Month: November 2017
For next class: Write a follow-up blog post that describes your initial thoughts about revising, reformatting, and re-mediating your literacy narrative for a web audience. Your post should address at least two questions:
- How does this image connect to myself as a reader/writer?
- What concepts from Gee do you think are most relevant for analyzing your own narrative? What changes or additions could you make to reflect what you’ve learned about Discourses since completing your last draft?
This image of the “conscious management of ones online life” (HCM) It connects to me as a reader because if I’m going to be expressing my work online for people to see and judge, I want to make it look good. Writing a piece for an online audience, you never know how many people could potentially see your work and who those people are. If I know my work will be witnessed by many people, then I’am more likely to critique my draft extensively and attempt to write a solid piece of literature. This connects to Gee because he talks about how you must engage your discourse in a fully fluent manner. You need this to consciously “look after and preserve an archive of ones digital existence”HCM in order to be successful as a reader or a writer. If your showing your work online then thats a way of expressing yourself as a writer, especially to people you’ve most likely never met. A revision I could make to my Literacy Narrative is to get rid of some irrelevant information, and to improve my detail. I Need to elaborate and explain my experience in a more raw matter. With more addition of of material I will need to restructure my paragraph to make it reasonable.
This is the book I read with my aunt Terrie from my literacy narrative
This shows solid critique of my peers work. My comments on his draft showcase my ability to offer specific suggestions for change and address the claims and evidence put forth. The comments I published successfully address idea development to better his piece of literature First watch clip #1 and, using concepts borrowed from Gee and Cuddy, analyse what you see happening in the film. Consider the following questions, for example:
- What is the “dominant secondary Discourse” at work in the film? What are some its features? Note that there might be more than one at work.
- How can we tell that Rita isn’t fluent in this Discourse? What details (for example, in her “saying-doing”) reflect her difference from Dr. Byrant?
- What might Amy Cuddy observe about each character’s body language? How does their body language compare to what they are saying?
- For Gee, Discourse entails “being-valuing-believing” as well as what we say and do. What values do the characters name or express explicitly? What others values are implied and how can you tell?
Rita talks a lot she says “I don’t get to talk to people like you” Cowards for wanting to quit smoking
“gotta do it from the inside like i wanna learn” she wants to be confident ” I dont want another tutor” “looking like a Jeriatric hippy”-humorous
Dominant secondary discourse is Rita attempting to get the professor to tutor her and to become a student at this university. She wants to enter a apprenticeship.
We can tell Rita isn’t fluent in this discourse is because of the way she opens up about how she hasn’t been to school in years. “I’m slightly out of step” referring to how long it’s probably been since she was in school. Another example she mention is that she’s 26 years old.
Her body language was very confident which is in conflict with how she really feels. She constantly walked around and never stopped talking, her body language suggested that she was very confident, another example is her smoking and drinking
- What about Rita’s “saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing” has changed?
- How would Gee explain Rita’s comment that she wanted to tell someone “who would understand” about her night at the theater?
- Which other concepts from our readings might the clip illustrate?
Once you’ve discussed the clip as a group, use class time to make your own claim about what you see happening in the scene. Your response should use concepts drawn from Gee and Cuddy, make use of direct quotation from both, and follow Barclay’s formula. Add your response to your ePortfolio reading/writing log.
Rita’s hair has changed from some pink to blonde. She is reading shakespeare. Reading is a bi part of mastering this discourse. She’s putting effort to learn the “doing” part of mastering a discourse. Rita is developing the “believing” part as well as she gets more comfortable with learning and being around “educated people in a school setting”
She feels comforted by the professor. He has to even push her with his hands to guide her to her seat because of how out of place she acts/feels. Very nervous about entering classroom.
The professor let her be in the classroom which let her have some access to this primary discourse. Her apprenticeship is in full effect.
Chris Jones
Professor Cathrine O’ Frank
English 122-C
November 11, 2017
Discourse Entry “Fake it til you become it” Project 2
Discourse is a group of people that use certain words, beliefs, actions, values, and body language to interact with each other. These are the things that make a group a group. If you’re part of a group your somewhat distinct, or special because you have something that allows you to be in that group. The point of being part of a group is you all have something in common. Example is if you’re a lawyer you know what it’s like to talk to other lawyers and act like one while you’re doing your job. Being a lawyer is special because it takes many years to become one, in order to be part of that group takes time. When you’re born you become part of your own group aka “family” Discourse. How you fit in your “family” which is everyone’s first discourse, it’s the first “group” anyone is apart of. This is also called “primary discourse”. As people age and evolve they can enter many Discourses. There’s lots of different Discourses, some common discourses that anyone would recognize or can relate to are school, sports, work, home life, etc.
Challenges and paths of entering a discourse. Back to being a lawyer, the path to becoming a lawyer is a long term deal, you need high school, 4 years of undergraduate college, and 4 years of graduate school, and you need to pass a test that people study years for. This is a challenge many people face when attempting to enter this “discourse”
If you’re trying to become a violin player you can’t fake it til you become it. Not all discourses wrap into this mindset. Anyone, who has ever heard a violinist play can call out someone if they’re pretending to be a violinist. If you’re playing the piano (which you don’t know how to play) and even in your head you believe you can play the piano. This represents a “pretender” (the lack of fluency may very well mark you as a pretender to social role instantiated in the discourse” gee 10) . Unless you are an exception and some unusually gifted individual “partial acquisition coupled with meta-knowledge and strategies to make do” (Gee 13) I do agree with gee that someone can fake being part of a discourse by using some background knowledge, just not this specific discourse. An example of a successful “faking it til you make it” scenario. A lacrosse player who has never played football walks onto a varsity football team. This lacrosse player has “background knowledge” trains on and off the field, and knows how to compete and be part of a team, just like football players, and sports teams in general. Someone who has played high end sports their entire life, is much more likely to jump into a discourse without an any prior experience with that specific discourse than someone who doesn’t play sports at all.
An apprenticeship in my opinion is the most effective way in being let into a discourse. (“apprenticeship someone in a master apprentice relationship in a social practice (discourse) where in you scaffold their growing ability to say do, value, believe, and so forth, within that discourse, through demonstrating your mastery and supporting theirs even when it barely exists” gee 11) Gee could agrees with this notion due to the fact that having a mentor to guide you through the process of attempting to enter a discourse enables you to make mistakes and improve the most. When gee says “you cannot teach anyone to write or read outside any discourse there is no such thing unless it is called moving a pen” What I think Gee means by this is you have to say, do, value, believe in order to get into the discourse. You have to jump all the way in, you gotta go for it 100%. You cannot just move the pen if you’re going to write a piece of literature, you have to engage your brain and consciously think about what you are physically writing.
First watch clip #1 and, using concepts borrowed from Gee and Cuddy, analyze what you see happening in the film. Consider the following questions, for example:
- What is the “dominant secondary Discourse” at work in the film? What are some its features? Note that there might be more than one at work.
- How can we tell that Rita isn’t fluent in this Discourse? What details (for example, in her “saying-doing”) reflect her difference from Dr. Byrant?
- What might Amy Cuddy observe about each character’s body language? How does their body language compare to what they are saying?
- For Gee, Discourse entails “being-valuing-believing” as well as what we say and do. What values do the characters name or express explicitly? What others values are implied and how can you tell?
Rita talks a lot, she is extremely impulsive speaker. She says “I don’t get to talk to people like you” inferring she hasn’t talk to an educator in a long time possibly. “Cowards for wanting to quit smoking.” Her viewpoint is bias because she loves to smoke. She doesn’t believe someone can get cancer from smoking. You will probably object that i have misrepresented Rita’s character with these examples, I concede that Rita never says she doesn’t believe it could be bad for someones health, never the less, she isn’t progressive accept the effects of long term tobacco use.
“gotta do it from the inside like i wanna learn” she wants to be confident
” I dont want another tutor” “looking like a Jeriatric hippy”-humorous
Dominant secondary discourse is Rita attempting to get the professor to tutor her and to become a student at this university. She wants to enter a apprenticeship.
We can tell Rita isn’t fluent in this discourse is because of the way she opens up about how she hasn’t been to school in years. “I’m slightly out of step” referring to how long it’s probably been since she was in school. Another example she mention is that she’s 26 years old. An experienced writer would probably object that I don’t provide enough examples from the movie to make that assumption about Rita. Maybe she has been to college and is a few years out.
Her body language was very confident which is in conflict with how she really feels. She constantly walked around and never stopped talking, her body language suggested that she has command of the room. Some readers may challenge my view by insisting that Her body language was very shy, which is in agreement with how she really feels. Throughout the film there were instances where Rita’s body language was timid. But overall I thought she was outgoing and strong willed.
Another example is her smoking and drinking. She enjoys cigarettes and alcohol and seems to be very open and talkative, even to people she doesn’t know. But is my proposal realistic? I assume so from what I’ve seen from Rita. What are the chances Rita is a heavy drinker and smoker? Very high.
Although I must say my few examples can be limiting in terms of forming an opinion of Rita, I still believe There are concrete quotes which begins to explain Rita’s character and attempt to enter a discourse.
Writing as a recursive process – I consider myself to be in the middle of this novice to mastery trajectory.
The photo to left shows my annotation skills before I learned how to annotate a piece of literature. Pure writing on paper with no real organization to it. Nothing highlighted, few marks that have some meaning to them.
This photo shows my annotation skills after many classes with Professor Frank and SASC writing appointments with Eric Down. I’am actively annotating this piece of literature to look back and see major concepts, important ideas, and questions I came up with from the text to better understand it. This shows substantive change on annotating a script. Another example of substantive change but from reduction is my literacy narrative. Below is a paragraph that exists in my peer review draft but not in my final draft. From the class discussion and peer comments, I realized this paragraph has nothing to do with myself learning how to read, It’s more about taking up space. I’ve learned to re organize paragraphs that more effectively develop the written project, with help through peer review.
“My Aunt passed away from cancer refusing to ever get tests done or accept medication. I never knew her that well but I appreciate the big impact she had on my life. The 2nd time i went to San Antonio was to say goodbye to her. She was always so positive about everything, and transitioned this positive mindset to her own living body. When she was terminally ill she was somewhat happy about it. In her mind, the sooner she left this life, the sooner she can start her next with God. I will forever remember her as someone that had the passion to help other people. I believe the best type of people are the people that want to help other people.”
Integrate Ideas with those of others- I feel as if I’am half way between Novice and Mastery with this learning outcome. Passages of Gee and the transcript of Cuddy I’am able to analyze these texts and interpret through annotation and class discussion what Gee or Cuddy is saying. Going in depth of what Gee talks about for example when he says“You can’t be let in the game” How we have an in class discussion about this and comparing it to Cuddys talk . I’am integrating my ideas with Gees ideas to either challenge Gees viewpoint, agree with it, or dissect it and compare his idea to Cuddy’s. My response to Gee’s claim that you can’t just be let into discourse.”This showing his stance on the restrictions of joining a discourse, his view is that you can’t just be let into a discourse after “missing the apprenticeship.” An example of this would be that you can’t be let into a social group if you didn’t hang out with them. Amy Cuddy’s passage basically says the lower end of society “one’s with no resources, no technology, and no status and no power” are the type of people that would benefit the most from a power posture.” I state what I think about Gee statement and his stance on it, then I bring Cuddy into it to provide further evidence to contradict Gee’s opinion. I show I’m able to select quotes I find interesting that are in need of discussion or response. I provide proof that shows I can presenting textual evidence that confirms or complicates one’s claim.
Active Reading, Critical Reading, and Informal reading response- I believe I’am 4/5 of the way to Mastery on this learning outcome. An example of this is in Gee reading day 1 pages 5-7. A question I received as part of this assignment was”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? My answer “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.” My focused informal reading which presents specific passages and ideas about these passages in a blog post shows I’m understanding this learning outcome. I found a direct quote which I used, I also related it to my life personally, and I explored this specific passage for an idea, of what I believe is the best way to become a linguist.
Critique own and others work- I believe I’m right in between Novice and mastery in this learning outcome. An example of this is when Conry shared his Literacy moment first draft with me, he wrote”when I had restrictions and guidelines that prevented me from having fun with my assignment I struggled to keep writing and would have little interest in my assignment” My comment to this was find a way to be creative, even when you find yourself restricted. My comment is made to offer suggestions for change in his piece of writing . Bergman shared his literacy narrative with me. One of his feelings about procrastination is something I easily related to. He said “But I was so overtired and my mind was drifting off to other things and I was losing my train of thought. This was only the start of what was to come.” My comment was I can relate to this because even today I feel this way about certain readings. This lead to an in class discussion where we explored his experiences in procrastinating and how his readers understand this familiar feeling.
Document work using appropriate Conventions- I don’t believe I’m near the mastery of this learning outcome. I need a better understanding of in text citations that follow MLA parenthetical and punctuation format. I have yet to cite work that follows MLA format and enables a reader to easily locate the source. I believe I’ve improved on annotating which makes it easier to locate the source of what I’m reading but not in MLA format. I can’t find a piece of writing that shows I have made any progress for this learning outcome.
Control Individualized error patterns- I’am not even close to the mastery of this learning outcome, spotting errors in writing and or grammar is a weakness of mine. I have improved a lot in terms of getting rid of things I don’t need in a paper by the final draft, or my patterns of error decrease significantly by the time I arrive at a final draft.
Gee and Cuddys opinions on joining a discourse. What are their takes on who is let into a discourse and how someone can and can’t be let in. What are some exceptions to the “rules” of entering a discourse. These are the ideas discussed in these two passages by Amy Cuddy and American social psychologist and James Paul Gee a master of Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics. “You can’t be let in the game” – Gee. This showing his stance on the restrictions of joining a discourse, his view is that you can’t just be let into a discourse after “missing the apprenticeship.” An example of this would be that you can’t be let into a social group if you didn’t hang out with them. Amy Cuddy’s passage basically says the lower end of society “one’s with no resources, no technology, and no status and no power” are the type of people that would benefit the most from a power posture. A mere two minutes to significantly change the outcome of your life. Is what she’s trying to get at, a physical stance can have so much more meaning on yourself psychologically. Gee says “Social groups won’t usually give out their social goods to a non-native, except in the case of Mushfake,”- which allows a non-initiate to gain access. Gee’s passage can really contradict his theory on the inability of someone entering a discourse because he uses the word “usually” and there’s the exception of Mushfake, so I believe that Gees stance is unreliable due to the many ways you can make it into a discourse without really being apart of it first. Amy Cuddy’s whole talk is about faking a physical posture and how that can “change outcome of your life significantly”. Her motto is “fake it until you become it” as in you can become someone who emits confidence even when you’re not a confident person as in a minority who lacks social discourse, but by faking it long enough you can become it. People have the ability to become more confident as a person if you constantly act like you’re confident. A connection between the passages I see is Mushfake, which can provide a way for non-initiates to gain access which goes with what Cuddy talks about. And mostly how “loose leafed” Gee’s theory is and how many exceptions there are to his acceptance of becoming part of Discourses.
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