Month: October 2017

As you read, note any relationships you see between Gee and Cuddy. If they were to have a conversation, what would they be saying to each other? How might you frame their conversation and enter it yourself? Once you’ve completed the questions, take pictures of your annotations for your writing log.

1. Underline keywords as you read. See if you can define these in the margins.
2. Gee offers two controversial theorems (9-11). Paraphrase or put them into your own words, then explain why they are controversial.

Theorum 1 states that when it comes to literacy there are only fluent speakers and apprentices. What he means by that is that there are only masters of literacy and someone who is in the process of mastering the discourse. Theorum 2 states Primary discourses can’t be liberating. What gee means by this is that primary discourses are so limiting because there too simple, too introductory. What I mean by this is primary discourse are initial, it only has itself. It’s the beginning stage towards secondary discourses where then you can evaluate, critic and really analyze.                                                                    “‘Mushfake,’ resistance, and meta-knowledge: this seems to me like a good combination for successful students and successful social change” (Gee 13). Use evidence from the text to explain these concepts. bng

Meta knowledge is when your unable to adapt to acquiring a discourse so you are consciously aware of what your trying to achieve. For example Learning a second language can actually help you better understand your own language because it causes you to become consciously aware of your own language.

They are controversial because Theorem 1 says that you can’t get in or else, which is very black and white, while Theorem 2 the other says that all primary discourses are limited. As in not fulfillment. Theorem 2 says you need meta elements for the  discourse to be truly “liberating”

“The body can shape the mind, roll changes can shape your mind ”  Cuddy Gee “you don’t have that identity”

This shows that Cuddy truly believes we can change our mind so much that we can change how we act and live. Gee has the viewpoint of” you are who you are” that you cant form another identity

Identify two ways that Cuddy’s ideas might provide some of the tools that Gee recommends. Quote specific language from each text  and explain their connections. (For two examples, you should have a total of at least four quotations).

“Discourse involves ways of talking, acting” Gee

“discourse always involve more than reading and writing”  Gee

“Fake it till you make it” Cuddy

Cuddy is saying you can really fake your behavior and it will embed in you and become part of how you normally act, Gee says that one of the ways to master a discourse is “acting” like it. These two quotes solidify there agreement on the physical part of mastering a discourse

“the type of people that can use this the most are the people with no resources, no technologies, no status no power” Cuddy

” when we come across a situation where we are unable to adapt and accommodate ( as many minority student do with being faced late in the game” Gee

I think in America, you will find minorities that struggle with the mastery of social discourses, and that people of lower status are the types of people that would take the most away from Cuddy’s talk. Those are the type of people that do not have much money and social power, the types of individuals that don’t get access to the kind of discourses privileged people get to experience. These 2 quotations from Gee and Cuddy resonate with discourses and the struggle to attain them.

Use your annotations to pose a question of your own: what do you most want to clarify or discuss about these two readings together?

I want to know more examples of people in real life experiences other than a job interview to use the power pose, I want to have those people that used the power pose answer questions right after doing whatever that is they’re being asked to do to see how they felt about themselves after. I want to know if this can work for people of all ages struggling with perhaps “confidence” in their life

• Using direct quotation and or paraphrase, explain the difference between primary and secondary Discourses. What are some examples (e.g. special ways of talking) of your own primary Discourse?                                                                                Primary discourse is the one we first use to make sense of the world and interact with others ex. Growing up environment that shaped us into adulthood. Secondary discourse is us interacting with people places things outside our comfort group, meaning family, meaning our primary socialization group. ex. institutions- school, people you see in public. My primary discourse would have been my brother, sister, mom and dad. I don’t understand “special ways of talking” of my own primary discourse. My primary discourse was my family and dog, don’t know how else to make that “special”
• Gee divides secondary Discourses into “dominant” and “non-dominant Discourses” (8) and explains that our “mastery” or fluency in any Discourse depends on “the extent to which we are given access” to the institutions associated with them. What for Gee is at stake in our ability to master a dominant secondary Discourse?                                                           Everything is at stake to master dominant secondary discourse. You are molded by things in life that you interact with the most. For example my main secondary discourse growing up was my Elementary school and my hockey team, and Greece because i would go every summer. These places and the people that come with it, helped shaped me into who I’am today. For the vast majority of people a lot is at stake when it comes to mastery of the dominant secondary discourse. I believe people that have trouble mastering secondary discourse have further consequences in life.
• What factors might influence our access? Find a passage in Gee that explains at least one way that people enter or are barred from entering a Discourse. Quote it, paraphrase or put it into your own words, and give an example of your own to illustrate this idea in action.                                                                                                                                                                  Our parents, where we live, our environment. For example How easily accessible a school is for kids to get involved in sports, friends, feeling of unity can directly impact that kid for the rest of her/his life. A direct quote from Gee that illustrates one way people enter or are barred from a discourse. “dominant groups in a society apply rather constant tests of the fluency of the dominant discourse”
• Gee correlates several concepts and practices related to learning/speaking a second language to learning and practicing a Discourse. He might seem most like a linguist in these passages, but consider the usefulness of the comparisons. Pick one of his corollaries and explain how it works and what its social consequence for the speaker is.                                         When Gee talks about how discourses can interfere with each other, just like how languages can interfere with each other. For example if an American is talking on the phone with an Indian native and the American can’t understand the other person due to a heavy accent. The social consequence for them, could possibly add to someones pre judgment of someone else. If this is the only experience this particular American ever has with an Indian then it could lead judging someone based on something that has nothing to do with the kind of person someone is. Maybe the American gets frustrated with the Indian native speaker and thats the negative association the American makes of the Indian.
• At the beginning of the essay, Gee refers to “Literacy Studies” as a new field that situates language studies within “social practices” (5), and in our reading for today, he provides a new definition of literacy as “mastery of or fluent control over a secondary Discourse” (9). Perhaps the most difficult passage is his claim about literacy’s (or literacies’) liberating potential: literacy becomes “liberating (“powerful”) if it can be used as a ‘meta-language’ (a set of meta-words, meta-values, meta-beliefs) for the critique of other literacies and the way they constitute us as persons and situate us in society. Liberating literacies can reconstitute and resituate us” (9). Try to explain this concept using your own examples from question #4 or examples Gee has provided. Then revisit question #2: what’s at stake for a speaker who does not have access to a dominant secondary Discourse?                                                                                                                                 I think Gee is trying to give another definition of literacy, Meta meaning “combining for.” Gee might be trying to combine certain beliefs or values to coincide with his definition.  What he might mean by Meta language is combining many languages into a form thats recognized universally. Bringing people together maybe. Gee is expressing his own definition of literacy to open up his readers mind to something very different from what they already thought of “literacy” An example of this is when he says “we could define literacy as mastery of or fluent control over secondary discourse” I had no idea that could be a meaning of literacy. Whats at stake for a speaker who doesn’t have access to a dominant secondary speaker? Well this speaker won’t be able to acquire social goods-money, prestige, status, etc. Which in turn will probably have negative effects, I can’t imagine this person having a lot of success in life if they can’t even access a dominant secondary speaker. I think it’d make life very unsatisfying for anyone.
•    annotated script

A comment I made in the margin of the essay is “tension of discourses” so if I’m flipping through pages I can track this specific paragraph down easily because it’s written in my handwriting on the side of the paragraph.

Another comment I made of the essay is ” whats the difference between a theorem and a definition. To me Gee used these 2 different words in 2 different parts of the essay to define literacy. Also I didn’t know the definition of innocuous  so i put “innocuous?” to remind myself to look up and get an understanding of the word

Jones_Literacynarrative_peer_reviewdraft

Jones_literactnarrative_finaldraft

1. Graff and Birkenstein explain that most writers (certainly of academic essays) are responding to what others have said, and they tell us to look for what motivates these writers. By entering a conversation, according to them, a writer has to represent what’s been said and move beyond it in some way. So, what are some of the views Gee responds to? Remember, he may name them explicitly; they may sometimes be implied, or they may be “something ‘nobody has talked about’” (Graff & Birkenstein 179).                                                                                                                                             —Gee responds to the simulated jobs interviews. He explains how one person can say the right thing, use the right words and everything but still screw it up with the wrong attitude or how they present themselves. For example  The man in the bar, asking for a cig  in a “cool” way but puts a napkin on his lap to not get his pants dirty. This relates to what Gee says about “it’s not just what you say but how you say it”
2. Look specifically at paragraphs 3-4 in which Gee discusses Akinnaso and Ajirotutu’s research. Use evidence from the text to explain why Gee is critical of their analysis. If he doesn’t agree with their assessment, why would he give them so much space and so early in his own essay?                                                                                                                                       He explains that the first lady to be interviewed is simply using the wrong grammar “ok, and it was a snow storm, ok and theres usually 6 people working” to get that type of job in this type of society.  He adds that the second lady to be interviewed, the “success” story said all the right things but expressed the wrong values by failing to characterize her own expertise. “if anyone was more qualified than myself I could ask them. I think he gave this study a lengthy portion right off the bat because it explains what he’s talking about so well. When I read this it made total sense when he brought about this simulated job interview and how the author is unaware that communication is more than language use.
3. Although Gee is a linguist, he says that “literacy studies” should focus on “social practices” instead of language (5). In fact, he claims that “what is important is not language…but saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations” which he calls “Discourses” (6). Using evidence from the text, explain why Gee thinks it’s important to distinguish this “combination” from language alone. What’s an example of a “Discourse” you could add to Gee’s examples that would illustrate this concept and its importance?                                                                                                                                           It’s important to distinguish the combination from just language because his whole theory is based on this combination- attitudes, beliefs, values etc. It’s so much more than just the “language” that most of us associate with the word. This quote helped me understand discourse further “at any moment we are using language we must say or write the right thing in the right way while playing the right social role and appearing to hold the right values, beliefs, and attitudes.”. An example of discourse is Body language, something Gee hasn’t yet touched on but I believe it would go along with his idea of discourses. For example someone who is hunched over all the time and has their head down. I understand what Gee says about “enculturation” and how you can’t just learn it, you need to experience it. “Hands on training”
4. As important as Discourses are for Gee, however, he explains that they are not “bodies of knowledge” that can be taught: “while you can overtly teach someone linguistics, a body of knowledge, you can’t teach them to be a linguist, that is, to use a Discourse” (7). How, then, does one become a linguist (or nurse, biologist, lawyer, sports announcer, etc)? Find a direct quotation from Gee on which to base your response. What in your experience would support Gee’s claim, and what if anything would complicate it?                                                                                                                                              By experiencing and doing the action is the best way to become a linguist, for example hands on training like someone who’s in trade school. Any sort of internship or apprenticeship where your required to do what your being trained for. For example Gee says he doesn’t believe anyone learned a second language from just being in the classroom. You gotta go out and talk to people and interact. That is something in my experience that holds true. I went to Greek School in Seattle  when I was younger and every summer my mother would take my brother, sister and myself to Greece. Where of course we interacted with everyone in Greek.

This is the photo of my workspace in the library

A comment I made in the margins of the essay was “summarizes discourse” the quote i was referring to was                         “at any moment we are using language we must say or write the right thing in the right way while playing the right social role and appearing to hold the right values, beliefs and attitudes.” I chose to annotate this because this best summarizes discourse to me

Another comment I made in the margins was “what about when people change their discourses” I was referring to the quotation “We all have many discourses” I’m curious as to why and how people change their discourse and what affect that has on them

     I found the hardest part of this exercise was to understand that focusing on the lines is the best way to draw and not think about what your drawing for example a “hand”  Paying closer attention on the specific lines rather the picture as a whole. The easiest part of this exercise was the “v” part of the characters chest because of how simply it was. I expected my picture to look a lot worse than it really does, I thought you wouldn’t be able to make much out of it, but it resembles a man with a coat holding his hands. This exercise was helpful in that it showed us how to use our brains in a peculiar way we usually don’t.