Teaching Journal Week #12--Nov. 12-16

My students really enjoyed discussing Flynn on Wednesday and Delpit on Friday. My lesson plan for Wednesday was slightly revised by class discussion, which usually happens. I started out by asking a male student to answer for a female and vice versa during roll call. Then when I asked why I might have done that, my students went back to Yergeau and explained how uncomfortable it was to have someone speak for them. This is not a connection I meant for them to make, but it was beneficial nonetheless. After we spoke about the link to Yergeau, I asked them to make a connection to Flynn. Then my students picked up on how the male student sometimes answered differently than what the female student would have. I then asked them to talk about how they communicate with one another. One of my male students brought up how guys don't feel the need to speak to strangers but girls do, say in elevators or seated next to someone on a bus. Then I asked why they thought this was true and what part of language was affected.  This led to a great classroom discussion about language and communication. Then we moved to text. I pulled up The Guardian Quiz that Lauren Pisanelli had included in her lesson plan. It allows students to choose based on a paragraph of a novel whether the author is male or female. My class had so much fun doing this. I split them up into two teams and made it a competition. Each paragraph had a one minute discussion time and we evaluated word choices and subject matter within the text. The exercise was very successful, proving to my students that you cannot base your choice on stereotyping (which I plan to bring up with Alexander and Cixous as well).  After the exercise we moved into pulling out 5 major points of Flynn's article, finding them in the text, and discussing whether or not Flynn would have liked or agreed with the quiz we took. The answer was mixed but they had serious reflection on the text and language.

On Friday, I reminded my students that we would be having class on Monday and those who were planning on coming should bring their Project #3 and their peer review. I did not elaborate on why because I fear they will not come if they know it's a workshop opportunity. I have 3 students saying they will be in class on Monday. So I did explain the homework for the following Monday--Project #4 Essay proposal due, reading the selected text of Alexander and Cixous, and a 300 word essay on a moment in which they wished or thought being the opposite sex would have been easier. They recognize that the workload is more significant because they are not coming to class, but I think that's fine for them to realize.

Our discussion on Delpit and Smitherman went well. I have a group of students who are several different ethnicities so I decided to approach the conversation of dialect by way of personal experience so they would feel more comfortable sharing their ideas about their own. I showed an Appalachian dialect video and codeswitched for them so that they understood the idea of register and appropriation. they thought it was hilarious but understood the seriousness of losing language and heritage as well. Then I showed a video of a prisoner speaking BE, a news segment of a black man trying to change BI  speakers into Standard AE converts, and then a clip of Maya Angelou reading in BE but speaking in Standard AE.  The discussion that followed was amazing! We discussed whether or not dialects should be accepted forms of English in academia (with no bias of my own) and whether speaking in dialect meant you were not capable of speaking Standard AE (which Maya Angelou really proved wrong with my class).  We focused on the text and the points Delpit makes vs. what Smitherman says and what my class eventually decided is that this was the debate several years ago but it is still a current debate (especially with the newsclip). My class's reactions were very split down the middle and they were able to have a very respectful but passionate conversation about language and acceptance, but more importantly, text and identity.

I've been proud of them before, but this week was a week full of pride for me. I really needed this week to go this well, given the last two weeks had been ridden with problematic student situations.

Teaching Journal Week #11--Nov. 5-9

While showing the Autism video during class to go along with Yergeau's text, I had a student laugh. I shot him the teacher "glare" hoping he would get the picture that he was being immature and disrespectful. After the video was finished, we started a conversation about communication and the language we use to communicate with others. The same student said "I don't think this is a language or a way to communicate. I think it's a person with a disability and we are watching them in a video that doesn't matter to this class. I'm supposed to be learning about writing."  To this I answered, "This does have to do with this class because people communicate in many different ways. Yeargeau describes her experience with Autism as wanting to speak for others just like her, but continually people think they need to speak for her because they are under the impression that she cannot. The difference between being an advocate and a supporter is very different. This is why it's important to not speak for a group you are not part of. It's like trying to translate a Spanish speaker's feelings when you do not know Spanish. You cannot speak for an autistic person if you are not autistic. Understand?"

I was very nurturing while saying this, not trying to be rude but continually trying to be helpful in processing, and the student's face turned red and he shut down. At the end of class I tried to talk to him and he just kept walking passed me. My initial response was to worry that he felt in some way that I was asking if he was autistic in front of the class by asking why he was speaking for them. This might be a bit of a stretch, but I worry about things.  So I e-mailed him and asked if he could come see me during my office hours. I got no response.  On Wednesday I asked if he received my e-mail and he said yes, but offered no other answer. So after class I asked him to please come see me on Thursday during my office hour, and so he did. I explained that I felt like he thought I was dismissing his ideas in class but assuming things I should not have. I explained to him that I have no idea unless I'm contacted whether or not a student has learning impairments, and I shouldn't have assumed that he could not speak for autistic people.  He, again, laughed and told me that he shut down in class because he knew I was right in my point. He just didn't like hearing it but he did not feel as though I dismissed him.

This was a big worry off my chest! Friday's class went great, with no lingering cloud over top of me. We discussed Project #3's deadline, the process of sending it to their peer and myself, and workshopped an introduction. The students found the workshopping to be very helpful and many of them submitted papers on time that evening.

Teaching Journal Week #10--Oct. 29th-Nov.2nd

An update on my student in the previous post: the ROTC coordinator e-mailed me to tell me that my student would be late every Wednesday and sometimes on Fridays. The wording of the e-mail was intended to be intimidating, I believe, because specific wording was:

 "*&^%$ will continually be late because her first priority is to us. I appreciate your understanding and ability to excuse her absence at such times".

 My response was:
 "*^%$ signed up for my class at this specified time. If she knew she would be out or late getting back, she should have signed up for a different class. I am willing to excuse her tardiness as long as it is not disrupting my class and no more than 15 minutes. Anything after will not be excused and please understand that no amount of help from me to fill her in on what she misses is the same as being in class discussion. It's hurting her grade by interrupting her understanding of the material for her to write her projects. Please consider allowing her to leave your program early to make it to my class because her education is important as well."  

A following e-mail was sent to me after this that said "Duly noted."
The student has not been absent or late since.

 *Yay*

Teaching this week went great.  My students really enjoyed getting to see each other's presentations. They worked so hard on them that I thought it would only be right to allow them to showcase them in class. I had a superb outcome of projects!

Also, we broke up into groups of two on Wednesday and I had one person pretend to be from the other's discourse community while the other person asked questions. This was a fun exercise because it demonstrated both "mushfaking" and gave the student an idea of how to build interview questions. I asked them to consider what they need to know to be able to understand how to communicate and interpret the data.  The trial run was fun and successful.

Teaching Journal 10/22-10/26 Week#9

This week brought a first for me: conflict with a student. While my lesson plans went over well and teaching went great with nothing new to report, really, my issue of the week is of a different measure. Throughout this semester I've had a student that has come to class late consistently. I've approached her out of class and asked if she had a medical reason for being late or if she was just late of her own accord, and always the same answer is given--"I had to be somewhere else and just got finished." Her excuse seemed very private and the only other thing I told her was that she would need to show me documentation for me to allow her to makeup missed in-class work. The student is otherwise a responsible student, does homework, and writes well so the only minor violations she's received are for tardiness, 3 times equalling a minor violation. So Friday she came to class 35 minutes late. I have never addressed the issue in class before, always waited until after, however this time the student asked me in the middle of class in front of everyone what I wanted her to do to makeup the freewrite that she missed in class. When I told her we'd talk after class she said, "Well, I'need to leave early, too."  I was already upset that she came to class so late and let the door slam behind her while everyone was writing, but I held my cool. I really felt like she was trying to push my authority, when ironically enough, authority was what she missed in class discussion. So I replied, "You aren't making up the work because it's part of in class work for a reason and you are being counted absent for today if you are leaving early, also." This must have upset her a great deal because she spent the rest of the time she was there rolling her eyes at me and clicking her pencil on the desk. About 5 minutes before class was up, she started crying and left class. One of my other students before leaving said, "You are just trying to be fair to us, Mrs. Jones. Don't worry about it."

My first concern is that my other student recognized that I was baffled by the situation. I don't want them to see me uneasy and feel the need to comfort me. Also, I sent the other student and e-mail asking again why she was late. The student replied that she is in ROTC and that the group leader is not bringing them back from mandatory meetings until 5:30pm when our class starts at 5:15. I've asked for a written statement or an e-mail address for her leader to explain that the student's grade is being harmed by the tardiness. The student says she doesn't want me to talk to them. I'm really at a loss of what to do. I mean, if she won't bring me documentation, then I'm right for her grade to be docked because of this, correct? I may need to come speak to you in person about this, Albert, but I really feel like there's nothing else for me to do about it.

Teaching Journal 10/15-10/19 Week #8

This week my students spent most of their time dong lab work on Project#2. I don't have a lot to report other than I am pleasantly surprised about how well their storyboards turned out and how well their rough drafts of Project #2 turned out as well. I have a group doing exploring how music has influenced their literacy and one group has done a project on how technology has influenced them. Two other groups have created videos on Youtube. The most entertaining project is one of the Youtube videos in which one of my students presents his literacy history in a galaxy far far away, with the Star Wars them song, and then battles technology while he's dressed as Darth Vadar. The really have put a lot of work into their projects, however, several of the groups need to work on strengthening their arguments a bit.  Overall, it was a good week. No major problems just major successes with creativity and great effort.

Teaching Journal--10/8-12--Week #7

My class is at 5:10-6:15, so I'm reflecting on last week's classes before my class this evening. Last week went very well, so there is much to talk about.

Monday we discussed Wysocki and their homework assignment was to do a dialectical journal before class due to the large amount of terms I knew they would not know. Their journals were fairly lengthy, and not near as in depth as what I thought they would be, or rather, I hoped they would understand more of the reading than what they actually did. We tackled three main concepts with Wysocki: format, argument, and purpose, so they would at least have those to think on. When talking about format I asked what they thought of the layout of the article and the way she highlighted certain things, formated  with pictures, and drew the human eye. Many of my students were comfortable talking about the very surface level critiquing. They said she was using her piece a s a visual example of her text and argument. This is when I reminded them of the Project #2 and that they should consider experimenting like Wysocki. However, they struggled with her overall argument. Several said she just didn't like nude pictures, others thought she was being a critic of art, a few admitted they didn't make it passed the fifth page of reading without losing the main concept. So for this struggle, we broke down each page with a main thought or point and pieced it together. this took about ten minutes of class, but many of them were taking notes and understood the vocabulary better afterward. Next I asked what the main purpose was. This is where I think the most interesting point was made. One of my students, who was female, said that she thought the main argument was that we have "beautiful" in our own minds versus what the world tells us to consider beautiful. Then a male student said "Well I thought the argument was that authors frame their articles sometimes to be so confusing that you can't find the main argument, because that's what she was talking about with the picture: where your eyes are drawn against what is important."  Even though he was complaining about the piece being long and dense and he was struggling to understand, I still thought that this was a very intelligent answer, that we as a graduate class didn't even talk about. So I opened the class to discuss the issue and it went very well, even when I asked how many females agreed and how many males. It was split down the middle by gender. The females agreed with the female student's comment and the males agreed with the male student. I just though it was very interesting what the student preferred to defend.  At the end of class I reminded them to meet in the library on Wednesday, and that Project #2 was underway. I also told them the day they would receive their papers back by e-mail, which varied by order in which they turned them in. I dedicated myself to do three a day until finished.

On Wednesday we had our first lab day, which went well. They had read their group members' literacy narratives as homework and identified three different points in which they had common interests and experience. So in class, they came ready and put these thoughts together. By the end of class I had them  type out their group members' names, the argument they were focusing on, where they thought each student would branch out in the project and what forum they were using to communicate. All of them turned in very good work. This was a successful day.

On Friday, I had several missing students. I figured this would be the case because it was homecoming weekend and a Friday evening. This made it difficult to do group work with at least one group member missing from each group. So I demonstrated the different forms of presentations they could do and told them to think about which one interested them the most. I then showed the Pixar video of storyboarding and they liked it very much. In their groups they began mapping out on paper storyboards and then converting them to digital. Some of the groups made excellent headway, others struggled a bit, but after  I went around to each group and answered their questions and brainstormed with them, they are doing much better. All in all, it was a great week.

I love what I do, have I mentioned that? :)

Teaching Journal 10/1-10/5 Extended

I chose to hold back my teaching journal for this last week for two reasons. One, I needed to see my students papers before I could completely evaluate how the week of teaching went; I had some concerns based on Draft #1 of their papers. And two, I couldn't tell if last week felt anxious ridden because I was ill or because the students just wanted to be done with Project #1. Nonetheless, here are the results of last week.

On Monday, Peer Reviews were due. I had two students not turn in the first draft of their papers so it messed with the grouping for peer reviews. I had reorganized the groups over the weekend so that the students who did not turn in papers on time, would still need to turn in something (even though it was a violation) so I could help them where they were struggling. One student e-mailed their paper to me Sunday night, 5 hours late, so that I could help him. this student I was lenient with. However, the second student turned in nothing. No draft, no SafeAssign, nothing. I informed this student via e-mail that it was a major violation, and in order to avoid any more violations, he would have to do the Peer Review for the next day. Okay. Both students did the Peer Review, as did everyone else. So Monday's conversation was about how much value their education should really hold in their lives and priorities. I explained that I was not just lurking waiting to write violations, that I was wanting to see them use their full potential and to let me help them push their potential even further. Many students looked inspired and even told me that they appreciated me, so I was hoping this was a revamp.

On Wednesday, we had a great class. We talked about Malcolm X, Alexie, and hooks. I split them into groups, assigned one reading per group, and had them list sponsors in the text, reasons for literacy, and then relate it back to one of the case studies in Brandt's article. We had great conversation about literacy as survival and a way to make their lives new and they genuinely enjoyed the readings. Heather Kaley also observed me this day, and it was all in all successful (even though I was still sick). I assigned them literacy narratives to write of their own (500 words).

For Friday, everyone turned in homework and everyone came to class (which is a rarity for me in a Friday evening class). I used Heather's suggestion in her presentation to split up the technologies in Baron's text, and so we did and had great conversation on the evolution of technology and where we'd be without each of them. It was another great class. I also assigned technology narratives of 300 words due Monday on the technology that has influenced them the most. I reminded them that their papers were due at midnight and to please put all effort forward. One student raised his hand and begged to have until Sunday. Since I knew I was not goin to make it to grading them until Sunday anyway, I went ahead and pushed back the deadline but made them all promise that since they had extra time, that I would get a submission from all of them.

So Sunday rolls around and two students, again and one of the same as last time, does not turn his paper in. I contact them and specifically ask the repeat violator to come see me in my office hours on Monday. Nothing. He will not reply to e-mail, he did not come to class on Monday, and I know that he is one student of seventeen but he was a good student up until Draft #1 was due. He had written in his journal entries that he had anxiety over assignments, and I'm still wishing he would just come talk to me e-mail me back.

However, after reading through the majority of my students papers, I can report that there was VAST improvements made in these drafts! i am so happy because I can tell that my talk with them about putting their best foot forward and giving the assignment all that they had was taken seriously. I genuinely love that they took my advice and seem to be getting what they can out of their opportunities.

Had I reported on the state of my teachings on Sunday, I feel that this would have been a much different submission and I'm glad that I held out and had hope. It restores my belief that I'm asking them for full effort and they know I'm giving full effort as well.

Wysocki IWA

"The Sticky Embrace of Beauty"

Because I was in the group that made this apparatus, I've already helped construct this summary and beginning thoughts:

Anne Frances Wysocki’s “The Sticky Embrace of Beauty” is an article written to question how we assess beauty and what is and is not beautiful, according to socially enacted forms. According to Wysocki, there is a great danger in consistently linking the social and strange in our individual perceptions of the world. Specifically, in our notions of form we have begun to accept that “to be human is to be tied to place and time and messiness and complexity, then, by so abstracting us, this desire [for abstract formality] dehumanizes us and our work and how we see each other” (94). As a result, we objectify all images and see beauty as only what we can view as spectators. This distancing between the image and the viewer can be dangerous. Wysocki suggests we reexamine particularities and strangeness as positives ideas all their own, without looking to social norms to pre-enable them. By acknowledging the forms we are taught, we can then begin to show how they constrain our perception of beauty and uniqueness in visual imagery and how we must depart from them at one point. This departure allows us to reconnect as humans and prevent objectification from being pervasive. Once this is done, we will view images of each other and recognize that we are all “built out of numberless and necessary particularities” (96). Most importantly, we as viewers of numerous kinds of media can understand how objectification spreads not just to images of people, but to all visual components within texts. Thus, we must use forms to teach us, but eventually part from them in order to invent our own unique forms that break norms and question artistic values. We must fight against principles essentially. It is these principles of form that prevent the student from understanding that when they create text in new media formats, the texts have real effects and consequences. Their work has influence on an audience. What they create contributes influence between audience and composer, very much like sponsor and sponsorship in the Brandt reading. When anyone creates text, including photoshopped imagery and similar projects, they are participating in reciprocal communications with an audience that influences larger audiences. 

Synthesis: 

This text reminded me a lot of previous thoughts by Scott McCloud and the mask that is presented in text to separate self from art and created works. It also reminds me of Berger and the situation in which women become objects in art with a dual sense of existence in art and life. Wysocki describes the constructed idea of beauty as the reason for both the mask and the dual existence.

QDJ:

3.     Does the Peek ad work for you as a consumer? Does it interest you and make you want to either purchase the book or at least learn more about it? Explain your answer.

     It works for me, in the sense that I want to know if it's only women used in pictures like this, or men as well. I researched the Kinsey Institute as my Before You Read exercise, so I know that it isn't just women. However, It's still objectification and the fact that it's a female picture to introduce it and gain interest is telling to us. I've never thought about the way in which alignment and text guide the reader's eyes to what advertisers want us to be attracted to. It doesn't work for me, in another way, though. Because I know that the woman in the picture is not completely real, that the picture is adjusted beyond reality. So in essence, it's like a book of drawings to me. Not a real reflection of humanity, or beauty for that matter.

AEI:

2.      Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Do you agree with Kant that “the beautiful is that which pleases universally,” that some things are inherently beautiful? Or do you agree with Wysocki that “beauty is something we construct together” and subjected to social forces?

      I think beauty is both, in the eye of the beholder but also universally constructed.  I think that we are genetically programmed to be pleased with certain physical attributes on bodies, and combinations of several things that our bodies respond to on one specific person is going to warrant many people to find beauty in them. However, I also think that we can learn to appreciate physicalities of people that we didn't originally find attractive, so beauty is also a learned idea. However, socially constructed beauty is where it gets tricky, because I think in this case people learn to discount things they do find attractive and endearing because it's not socially acceptable to. That's why we fight so hard to change ideas of social acceptance, so people can react honestly and be themselves.

MM:

Wysocki states, "There is no question that there is a certain necessity to effective visual composition because a design must fit a viewer's expectation if it is to make sense… but if design is to have any sense of possibility—of freedom—to it, then it must also push against the conventions, the horizon, of those expectations" (97). How does this statement apply to Wysocki's article? Does it apply to any other visual art? If so, how?  

     

      I think it does apply to Wysocki's article because she consistently redirects our attention in the text to bold and highlighted sentences, punctuation breaks, paragraph structure, and basically just pushing limits of what articles like this usually present. I think Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock are perfect examples of pushing limits of art. They produce art that many consider unoriginal, yet, it can not be duplicated completely.

Baron--Dialectical Notebook #2

"From Pencils to Pixels"

For some reason, my prior Dialectical Notebook does not show up in the post, so here is my second attempt to make it work. The previous post also keeps me from editing.

Looking at the advancements it’s already made, I have a hard time believing that people are still against it.	The computer, the latest development in writing technology, promises or threatens, to change literacy practices for better or worse, depending on your point of view (423).
I know a lot of people that would not admit to how much they rely on it, but it’s not been that way forever.	I readily admit my dependence on the technology of writing (423).
Agreed. So, can we then assume that literacy levels need to be measured among both high and low classes since they are in different stages of literacy based on what is available to them?	After their invention, their spread depends on accessibility, function, and authentication (424).
I think our country capitalizes on this now; the rarer the product, the more it costs and the more people will fight over it. Iphone 5, for example.	Each new literacy technology begins with a restricted communication function and is available only to a small number of initiates (424).
It’s wild to think about what will be next.	My contention in this essay is a modest one: the computer is simply the latest step in a long line of writing technologies (424).
I bet that when the pencil was invented, people had issues with the fact that stories were not orally told as much.	The pencil may seem a simple device in contrast to the computer, but although it has fewer parts, it too is an advanced technology (426).
This is the reason my husband and I bicker while I’m here at school sometimes. Texts cannot relay how a person says something. I need to hear a voice.	Writing lacks such tonal cues of the human voice as pitch and stress, not to mention the physical cues that accommodate face to face communication (428).
Hmmmm…still sounds familiar with us for our classes.	Questions of validity came up because writing was indeed being used to perpetrate fraud (429).
Wow. I didn’t know this. He can be compared to Bill Gates.	Despite the silence, Thoreau devoted ten years of his life to improving pencil technology at his family’s pencil factory (430).
This makes me chuckle. How could it have been impractical if you can instantly speak to someone that’s miles away?	The telephone was initially received as an interesting but impractical device for communicating over distance (433).
Every technology advancement we make threatens more and more of our privacy. It’s scary when you think about it, and yet I still Facebook and save passwords in my computer.	Of course the telephone was not only a source of information. It also threatened our privacy (433).
This is funny, too. I can just see older people who were resisting the technology, just like my dad does today, shouting in the phone and cursing when they hang up.	People had to learn how to converse on the telephone: its sound reproduction was poor; callers had to speak loudly and repeat themselves to be understood, a situation hardly conducive to natural conversation (434).
I never really stopped to think about where Hello and Goodbye originated for phone conversations. Many people I talk to on the phone start with “yeah” and don’t say goodbye at all. I still find that rude.	Initially, people were unsure of appropriate ways to begin or end phone conversations and lively debates ensued (434).
Thank god they kept on. I am one that readily admits I rely on it heavily.	Only die-hards and visionaries considered word processing worth pursuing… (435)
I didn’t know that early stages of computer didn’t keep up with typing speed. I bet this was a big milestone!	WYSIWYG=What you see is what you get
That’s what I enjoy about this text, though, and what my students enjoy as well. The ability to question.	A writer’s reputation, or that of a publisher, predisposes readers to accept certain texts as authoritative, and to reject others (436).
Specifically in court trials. I think forensic linguists are very interesting, but regardless, I still handwrite poetry before I type it. The screen of the computer being a box is symbolic to what it does to my creativity. It limits it.	We have learned to trust writing that leaves a paper trail (436).
I just think this should be a slogan on t-shirts for techies. J	Even the pencil itself did not escape the wrath of educators (438).

Baron--Dialectical Notebook

Shitty Narrative

    My earliest memory of learning to read was sitting on my uncle's lap and reciting the story of Cinderella, turning the pages as the words ended, but fooling him into believing that I was actually reading it when I had memorized it. He was in awe of my ability to read at the age of four and I was so proud. I began having my mom read to me the same stories over and over again so I could memorize them, to trick more people, to become the awesome child. As an adult I realize that this was a way to learn how to read because I was memorizing what the words looked like, too.
    However, my next memory of big moments in reading was the series of Anne of Green Gables, in which the main character is highly dramatic and thus began my diva nature and performance tendencies in storytelling. Other influences were my mother always reading romance novels that I was not allowed to see the pages of because once I'd asked what "quivering loins" were, and auto mechanic books because that's all my father read and in order to be close to him  wanted an understanding of his vocabulary to have dialogue with him.
    So when I began writing poems in high school about how sex was like engines, that oils are checked and filters are necessary, revving the engine in park is like foreplay, and going too fast is dangerous, no one else understood that the romance and mechanic books had led to my detentions. I was just making accurate metaphors that no one appreciated. Until now.

Malcolm X IWA

"Learning to Read"

Summary:

     In Malcolm X's "Learning to Read," he writes about being in prison and learning how to read and understand text. He began by writing out the dictionary, section by section, and studying the words. Once he knew enough words to begin reading text, he read everything empowering to his race that he could find. He was like a sponge and could not stop the thirst for knowledge about his people's history and theories about oppression. While Malcolm became powerful in his knowledge and beliefs, he also influenced others to take hold of their own power and education.

Before You Read:

Start a conversation with friends, roommates, family or classmates about whether and how "knowledge is power."

I started a conversation with friends from Southern Ohio about the concept that knowledge is power and we all agreed that it is powerful in three different ways in our personal culture: one, it has supplied me and my friends with the understanding of why our area is poor, two, we know we have the ability to leave the area to survive, and three, we understand the want to stay to empower others.  Knowledge, in our conversation, equals a lot of life-changing power.

QDJ:

Who seems to be Malcolm X's intended audience? How do you know?

His intended audience is two-fold: I believe it to be those who question Malcolm's education and young black people who he wishes to inspire to by telling them of their past and how to change things.
I know this because of his comments about how his education was better than any college (to build credibility) and then the subject matter is enticing to those who do not know what he speaks of.

AEI:

I would tell a person learning to read to use a Kindle. You can choose electronic books that you are interested in based on a subject, a lot of books are now free, and it has a dictionary feature that lets you highlight any word for an instant definition.

MM:

I think my professor would say that the most important part of the text is to acknowledge the different sponsors people have for literacy and that Malcolm X had an open literacy as far as choice of what he read, but a limited based on what influenced him to read what text. He was limited by hatred and influenced by history. I would agree.

hooks IWA

"Writing Autobiography"

Summary:

       In "Writing Autobiography," bell hooks grapples with the trying to write her autobiography in order to "kill" her former self. She wanted to get past the child she was and become a new person, leaving behind the memories of a terrible childhood. However, through her discovery that memories can not always be factual, and are forever tainted by the feelings of the person experiencing it, she comes to an understanding that her memories and account of events are different from her family members'. She also realizes that the memories will always be present and triggered at some of the most inopportune times, opposite of her original thought that she would lose the essence of the memory all together. bell hooks soon come to a level place in negotiation with herself that the childhood she was trying to kill needed to be rescued and by writing the memories it was healing her traumatic feelings and tension between who she used to be and the woman she is now.

Before You Read:

I actually am already writing my autobiography and it starts at the moment when I realized that my childhood was not at all normal and that there really is no "normal" at all. My mother was mentally ill and had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so a lot of big events in my childhood correspond to mental breakdowns of her own. While PTSD patients live life in a series of memories, flashbacks, and determining what is real and what is not, I tell my stories corresponding with these milestone memories. It is choppy, jumpy, and mimics the disease she suffered. 

As you Read:

I can most definitely understand wanting to kill off one's childhood. However, I am who I am because of that childhood. 

QJD:

1.      

      What does hooks mean when she writes that she wanted to “kill” her self through her writing? 

I think hook's means that she wanted to kill herself through her writing  because often once you write out a memory, you feel that you do not have to return to it. Once it's explored and out, you feel that you can move on and rewrite who you are by coming to terms with the memory and becoming someone new.

AEI:

1.      Have you ever had to change your identity for something that you needed to write? How does this relate to McCloud’s mask? 

I  

      I have changed my identity to write something. In fact, the first writing contest I ever won was under a fictitious name because I feared if anyone knew who I was, they would put me and my brother and sister in foster care because of what was happening. So I wrote the piece in high school, won the prize, and then never claimed it.

Teaching journal 9/24-9/28

             For Monday my class had read Dawkins and Bryson and completed an IWA and a Dialectical Notebook. I have noticed that their Dialectical Notebook entries consist of a lot of unknown words and definitions for them. While I appreciate them looking into the word definitions, I'm wondering how long it takes them to do their homework if they have to look up so many before they can read and understand the argument. Their vocabulary bank is far less than what I expected. However, many of them were excited about the reading because it fits with their constructs and made great sources for their papers. They found Bryson entertaining and one student  compared Bryson to being the "Stephen Colbert" of composition theory. I'd not thought of it that way, but I see my student's point. Bryson does make fun of silly rules and critiques the way in which the rules came into place. 

                 For their in-class example, I had each one of them bring in one page of an essay of their own having removed all punctuation.  We traded with partners, including me, and did punctuation work on the other student's paper. They had a lot of fun with the exercise, realizing the tone changed tremendously with different authors and punctuation. After doing this for 15 minutes, I then applied this to when they peer review. I explained, surface level punctuation on first drafts is not to be mentioned, but we should examine the use in which the author intends for such punctuation before wanting to correct. So on Wednesday, when we peer reviewed the sample essay in class,  could tell that they had applied the ideas well. there was actually a debate in which two students grappled with the use of a question mark and how it changes the whole paper. Interesting stuff, this composition teaching.

Brandt Dialectical Notebook

I think this is an idea that many people need to evaluate, since literacy feels to be declining.	Literacy looms as one of the great engines of profit and competitive advantage of the 20th century… (333).
This is such an interesting point, that we are influenced daily by it, just not recognizing literacy for what it is: a means of furthering and advancing.	When economic forces are addressed in our work, they appear primarily as generalities: contexts, determinants, motivators, barriers, touchstones. But rarely are they systematically related to the local conditions and embodied moments of literacy learning that occupy so many of us on a daily basis (334).
I love this idea. I’d love to write a nonfiction piece about my influences. My grandmother couldn’t read or write at all. She signed her name by making an X. I think I’ll also do this to learn more about my students’ experiences.	In the interviews, people explored in great detail their memories of learning  to read and write across their lifetimes, focusing especially on the people, institutions, materials, and motivations involved in the process (334).
I would love to do a study and series of interview with people n Scioto County. My assumptions would be that cultural influences their literacy greatly.	Patterns of sponsorship became an illuminating site through which to track the different cultural attitudes people developed toward writings. reading as well as the ideological  congestion faced by late-century literacy learners as their sponsors proliferated and diversified (334).
Agreed. Now how do we address students who come from very limited sponsorship opportunities?	In whatever form, sponsors deliver the ideological freight that must be borne for access to what they have (335).
People make impressions on our literacy, like cookie presses.	The concept of sponsors helps to explain, then, a range of human relationships and ideological pressures that turn up at the scenes of literacy learning (335).
“The literacy crisis” exists. People struggle everyday where I am from to meet the standards. The gap is sometimes visible to others, and sometimes not.	The three key issues on bottom of 336.
Twelve years old is still the average age in Scioto County of getting the first home computer. This is more than 40 years later than the period Raymond was born in.	Raymond [born in 1969] received his first personal computer as a Christmas present from his parents when he was twelve years old (337).
So peripherals for every student is different based on what the parents do for a living. Interesting.	Lopez was being sponsored by what her parents could pull from the peripheral service systems of the university (338).
Ordinary is what?	As I have been attempting to argue, literacy as a resource becomes available to ordinary people largely through the mediations of more powerful sponsors (339).
I love this quote. My husband is still part of the workforce that involves physical work and not a lot of challenging intellectual circumstance. He is eagerly awaiting his turn to go to school.	This move brought dramatic changes in the writing practices of union reps, and, in Lowery’s estimation, a simultaneous waning of the power of workers and the power of his own literacy (341).
The use of the word “arena” is great here. It shows the competition she alludes to so much.	These transformations become the arenas in which new standards of literacy develop (342).
This is confusing to me. I though the gap was the literacy crisis.	It is actually this gap or lag in sponsoring forms that we call the rising standard of literacy (344).
I would love to have a source for this.	Clerical work was the largest and fastest-growing for women in the 20th century (345).
So many things in our intellectual environment shapes us. It’s almost a percentage game to see how much we truly direct ourselves.	Just as multiple identities contribute to the ideological hybrid character of these literacy formations, so do institutional and material conditions (347).
This is so powerful. And people still question whether or not the American Dream happens. It does in forms, and it mattered to her.	Her efforts to move her family up in the middle class involved not merely contributing a second income but also, from her desk as a bookkeeper, reading her way into an understanding of middle-class economic power (348).
This is still a tremendous amount!	I am sure that sponsors play even more influential roles at the scenes of literacy learning and use than this essay has explored (348).
How true this is. I didn’t realize how interesting it is until now.	The history of literacy is a catalogue of obligatory relations (348).

Teaching Journal 9/17-9/21

            I had an interesting week with my class, to say the least. I'm going to back track in the week for organizational purposes. On Friday, my class turned in their Intro and Synthesis. I have spent ALL weekend commenting on them and helping them formulate more fluid thoughts. For the most part, they are well informed and are understanding well. I do have several students that continue to only strive to kiss mediocrity on the cheek, but I have two that barely meet the requirements and relish n the idea of being a tad under what I expected for first drafts of thoughts. I'm getting random quotes pulled from articles with no context or summary. It's just being used as a space filler and a citation to cross off the list of barely acceptable. I will be explaining more to them on Monday.
           Backtracking in sequence, Wednesday my class met Porter and Bernhardt. They liked their ideas and  merged the two together with a PowerPoint demonstrating Porter's intertextuality as well as providing visual aids to flow into Bernhardt. The reason I had to merge the two readings though are because of the unique and hopefully isolated event of Monday. Monday is the day I wish to focus on.
          I met Monday with excitement, not knowing that my students were already broken-hearted due to other events. Because a student at the university had died and I had no idea, the student's room mate informed me at the beginning of class. He explained that he didn't do his homework because he couldn't and apologized.  I was taken back by the fact that he felt the need to apologize for something that was obviously out of his control, but that he also said it with tear-filled words and felt that he couldn't stop for a moment to understand it was okay. I had to take a moment to collect myself. I was stunned. My student, this sturdy young man was on the edge of tears and I was trying to decide whether to continue with Porter. As he tried to not cry, friends of the deceased student began talking and then several were crying. It was a chain reaction that I could not stop, nor did I think I should. It was important to them, this breaking point, that one student described as "The world keeps moving and no one is stopping to say someone is dead. I don't understand."
For a moment I feared that I would be Murray and describe death to young people having the most innapropriate or awkward things to say. Thankfully, I did not. Instead, I let them cry. I told them that I hoped  that if any of them ever needed someone to talk to that they could talk to me and that Psychological Services was actually an excellent place to talk as well. I told them that I was thankful it wasn't any of them and sad that it was anyone at all. And then we journaled. We journaled for twenty minutes about things we could and could not change. We shared and then I dismissed. And now I'm thankful that even though my class was a little behind, I don't have to think about what I could have changed about that moment in which, they were  homesick and weary about the real world that had just slapped them in the face and just needed someone to say "It's okay to cry."

Bryson IWA

"Good English and Bad"

Summary:

Bryson attacks the idea of what good and bad English consists of by saying those in charge of the rules are prejudice and conditioned. The situation of debate seems ironic and amusing when Bryson tells us that the English language is a mixture of several other languages and many of the rules for English come from Latin (also not English). So why, then, would there be problems with English being fluid and evolving when the very beginning of the language began that way? Throughout history "higher-ups"have called for constraint to purify and keep regulated our language, while they changed the rules for their own purposes. As life is fluid, so is language, and there is no way to stop its evolution, nor is there a reason to judge one construction of it better than another.

Before You Read:

I am very different in my opinion on what is good and bad English. I consider good English to capture a real voice, relay a complete thought, but be unique in the process. I consider bad English to be a jumbling and confusing thought or a plain, dull, and boring regurgitated thought constructed to means of approval. I think both are mockeries of the beauty our language can be.

QJD:

Bryson is questioning the construct of what constitutes good and bad use of English language. He quotes writers as using the language incorrectly, but deeming it as acceptable because of their namesake, while requesting constraint on the very language they misuse, according to their own rules.

AEI:

Bryson says language changes overtime by the way words are used and those that adapt it. I think Bryson would condone a lot of the changes of our day. I think he believes language lives and breathes just as we do.

MM:

Noun, verb, indirect object, direct object, adjective, adverb, prepostion, prepositional phrase, conjunction.
I did learn these in school, and actually I'm pretty proud that I listed them in a sentence without all of the pieces making sense, especially since I used a period at the end. the grammarian in me is appalled, yet proud. I do think it inhibits my writing sometimes because I'm constantly aware of it and wondering what will be the main point when someone looks at my writings: the correct use of grammar or my earth-shattering ideas. (hehe).  <-------Not a complete sentence.

Dawkins IWA

"Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool"

Summary:
           John Dawkins approaches conversation of punctuation and teaching it as a rhetorical method: that is, as if punctuation is a choice how to use by the author. He deems that in the past "rules" have been established so that writers will learn the proper use before they misuse it for different purposes. He questions how many of us have heard the phrase "You have to know the rules before you can break them." Most of us have heard this before and Dawkins questions whether or not this phrase is true. He gives MANY examples of cases in which grammar handbooks create strict rules, and then compares grammatical uses in essays to show more realistic applications that involve flexibility and author's choice. In conclusion, Dawkins sums up his point with the idea that the reason manuals are faulty are because there is more than one or two ways to write something. Therefore, rules cannot be set in stone, so to speak, because the opportunities of grammatical use are not as strict as the rule itself.

Before You Read:
My sister's treehouse (made of wood scraps and cardboard) made a great place to play with her friends.
The wood scrap and cardboard treehouse made a great place to for my sister to play with her friends.
A great place to play with my sisters friend was in the treehouse made of wood scraps and cardboard.

The rules in which I have used are basically the same for all three sentences: to keep the verb the same in each sentence but to switch the position of subject and object, allowing identifiers to stay with what they identified.

As you read...
We should conclude that, in Dawkin's view, writing that does not follow one set of rules is the more natural, realistic way in which we approach language and writing everyday. He would think it's the most accurate.

QDJ:

I know more about punctuation now than before I read, by far. I agree with Dawkins that handbooks have it wrong with they force strict policies because it intimidates students and writers. What if something brilliant is written but never put into the word because the author is afraid it's grammatically incorrect? Good writing can be grammatically incorrect and grammatically incorrect works can also be boring and a waste of time to read.

AEI:

Reading the obituary of a 93 year-old woman, I realize that the sentences are shorter than her life by far. The most complex sentence in the whole piece is the combination of her surviving relatives. It's grammatically correct, yet merely factual and a tad boring. No stories with complex ideas and tales. The most interesting thing about it is her name, which was Alexandra Johnstein.

MM:

I think I gain from this article a sense that not all authority believe the same strict grammatical rules, that someone's opinion that matters has been heard and is on the side of creativity and reality.

Lanham Dialectical Notebook

I know many people that think that Kindle is death to the physical book and holding the spine of it while reading. Perhaps they need to read this.	So books are not going to die, and neither is the literature contained in them (16).
Indeed! I keep telling my poet friends that refuse to release their chapbooks on e-format that they are taking away readers by doing so.	Writers who decide not to compete in this new market place but to dedicate their text to fixed print only have become the clerks of a historical Mode (17).
I find it ironic that the creator of a work cannot reproduce it for example because of the new format.	I can’t really show them to you, only flat snapshots of a process that occurs in dynamic three-dimensional space (18).
And what would MCloud or Elbow say about the voice of the piece that is newly projected? Does it take away from author intent?	We notice, too, that Professor Minsky is wearing a sport shirt. He talks with a certain accent (19).
This is true. Imagine literature favorites of old in new ways. It could be interesting!	We may respond to the marginal animation in ways text would never elicit (19).
Does this go with trying to make the reader lose their own interpretation, though? Writers don’t want to do that. However, it could be used as framing, too.	Gesture, and the presentation of self of which it forms a central part, constitute an enormous band of our expressive spectrum (20).
Text is the hungry- for-attention middle child at this point. If it’s not classic and not visually vamped, anyway.	Text, I said earlier, seeks to monopolize our attention (21).
It’s not going to work. You can’t close the door that’s already open and exciting for the next generation.	Fixed print designers have recently been trying to map this three dimensional world back onto the two-dimensional page (23).
That’s true. There are word puzzles and reading tricks that prove we are numb to letters and there combinations. But when you change the letters, it becomes a new challenging task just to read. Is this good, though?	The alphabet in digital three-dimensional space returns us to the world Havelock dismissed. It makes us think (27).
See above.	Take a flat letter and revolve it 360 degrees. But why would one want to do this? The very lack of motivation, the playfulness, of the exercise carries a whiff of something in the air (28).
This is just a beautiful and enticing thought meant to be poetry.	As far back as we care to look, letters have always wanted to move (30).
McCloud would love this!	A textual cartoon? (30).
Love the idea that it is the combination of both that keeps us excited.	We cannot exist, after all, only by breathing out abstraction, alphabets which do not think; nor only by breathing in animation, alphabets which do; but only by respiration, the life-giving oscillation of the two.