Author: Chris Jones (Page 4 of 7)

How does incentives and compliance relate to rising cairn examples?

how does literate skill and social viability lead to structural conditions in literacy’s bigger picture?

“focus of literacy studies or applied linguistics should not be language or literacy but social practice” Gee (1) This can relate to literacy’s bigger picture. I think literacy’s bigger picture can have more to do with social practice vs. reading and writing.  Literacy’s bigger picture could mean the greater idea of what literacy is there for. I think literacy is a way people can communicate through words verbal and written.  It’s a way of people expressing themselves, and bringing their ideas to other peoples attention.  Literacy as a whole can  change the way people think about things. For example, you might have a strong opinion about a politician’s stance on the economy, from a segment on the news you saw about him/her. If you took the time to really read about why that politician has that certain stance on that can make you understand from that persons example why thats the best option for the people

How does literate skill and social viability lead to structural conditions in literacy’s bigger picture?

Ronnie Mwai- My literacy narrative

“who would have thought the most transformative experience in my middle school life would come from my mediocrity and lack of effort in school” Ronnies effort towards english was the reason why his best friends mom (who was also his teacher) worked with him to put forth more effort which allowed him to excel through his classes and gain a literate skill. Literate skill is the beginning of gaining knowledge towards literacies bigger picture.

Students Nightmare by Wes Spagnuolo

Wes relationship with his grade school teacher Lucy Perky, goes to show that not being able to have social viability with someone can greatly impact your whole attitude like something as big as writing and reading. Wes not willing to cooperate with his teachers ways of doing things. The literate skill Ms. Perky attempts to integrate into her students is challenging to Wes, so much that it blinds him of literacies bigger picture. Wes wasn’t able to handle the structure of the course and struggled because of it. If he acquires some literate skill from his new  teacher Mrs. Nelson  ” I went to Mrs.Nelson everyday for help and she would sit there and help me with my essay until it was perfect”  mixed with social viability, he’s set up for understanding structural conditions of literacy’s bigger picture.

His english teacher in grade school Lucy Perky was greatly involved in the bad relationship  Wes had with Literature. ”Not only did she make English that year for me a living hell, but also gave me the single worst experience I have ever had when it came to anything involving literature, at such a young age” When you lack the literate skill for whatever reason, you cannot possibly move onto understanding more advanced things like structural conditions.

Understanding the Teachers point of view-Lucas Doucette

The social viability between Lucas and his teacher Mrs. Nelson helped him learn the structural conditions so that he could succeed in class. “I give full gratitude to Mrs.Nelson because she saw a student who didn’t care and turned me into a student who cares and puts pride into their work” he credits his teacher for recreating his interest in Literature. The interaction between Mrs. Nelson and Lucas fueled his new devotion in english, which allows him to begin to understand the cooperation and structure needed to succeed in his class.

How does incentives and compliance relate to rising cairn examples?

Students Nightmare by Wes Spagnuolo

His english teacher in grade school Lucy Perky was greatly involved in the bad relationship Wes had with Literature. ”Not only did she make English that year for me a living hell, but also gave me the single worst experience I have ever had when it came to anything involving literature, at such a young age” This shows that being able to comply with someone you probably dislike, but very much need, is in your best interest for understanding material needed to progress.  Wes also might care more about his reputation in school than doing what’s necessary to get a good grade. This quote resembles, what he doesn’t want to be part of his public image. “being labeled a teacher’s pet didn’t look good on the social rap-sheet and I definitely didn’t want that look.” In his mind he’s associating  sucking up to the teacher for a good grade, vs. keeping his pride. The incentive to get on this teachers good side and work with her, isn’t worth it to him.

Ronnie Mwai- My literacy narrative

“With a shift in mindset and a different thought process I became more understanding, realizing no one is the same and we all come from different backgrounds, I became more accepting and understanding.” All it took was one conversation from Mrs. Johnson to completely change Ronnies mindset. He began to realize the incentive to doing well in school and further challenging himself. Ronnie was always willing to comply, he just didn’t see the incentive to work harder because he was keeping up and completing his work with minimal effort.

Understanding the Teachers point of view-Lucas Doucette

Lucas is not willing to comply. So at the time, in his mind, there’s no incentive for him to work hard at all. This quote proves this “I seriously wasted time by not learning the fundamentals of english when they were laid out in front of me”.  This way of thinking towards english class snowballed for him, and continued throughout middle school.

The point where he realizes that there is a bigger incentive to understand english better is sometime in his high school career. “I was not aware of my actions back then and it definitely affected my view on english up until this point.” Lucas needed a mastery of an english discourse to ignite his passion for english. He found that in Mrs. Nelson, she opened the gates for his new dedication to english. Mrs. Nelson gave him an incentive to work hard, she made him realize how fun English can be.

1  Sponsors can do many things for students, one of the positive actions a sponsor can do for a student is teach them how to write. In the Brandt reading pg (557), he mentions how people like teacher, editors and influential authors come up the most when people recalled their literacy learning. The word regulate, in terms of a sponsor, is used to control and guide the students work. To direct the work of a student, to fix the work of a student to improve the literature aspect of them.  The word suppress in terms of a sponsor is to maybe hold back some of the work of a student that isn’t up to par. To not express the work of a student from public scrutiny.

2        Because it’s boring to a lot of people understandably. It’s not enjoyable for most people to read or write. It’s more of a task/work than anything. People won’t just sit down and start to write, for the sake of writing. Maybe if people found something interesting to them, it would motivate them to write or read about it.

3 Gee might explain the difference between affluent and the poor in literacy as someone who is set up for success, and others who aren’t because of the situation they grew up in. Gee (pg 17) “fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to ct of violence in Grosvenor Square” I think what Gee is saying, is that when the poor have more access to education they become more powerful, challenging the upper class.

The key trait of the literacy success story is that the cultural narrative, views literacy as leading to success.  My sampling of the Rising Cairn literacy narrative confirms Alexander’s claim about liberation, development & progression and how the success story is directly related to these. Out of all of Alexander’s speculations on why students often write literacy success stories, The theory that makes most sense to me is the one where she talks about how students portray themselves as “supermen”or “super woman”. Who overcomes challenges and struggles to become more literate. I think that’s very important to developing teenagers, overcoming problems in their life.

The key traits of Victim literacy narrative is students associating school based literacy practices with oppression and cruelty. They remember these experiences that bother them and removed their freedom. Often having a bitter feelings towards literacy. The kind of students most likely to write a victim literacy narrative are kids who have trouble fitting in, kids who resent school and the education system if that’s the relationship they have with literature and english classes in general. Victim literacy authors tend to cast blame for negative literacy experience. Making excuses for their mishaps

The key trait of Rebel literacy narratives are going against the way of doing things. To resist help and challenge the status quo. This literacy narrative takes up 5% of all narratives. This type of literature in my opinion is so rare because students know they are better off going with the system than against. They know there more likely to have success when not going on their own page. For example when Claire would read books during Math class to “rebel against the task at hand”. Attacking the set of beliefs specifically to 

The key traits of an Outsider literacy narrative are considering yourself a stranger not involved with what’s going on at the given moment. This type of narrative also shows up 5% of the time. I think a big reason why Outsider literacy narratives are so rare is because people want to feel apart of something. People are social animals & want to be around other people. People who write outsider literacy narratives probably don’t fit in at school. 

When your part of a discourse, for example an english class, you won’t feel any unity with other students who care about their studies. It’s no surprise writers of this cultural narrative showed regret over not looking at themselves as readers or writers

Alexander explains the appeal of this particular narrative by making the connection between power of education to nature of development in particular students. The 2 rising Cairn stories that conform to this narrative are “literacy narrative” where a Girl in her Senior year was at a point where she was skipping class for multiple weeks at a time, through the support of her teacher Mr. White & hard work she passed her English class & got accepted into a college. The other story that appeals to this narrative is “the art crisis” basically about how this kid hates writing & Art. He strongly dislikes when he’s told what to write about, for him that takes out the fun in English class. He eventually finds that he loves writing when he chooses what to write about & discover on his own.
“ Master narrative’s in one’s personal story has many of these negative results including a naïve and partial understanding of literacy and one’s relationship with it”. “ whereas master narratives or orthodox and legitimate” These are 2 different quotes from Alexander confuse me what she actually thinks of master narratives. I am confident that Alexander has a negative view on National Guard is she refers to them as purely relying on stereotyping large groups of people. She expresses the master narratives make assumptions and base it’s work on grouping people into a category without really knowing.
“ Little narratives are unsanctioned artistic and imaginative they are less generalizable and more individualized and situated in fact little narratives assumed that literacy is multiple contextual an idea logical and they presented many truths about literacy not one truth.” Little narratives are often told by marginalized groups such as women and minorities, these stories run counter to dominant literacy myths. It seems as if the master narrative & little narrative are polar opposites of eachother. Little narratives are useful for students and literacy researchers because it can be out of your own mind you create it, as Alexander mentioned how “artistic” and “imaginative” they are. The 2 example from rising Cairn are “don’t knock it “ & “ parental Advisory”