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.

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.

Hi, My name is Chris Jones and I am a freshman from Seattle Washington. I am majoring in Neuroscience because I want to go to Medical School one day and further pursue the study of the Brain while helping people. I initially came to University of New England for the sole purpose of playing hockey with my Brother Dimitris. He’s a medical Biology major, and is in his 2nd year at UNE. I also have a younger sister Alexis who attends San Diego State University and both my parents went to University of Washington. In the Summer I worked at a chowder house as a busboy and then worked with an independent contractor to install/take out carpet and tile. I love going to the Beach. I’ve swam at Hills beach with my teammates a couple times already. I swim every week in the summer and go on hikes often. Hockey is my biggest passion in my life right now. I’ve been playing since I was 4 years old. I’ve lived in 7 cities in the past 6 years with different host families due to hockey. I am so excited and optimistic about college and am loving my experience at University of New England so far.