I have a feeling that since I hold no objections to the text within, I think it will work out just fine.
To respond to the suggestion that "genre analysis contributes to the use of ethnomethodology as a research technique that focuses on language and society," the main article use the main point of all three separate articles to further prove on how useful each would alert on genre inside each discourse community works (Reading About Writing, 98). To summarize, Devitt comments that "much of our civic lives involves genres that come out of a community of specialists, whether lawyers, legislators, or government employees," (Reading About Writing, 100) leaving the social matters of voting at a ballot, or serving as a jury member in court, to be at odds with the "users who would ideally reproduce the ideologies and agendas of the legal community" (Reading About Writing, 103). As such, the genres "created within one professional community to be used by nonmembers of that community" (Reading About Writing, 99)--the jury process and the ballots--must now be self-conscious to the problem that "the communal agendas of those who create genres may conflict with the interests of those who use them," leaving those who want to provide good effects to people lives to study their cases at hand and work towards a better understanding of each side (Reading About Writing, 103).
Meanwhile, Bawarshi, instead of paying attention to socially relevant events, looks at a Patient Medical History Form (PMHF)--"a commonly used medical genre"--to "demonstrate how genre analysis gives access to the workings of discourse communities in a way" to "characterize what we are referring to in this essay as discourse communities" (Reading About Writing, 104). To bring this idea into the forefront, she mentions that since the document "helps organize and generate the social and rhetorical environments within which patients and doctors speak to one another," the PMHF becomes "a genre [...] within the medical profession" that forms life as a "part of other social practices (relations between doctors and patients, nurses and doctors, doctors and other doctors, doctors and pharmacists, and so on)" (Reading About Writing, 105). Therefore, using genre analysis, students can now "reduce their abstract, symbolic, status" and make those communities "more visible and accessible to ethnographic inquiry" (Reading About Writing, 106).
Reiff, relating back to the inquiry, sees that "ethnography has become an increasing presence in composition as a research method and a pedagogy," between "the general as well as the particular" (Reading About Writing, 107). So, if one uses her idea that "ethnography is both a genre "a research narrative) and a mode of genre analysis--a research methodology used to grasp cultural beliefs, and ideologies," (Reading About Writing, 107) along with using the label of 'mini-ethnographies', which revolves around studying more specific literacy events, to carry about certain teaching instructions, then ethnographics can be teached inside the classroom while the students are using it within that discourse community with the tools, such as observation or interviews, with them. In other words, if done correctly, students "assume the role of investigators who are learning to speak from their authority as researchers" to further grasp what it is for them to "compose communities while composing in communities" (Reading About Writing, 109)
All these articles sets out exactly what John Swales wanted discourse communities to be in "The Concept of Discourse Community." After laying out his own version of how discourse communities should be conceptualized, he reminds the reader that "those interested in discourse communities have typically sited their discussions within academic contexts, thus possibly creating a false impression that such communities are only to be associated with intellectual paradigms or scholarly cliques" (Writing About Writing, 473). But the approach the cluster of writers all share with one another, compared to Swales, is that simplification of how discourse communities can expand beyond certain contexts into individuals going into their own communicates only stabilizes "an imaginary consensus and a shared purpose that do not reflect real experience within communities" (Reading About Writing, 98). Therefore, the solution does not lie on the individual, but on an ethnomethodology technique that "contribute to the pedagogy of text-dependent subject matter" not for the student's benefit, but for teachers, researchers, AND the student (Reading About Writing, 98).
All in all, I find it interesting that for this article, instead of one writer articulating his point to come across the article, the person editing this article decides to look at the purposes of three individuals writers, find relations to one another, and puts them all into a context that serves to apply what the article is all about: genre within discourse communities. With those various perspirations, I can see what exactly the editor wants to accomplish in that article, and appreciate reading different opinions to further expand my own personal opinion on the concept. Hopefully those purposes will help me out on how I should frame discourse communities to everyday objects beyond certain individuals, and I have a feeling that since I hold no objections to the text within, I think it will work out just fine.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Reading Response #15
"Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics" is an article written by James Paul Gee--possibly for other linguistics students--that calls in favor for "(writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations," or "Discourses" with a capital D, that shall use language not for "what you say, but how you say it." (Writing About Writing, 483-484) If that primary Discourse is used correctly-- passing through tensions of two secondary Discourses by social practice--, then the primary Discourse will form a distinction of dominant ("secondary Discourses ... brings with it the (potential) acquisition of social 'goods'") and nondominant Discourses ("secondary Discourses ... which often brings solidarity with a particular social network, but not wider status and social goods in the society at large") (Writing About Writing, 485). As its' own two conflicts of someone's Discourses grow, the interference of each opposite Discourse will eventually result in studies that can actually be mastered, making it possible to be affirmative in any language, but doesn't guarantee flowing fluency necessarily. As such, students looking to use such language might "'resist' such 'superficial features of language,' so the connections needed for the Discourses to instruct no longer depends on the benefits of the concepts within those same Discourses, but towards social change students use for attraction not for learning, but to show off to peers (Writing About Writing, 488). In other words, a student has to use language "we must say or write ... while playing the right social role and (appearing) to hold the right values, beliefs, and attitudes," or risk social rejection for ideological reasons (Writing About Writing, 484).
This idea of Discourse communities eventually forming into a social conflict somewhat ties back to John Swales' "The Concept of Discourse Community," where in order to be in one such community, someone has to aware that the concept creates "a false impression that such communities are only to be associated with intellectual paradigms or scholarly cliques" (Writing About Writing, 473), so expectations that someone might look for could be deceiving. As such, the individuals within the communities can move around into various other secondary Discourses if he or she wishes, to be free to ignore the demands needed to benefit each community and easily find communities that "overt instruction and are only fully mastered when everything else in the Discourse is mastered" (Writing About Writing, 488). Swales' sees this as a good thing, where his proposed criteria point in a direction where the non-assimilated ideas as "common public goals," "information exchange," and "a high general level of expertise" will result in a community that allows maximum flexibility for those members withing--"avoid developing multiple personalities, even if, with more senior and specialized students (Writing About Writing, 475-476). Gee, through his 'identify kit' theory on Discourse, thinks on the social aspects of those communities, and find out that because of "how much tension or conflict is present between any two of a person's Discourses" always being present, that flexibly suddenly becomes a threat (Writing About Writing, 484-485). As a respond, the Discourse learning as he sees it is not towards on how beneficial it might be towards the members, but on how much restriction it truly has, so those same members would not move not for how much he is interested in each community, but "their lack of mastery of such superficialities" would be used to interest certain groups of society.
To further explain the impact of a member in Discourses, let's take three activities, and me, I am involved in. For these activities, let's use my computer, the college I'm in, and my home. The three of these were chosen not because most of my time is spent on what goes with each time-frame I spent with each, but rather, the three places have different purposes that each correspond without each being aware of it, each having their own language for me to take care of. For instance, I could take my computer with me in either location and rarely have the events the other two games interfere on the purposes I have towards the computer--which is lurk around on forums and waste time on amusing videos. So, ignoring the language used within the communities of my computer (where it wouldn't surprise me if one concept, or for that matter, meme I read/watch inside the computer would later show up superficially--or actuality--in either location), I would say that what goes on around the house rarely shows up at events within my computer, and the concepts introduced to me within my college wouldn't really be discussed within the hallways of my home, simply for one reason. I simply chose to kept each other separate for the sake of making the lives of each occupation I'm in easily observable in some fashion, where each wouldn't interfere with the other, but that doesn't mean I'll keep them separate. If the moments arrives where a moment that happens in the house was too funny to keep to myself, then I can see myself quoting it inside, say, a Facebook conservation with someone and let them know on how silly it really is, because honestly, it's simply harmless.
What isn't harmless is speaking with impeccable grammar and still be "wrong nonetheless." Reading Gee's text, I get the impression that what he meant was that the content within the text, either on how original, convenient, or though-provoking it is, is the core tool needed to really grab people's attention, not just the grammar itself, despite on easily crafted it might be to do so. As Gee himself puts it, "It is not just how you say it, but what you are and do when you say it" (Writing About Writing, 483). It's that ability to describe what the topic is about--and how someone can comprehend it--is what that sentence is trying to say, and speaking from experience of English papers getting praise for the content within, I would say that about matches what I've been taught about grammar--it's necessary, but not the main attraction of a paper.
All in all, I would say that this article was a bit lighter compared to the last few responses, so as a result, I feel as if this response focused a little too much on what it was trying to say in much greater detail than the questions I were to answer, probably because figuring out what the article meant has my attention more than the questions. Despite that, I do like the brisk pace Gee works out, where to get his point across, he tells his audience what he wants to do through repetitive ideas. Looking at the article broadly, he tells what's going on, followed by an example that shows his point with amusing business, which is then shifts explain more on his point, eventually thinking about the concepts in details in an orderly fashion, then shifting back to the topic towards a bigger concept (society), then ending it all with another example. It's that directness I appreciate with the schedule I currently have, and if future articles retain that directness, then my gratitude certainly won't be rejected by my own account.
This idea of Discourse communities eventually forming into a social conflict somewhat ties back to John Swales' "The Concept of Discourse Community," where in order to be in one such community, someone has to aware that the concept creates "a false impression that such communities are only to be associated with intellectual paradigms or scholarly cliques" (Writing About Writing, 473), so expectations that someone might look for could be deceiving. As such, the individuals within the communities can move around into various other secondary Discourses if he or she wishes, to be free to ignore the demands needed to benefit each community and easily find communities that "overt instruction and are only fully mastered when everything else in the Discourse is mastered" (Writing About Writing, 488). Swales' sees this as a good thing, where his proposed criteria point in a direction where the non-assimilated ideas as "common public goals," "information exchange," and "a high general level of expertise" will result in a community that allows maximum flexibility for those members withing--"avoid developing multiple personalities, even if, with more senior and specialized students (Writing About Writing, 475-476). Gee, through his 'identify kit' theory on Discourse, thinks on the social aspects of those communities, and find out that because of "how much tension or conflict is present between any two of a person's Discourses" always being present, that flexibly suddenly becomes a threat (Writing About Writing, 484-485). As a respond, the Discourse learning as he sees it is not towards on how beneficial it might be towards the members, but on how much restriction it truly has, so those same members would not move not for how much he is interested in each community, but "their lack of mastery of such superficialities" would be used to interest certain groups of society.
To further explain the impact of a member in Discourses, let's take three activities, and me, I am involved in. For these activities, let's use my computer, the college I'm in, and my home. The three of these were chosen not because most of my time is spent on what goes with each time-frame I spent with each, but rather, the three places have different purposes that each correspond without each being aware of it, each having their own language for me to take care of. For instance, I could take my computer with me in either location and rarely have the events the other two games interfere on the purposes I have towards the computer--which is lurk around on forums and waste time on amusing videos. So, ignoring the language used within the communities of my computer (where it wouldn't surprise me if one concept, or for that matter, meme I read/watch inside the computer would later show up superficially--or actuality--in either location), I would say that what goes on around the house rarely shows up at events within my computer, and the concepts introduced to me within my college wouldn't really be discussed within the hallways of my home, simply for one reason. I simply chose to kept each other separate for the sake of making the lives of each occupation I'm in easily observable in some fashion, where each wouldn't interfere with the other, but that doesn't mean I'll keep them separate. If the moments arrives where a moment that happens in the house was too funny to keep to myself, then I can see myself quoting it inside, say, a Facebook conservation with someone and let them know on how silly it really is, because honestly, it's simply harmless.
What isn't harmless is speaking with impeccable grammar and still be "wrong nonetheless." Reading Gee's text, I get the impression that what he meant was that the content within the text, either on how original, convenient, or though-provoking it is, is the core tool needed to really grab people's attention, not just the grammar itself, despite on easily crafted it might be to do so. As Gee himself puts it, "It is not just how you say it, but what you are and do when you say it" (Writing About Writing, 483). It's that ability to describe what the topic is about--and how someone can comprehend it--is what that sentence is trying to say, and speaking from experience of English papers getting praise for the content within, I would say that about matches what I've been taught about grammar--it's necessary, but not the main attraction of a paper.
All in all, I would say that this article was a bit lighter compared to the last few responses, so as a result, I feel as if this response focused a little too much on what it was trying to say in much greater detail than the questions I were to answer, probably because figuring out what the article meant has my attention more than the questions. Despite that, I do like the brisk pace Gee works out, where to get his point across, he tells his audience what he wants to do through repetitive ideas. Looking at the article broadly, he tells what's going on, followed by an example that shows his point with amusing business, which is then shifts explain more on his point, eventually thinking about the concepts in details in an orderly fashion, then shifting back to the topic towards a bigger concept (society), then ending it all with another example. It's that directness I appreciate with the schedule I currently have, and if future articles retain that directness, then my gratitude certainly won't be rejected by my own account.
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