FInal Blog

Final blog is posted in case you uys weren't aware. Under "The Last of them All"

Happy Holidays

God Bless

I agree with Yagelski's article "Writing Roles for Ourselves" His pain at writing his dissertation in essentially a foreign language to him is something near and dear to my heart. The training we receive to write in an entirely different discourse seems very artificial to me. Even as I play the game to work my way through the school system, I find it more difficult every year to be as effective in participating in the next level of discourse. I can only imagine the level of frustration that comes from writing something like a dissertation. Still it was refreshing to experience the article's look into the lives of two students. I found that I had some of the difficulties that these students had as well during the development of my own writing.I think if I have this experience that Yagelski had with his students I probably would react in the same way. I believe the standard is here to stay much to my chagrin.

The Last Of Them All

In this week’s articles: “Writing Roles for Ourselves” and “ Loud on the Inside: Working-Class Girls, Gender, and Literacy” I was shocked and amazed at how I was in agreement with the essays. I had the pleasure of reading first “Writing Roles for Ourselves.” and throughout the essay it depicts a man who discusses his dissertation to become a part of the professional discourse. He had a hard time with his long essay and while he writes it he finds himself felling restricted and as a result he feels that he is no longer a good writer, but when he was able to freelance he felt he was a good writer. In writing, students have always had problems trying to level their writing standards to the system’s writing standard. Many students have anxiety about reading and writing because they are not familiar with academic discourse, according to Bartholomae.

In the essay the author talks about how his dissertation was a hardship to write. He found that in finding his academic identity was not easy and felt as if he was losing himself in his professional writing. These are common problems that most writers have because when writing people feel free to write how they talk and it seems the only way people have broken from this is when teachers break students down to certain standards. With the obstacles he had with his dissertation he empathizes with the student writer and how some expectations teachers immediately have on students should be flexible and then changed.

The author continues with introducing a couple of students and their works. He brought someone extremely important to the teaching community. He sets out to inform that many students use different discourses and in order to distinguish which discourses they use is hard, but that in return we, as teachers, need to find the way literacy affects them. As a teacher he sees himself as understanding how they are able to show accomplishment from their work and to develop better literacy levels.

He speaks of a couple of students, but two in general. As a reader I am able to find that students can be afraid to express themselves in papers for the fact that they are wrong, leading to restrictions on effort and originality and much more focus on structure. He advises the students to keep their voice, but change it a little to have academic understanding. In Celina’s second essay she speaks upon Black English and it is apparent that allowing Black English into school will weaken the standards which will eventually completely change them. Larry’s essay were more about grammatical errors.

Students try to adopt the ways of writing, reading and speaking to be apart of the bigger discourse society mainly because they are ordered to do so. When working one’s self into an academic discourse one has to practice well enough, put itself into that discourse, and develop an identity. In one can belong to a discourse, but discuss against it, shift it, and so on. Discourses can be tricky because it is finding something that on is good at or works on striving to be good at. In discourse a couple of important words come about: self-interest and self-worth.

Self-interest is a key goal in this dissertation tell-all. The author talks about students attaching a façade in certain situations that in order to get help to be a good writer one’s true self should not matter and that self interest can be founded through their writing. A teacher would be able to achieve the importance of one’s writings and how they felt about the essay. It is in the teachers best interest that they find more insight about their students before they grade their paper or pass judgment about their writing.

The author mentions other authors in the article that show me a comparison of how he and myself think. I find his arguments quite compelling. As well as his way to teach. It seems as if he stays to the standards, but he still believes in free writing. The key goal I was able to achieve throughout the essay was that to build an identity through writing that would enable one to claim a sense of accomplishment.

I like the way that he teaches because it seems as if he is passionate about making sure his students are on the right path of being literate. While discussing Celina the author quotes “ so I am not quite ready for the approach she takes in her second essay.” This quote caught me off guard because while admitting this many teachers are not able to. The knowledge that teachers are unsure of how to take approach happens plenty of times, but they are so standardized that they do not teach freely anymore they teach with what they have been told. The author however, did better than this he helped and provided help that many people do not.

In my second article “ Loud on the Inside: Working-Class Girls, Gender, and Literacy” I was able to focus on the fact that it was a female dominace discussion. In the article however it seemed very one-sided. I felt the compelling arugment that females are not be acknowledged in schools as much as males. It discusses the difference of race and gender. The real problem I had was the fact that it seemed more race than gender. Race and gender have always been an issue throughout the world. The take throughout the study I could relate too and maybe because I am a woman.

The article intended to express that people obtain many discourses, but when obtaining them throughout society, there may be different views which may confuse people. Social constructionists have an agreeable way of putting points. I had to disagree that adolescents try to have different discourses. I feel that adolescents try to be like one another in reality they strive to have the same discourses, and with that being said many don’t have rising conflicts.

My most interesting part in the study was the fact of feminist scholars thinking that gender is not determine biologically, but instead identity does. It seems as if to me that we switch gender roles for certain situations.

Las, but not least the study went on to follow these young girls and determine that with all of the books read throughout school, school has a tendency to define who we are. School literature tend to change out prospective of life. The view of “general” life in book roles of men and women shape the society. In result working women feel that they are missing out on the inside when they hide their outside and in fact value literacy more. We position ourselves in situations besides when we are reading however. Since society has women defined we “women” look at the magazines and televisions ads as the “perfect” woman model of life. Literacy ha s a funny way of being what it really is because so many people have different view.

Oppression or direction? There seems to be a fine line between guidance and the overbearing hand of "the man." God'sChild notes that, "Giroux speaks upon school being a political building." But that isn't to say that many good ideas and thinkers haven't come from classical, institutional settings. Some settings like this work quite well for students that cannot sit and focus on their own. Sure, democracy has its problems, but what institution doesn't? I disagree that schools only teach one way to "think." It would be fair to say that they teach with only one method, but not that they can--with their methods--control the human mind. True, there is a great emphasis on the American English teacher, because this is the primary language in this country. And language is what is responsible for conveying higher thoughts. However, it would be unfair to say that the literature causes an identity conflict because of the roles conveyed in the stories. There is a great diversity in literature, now more than ever. I believe that it is this, and the infinite curiosity of the human mind, that will never let one be confined for a long period in a "box." Sure, literature teaches morals, patriotism, right and wrong, but it is about so much more. These themes or motifs show up often, but they do not dominate the literature of our culture. If this is what makes the classes and the literature seem fake, then maybe it needs to be approached differently. These things are necessities of life for the American people, and must be taught so that one can function fully, without fret. And this worry about a lack of multiculturalism seemingly appearing until the secondary and post-secondary levels is not something that I have ever noticed. My experience, and my son's schooling leads me to believe conversely.

Reading Texts Later

Cultural capital: the brainwashing material used in schools to shape the way students interact in life. Legitimate cultural capital: the “right” interpretation of the text and not the student’s personal thoughts or interpretation. When in middle school and beyond students are seen as teenagers who need one path of guidance. Many teachers are either taught or have guidelines that prohibit them from allowing a student to have his/her own minds outside the box. The box in this article seems to be school, which is the cultural oppression. Oppression itself sounds like an unhappy word which it is and for school to have that unhappy period in textbooks that depicts what students should be, and how they should think. Giroux speaks upon school being a political building, and I feel that the statement is true. Students are taught the different ways of ruling, but are mostly taught how democracy is the better than any other ruling method, and how democracy should be dominant throughout the world, but they rarely point out the problems that democracy has as well. In school children are taught there is only one way of thinking and it shows students the impression of how the world thinks of people and how we, as a democracy, should act. With everything put on teachers, especially English teachers, they are looked at as Giroux says “ responsible for advancing the knowledge and values to historical Western cultures. It is made important that we transform our students into what society thinks is good for t world, but they do not seem the harm we are able to do. Teaching a student that they should be a housewife because over 90% of stories are about women stuck in the house taking care of it and the children, that when students get to a certain age they sometimes get confused of what they would like to be. It makes students stay within the box of “safety” such as career wise. In more ways than one students are pushed to believe in one way of doing something. We, students are taught that democracy is a one way track that we as American citizens are to be on and if we somehow are not agree on things we become terrorists. The American way of teaching schools has become a representation of what we want to believe and not of what we interpret something meaning. The way people are taught throughout English classes in all grades seems fake. We seem to not learn about different cultures and different ways of living until we reach a college level and we have an opinion about what we would like to take. America seems so scared to introduce students into a international view that they shape our children through literature brainwashing.

BBB gets an AAA from me!

BBBtheDad's article was a breath of fresh air to me! Bravo on thoroughly linking those two rather lengthy and convoluted articles. I find myself agreeing with the point that the system is working upside down. Eckert's beliefs that the student could benefit more from using literary theory as the backbone of literacy education is spot on with my own personal beliefs about education in general. I think "the system" is doing a great disservice to those who wish to enter the discourse (even with reservations) by having them infer the rules of that community. This is a poor way for the learner to be granted a real shot at gaining authority within the commonplace. I believe this is the reason there is so many cases of "sink or swim" in public schools these days. You either "get" the coded message or you don't.

Gee and Barton response

I tend to agree with Gee that a multitude of discourses can cause some confusion but I think that this also vital to have them. The readings we have seen before this have all seemed to point that out. The confusion can occur when the speaker chooses a discourse that they prefer and are incapable or unwilling to adapt or change when it is necessitated by society. Like Riley, Gee also was one of my favorite readings, I believe Gee is a naturalist when it comes to ideas on education, which coincide with my own beliefs on how instruction should be carried out. Aquisition is highly preferable to Learning in my opinion.