Category Archives: English 110

How can literacy save a life?

I think “saving a life” is a very broad statement. What I mean is saving someone’s life doesn’t necessarily have to literally mean life or death, but it can also be something that was so life changing in the sense that your life changed full direction for the better.  As I read through and analyzed my peers literacy narratives on https://medium.com/rising-cairn, I started to realize a pattern in which students saw an event in their literacy history that ended up being life changing for them. Unlike mine in which reading and writing quite literally did save my life, these other people’s lives were saved by literacy in their own ways. So I now ask the question how can literacy save a life? I read “Live or Die” by Paige Hibbard (https://medium.com/rising-cairn/live-or-die-ca628f105087#.n7kgiphat), and she talks about how she had no interests in college or doing well in school until she had a teacher who opened her eyes to her own potential in English, and because of this, she stared to become a star student and then eventually decided to go to college. This is only one example of how literacy can change a life for the better. In my own Literacy Narrative (https://medium.com/rising-cairn/saving-pages-793733bd74e#.lawerghya ) I talk about how reading and writing helped me to escape my depression and because of this it literally saved my life. They’re are so many ways that Literacy can change and save a life; it just depends on the story.

Exploring Literacy Narratives: Rising Cairn

While reviewing some of my colleagues literacy narratives, I came across an interesting theme in the majority of them. Most of the experiences in the  literacy narratives all boil down to one thing; an unfortunate or otherwise bad experience with a teacher trying to teach the person to read or write. For most of the students, their problems started at a young age in grade school, where they thought the teacher was mean or unsympathetic to their learning needs and abilities. And because of these experiences the students took that dislike for reading or writing with them through the rest of their life. I think that a good impression of reading and writing at an early age is vital for a student to continue to want to learn and grow in their literacy journey  throughout the rest of their life. From reading these other literacy narratives I realize how important that first impression can be. Those students who had a bad experience with reading early on took that bad memory and turned it into a dislike and in some cases even a hatred for reading and writing. However, in other cases some students, such as myself, took a good first impression or memory of reading and writing, and used it as a motivation to better themselves in the literacy field for the rest of their lives. For example, in my literacy narrative “Saving Pages”, I talk about how at a young age reading with my uncle helped me escape into the fantasy that books provide. I then used books later in my life to escape and help heal my depression, and eventually reading and writing helped to save my life. These first impressions that children get from reading are so important because in actuality they are what eventually molds the minds and opinions of our young generations deals and attitudes towards their literacy, and how they wish to proceed with it.

Radio Lab: Words

In the Radio lab podcast “Words” they ask the question, are words, or more importantly language, important? They then continue to gather evidence of language and the effects it has on people. For example they talk to an author of the book “A Man Without Words”. She tells them about the incredible story of a twenty-three year old man who was born deaf, and had no understanding of language at all. She talks about his journey to understanding and eventually mastering sign language and the concept of language in general. She says that at first the man would only mimic everything she signed to him and did not understand that everything had a name, however, when he finally grasped that understanding, he was able to open his mind to a whole new understanding and a way of thinking. In this podcast, they were able to uncover that language is not only a way of communicating with others around you, but is a pathway to a different way of cognition. When the man was asked to describe how life was without language, he couldn’t answer. He said he didn’t know because he couldn’t think like that anymore. The sad truth is that from the moment we are born we are instantly introduced to and begin learning language, and because of this we push our more instinct way of thinking to the side. We forget to just experience things for just as they are. Instead we try to label and understand everything in our physical world. Instead of just being able to experience and feel the wind blow against our face, we have to label and classify these things. Language acts as a barrier to our own mindfulness. Now don’t get me wrong, I think language is important, I just think sometimes we forget to  be physically aware instead of being consciously aware.

Goals for English 123

My goals for English 123 include the following:

  • Begin to annotate on a deeper level and make more in text connections and citations.
  • Continue the expansion of my growth mindset.
  • Continue to better revise my work throughout the drafting process.
  • Work on better integrating my ideas with others as well as integrating ideas of multiple texts.

Barclay’s Formula

Do you think that people have to leave behind conflicting values of their primary Discourse in order to enter the dominant Discourse?

I think this is an interesting question to think about. From one angle one may say yes, like Gee, and then on another angle you may say no, like Delpit. For me personally I think it may be a little of both; it just depends on the aspect of the Discourse and what you are leaving behind. For example, in Delpits The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse She talks about a man who is torn between succeeding in school and being told that he can succeed and the expectation of the street gangs and doing heroin. The man says “I saw no middle ground or, more accurately, no total ground on which anomalies like me could gather” (Delpit 551). In a situation like this I personally believe that in order to succeed in one area, specifically  succeeding in school, the man must leave behind the aspects of his primary Discourse that involve the drugs and gang life. However, in a different situation this may not be necessary. For example, in past and present society the expectation when a woman marries is to take the last name of her husband. However, if a women doesn’t take the last name of her husband, does that mean she is not married? No it does not. So if you do not leave behind your last name (part of your primary Discourse), that does not mean you are unable to enter another dominant Discourse.

 

Gee post #2: Joining a secondary Discourse

In Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction Gee brings up the idea of secondary Discourses. In Gee’s own words a secondary Discourse is “institutions in the public sphere, beyond the family and immediate kin and peer group” (Gee 8). What Gee means is that any group that you are apart of outside of your primary Discourse (your home life/main identity kit), is a secondary Discourse. For example, a secondary Discourse that I personally joined was my boyfriends family. This is an odd thing to consider a secondary Discourse, but hear me out. Growing up my primary Discourse was very different than my boyfriends. My family was not very affectionate, we didn’t spend time together, I was expected to excel and not just do my best, and my mother never supported my decisions. My boyfriends family was the complete opposite. They are very supportive of each other, family time is very important to them, and are very loving and excepting. So, you can see the culture shock I was thrown into here. When I first met my boyfriends family I thought the way his family was with each other was a little strange only because my primary discourse was so different. However, as I spent more time with them and started to become what felt like their family, I learned to love it.  While becoming a part of this secondary Discourse, my values of family and life began to change. I changed my way of thinking and doing and eventually being.

Gee and Discourses #1

In the article Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction, James Paul Gee introduces you to the idea of Discourses. Gee defines a Discourse as “forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes”. In other words, a Discourse is what makes up a persons identity. According to Gee, we can tell when a person is a part of a certain Discourse or not depending on the way they act, talk, or write. Gee states that their are two separate Discourses that allow us to conclude whether or not someone is part of a certain Discourse or not.  These are primary and secondary Discourses. According to Gee, our primary Discourse is basically how we act and interact in our home life  and the way we are brought up through our family and close peers. Our secondary Discourse is how we act in public and social situations. We change our Discourse in different situations in order to fit in a certain group, place or clique. However, Gee believes that we can differentiate people who do not belong in certain Discourses. For example, growing up I was more advanced in school then my friends.  When we were separated into learning groups I would be put with the more advanced students while my friends were with the lower advanced students. I wanted to be with my friends so I would try and make the teacher believe that I couldn’t understand the work in the advanced learning group in hopes that I would be moved with my friends. Luckily for me, my teacher didn’t buy it. It was very obvious to her that I was far more advanced then my friends, and therefore she did not move me.  No matter how hard I tried, my teacher could tell that I was trying to fake my discourse.

Thoughts on experimenting with a power stance:

To test Amy Cuddy’s theory, that body language affects your mental interpretation of yourself, I did a high-power stance before class. Before class I held the “wonder women” pose in my room for two minutes, as Cuddy suggested in her TED talk. Cuddy states that when feeling powerful “you make yourself big, you stretch out, you take up space”. So I did exactly that. During class I felt exactly the same as I did in all my other classes before I did the power-stance. I even participated the same amount. This experiment only confirmed what I already believed, that doing a power stance does not change ones confidence.

Amy Cuddy Summary

Within the TED Talk Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are, Amy Cuddy begins to bring about the idea of how body langue affects our own emotions and mental observation of ourselves. She believes that we have the ability to change our way of thinking and self-esteem by simply changing our body language. In her words “Fake it until you make it”. Cuddy goes on to talk about how in the animal kingdom, dominance and power are shown through open stance and spreading out. While those who are less dominant make themselves smaller. Cuddy talks about an experiment she conducted where she asked her students (both male and female) to hold either a high-power or low-power pose for two minutes. After that the students were asked “How powerful do you feel?”. They were then given the opportunity to gamble.  What the found was that those who felt more powerful after a high-power stance were more likely to gamble than those who did a lower-power stance.

Personally, I don’t agree with her idea that our body language shows how we feel mentally about ourselves and our own self-power. I don’t think that by changing or body language can change our habit of thought. So essentially we can’t “fake it until we make it”. Personally I don’t think that my body language shows my personal feelings of confidence at all. I tend to sit with my legs and arms tucked in, but that does not necessarily mean that I feel inferior to anyone, or that I am not confident and less likely to participate in class activities. I sit that way because  that positon is comfortable for me. No matter what way I position my body I will participate in class the same.

Eudora Welty and Me

Eudora Welty writes in Clamorous  to Learn about her principal Miss Duling and how she scared her into learning and how she never  appreciated words and reading until her first year Latin teacher in high school, Mrs. McWillie, didn’t scare her but encouraged her to learn and love words and reading.  I relate to this in a way because growing up, my mother always wanted me to be the best and tried to force and scare me into reading. Much like Welty’s mother and Miss Duling. It wasn’t until my uncle Knat read with me and made me discover that reading could be fun. I eventually started reading and writing on my own, and would have never done this without the kindness and encouragement of my uncle. This quote from my literary narrative relates to how I interpreted this piece by Welty. “Reading and Maine became an escape from the darkness and separation that loomed at home. Because of my Uncle I began to associate reading with laughter and happiness.” I think that my experience as a reader growing up was a fixed mindset. Once my uncle had opened me up to the world of reading and learning  my mindset changed to a more open mindset.