Anzaldua

Anzaldua Reading-

Pre-reading:

3. I have never read or watched an interview from my favorite author or actor but I thought similar to this would be my favorite artist, Rihanna. I have always followed interviews that various websites and people have had with her and enjoy watching them so much. I bought Rihanna’s first album not really knowing much about her but immediately fell in love with her music. I think following her so closely and listening to all her interviews has helped me see a completely different side of her. It has helped me see past her specifically “pop” style and see who she really is. It lets you know where she comes from and what she has been through. I think interviews let you see inside the inspiration that comes behind their music or ideals. It helps you see their works in a completely different light because you might have thought the meaning behind their songs or writing or movies is one way when actually it could mean something completely else. Watching Rihanna’s interviews helped me see the pain but also strength that is behind her music and strong attitude.

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

1.       I think it is definitely a big change from the readings we have read. Yes, we have read readings about other discourses and very specific language used in those discourses but this gives us an inside of her very specific language with no explanation. I think it confuses but at the same time it makes the piece more personal. I definitely think that it doesn’t take anything away from the reading! It adds something different and individual. It almost proves her point more because she shows she is not afraid to embrace her past and show the difference between the typical “white English”. She keeps her history and past with her throughout her whole life and is very proud of it. I think she made the choice to do this because of the reasons I have listened. So people can relate to her heritage and see what she is all about. She is showing her audience her heritage. She uses it to prove her point and it would also be cool for people that could actually read it. Then it would connect them to the reading that much more!

3 ) I do not think that to be a writer you have to trust and believe in yourself. I believe anyone can be a writer. I do believe to put your all into your writing and truly show you audience your whole self you have to trust and believe in yourself. You have to trust and believe in your writing and what you have to say. You have to trust in your thoughts and ideals that you will portray what you want to portray. You have to believe in your thoughts and not question what you believe in. You have to be confident in what you are bringing to your audience. I think personally, I do believe in my writing. Sometimes I don’t, for example when I write a paper. When I am forced to write a paper about something I don’t believe in I get anxiety and I am not so confident. I think that when I get to free write or creatively write I trust and believe in that writing.

Applying and Exploring Ideas:

2.       I think it would completely have made the writing 100% different. Like in the question above, the way she writes gives the reading so much character and all that would be gone if she wrote in the traditional academic format. The traditional format just seems so boring to me and if you read so much, I find myself losing interest very fast. You keep reading the same thing over and over again and it becomes very boring. You need a change to keep your mind wondering and going until the end. I think this helps the writing become more effective because it keeps the reader attentive and it connects you so much more to the writing. It helps you see inside of her history and show that she wants to keep the audience going. It shows her creative writing skills and care with her writing. To connect it with the last question, it shows her confidence in her writing.

3.       I think that this is very true. Like the famous quote “A picture’s worth a thousand words”, I truly believe it does. Images can say things that words can never say. They can show many things that words could never describe or show. It gives you a look into what is actually going on. Instead of having words trying to describe a picture, you actually see the picture! I think I would use pictures for a situation when I had to show somebody exactly what I mean. It is hard to describe a picture using words so showing a picture gets right to the point. You show and get your message across directly. Or if you want, you can actually provoke thought through a picture. You can display things that are not directly shown in the picture. You can get different thoughts and ideas through a picture. I think art is a huge example where my thoughts and emotions are provoked on a deeper level than words could ever do.

Alexander Reading

Alexander Reading

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

6. I think the concepts of male/female and masculine/feminine can be a huge restriction for all people. Just like we did the other day in class, every time you read a quote or an article or a book, there is always a story behind it. Depending on whether they are female or male it changes how the writer writes and it affects how the audience see’s and interprets the writing. People can either embrace the restriction or want to fight against it. I think it restricts people who want to come from a general background. For example, people that want to appeal to women and men or all kinds of people. It also restricts people who don’t want to be coming from any background. Like talked about in the reading, maybe if you are coming from a Trans or queer background and you are trying to appeal to those concepts. You don’t want to be restricted by titles or specific groups. These restrictions can be restrictive for all people, not just females or males. It can be restrictive for people who don’t want to sound masculine or feminine or both.

7. I think the student narratives definitely help reinforce the gender stereotypes and gender. First of all, I think it is a perspective that more students my age would have so it is something that I can easily relate to and then that puts me into the reading. I now have a connection to the reading so it makes it easier to read. I think it also gives a look into what society thinks about this topic. It can be very controversial but the story in the beginning when the class was able to label the FtM person into a man shows you that society is more understanding. At the same time there still are gender stereotypes. It is easy for us to know that we have two labels; man or woman. Our society is changing and there are now changes to this. So I think that is why the students go straight to what they have known their whole life and what they’ve always been used to.

Applying and Exploring:

3. I think that “normally” gendered students isn’t even the correct way to say it but I believe that we can gain a lot from exposure to trans theory in our composition classrooms. I think this is a point that I struggle with and that many college kids do. Why do we have to take all these classes if it has nothing to do with my major? It’s for reasons like this; you take an English class to expand your knowledge. I think it is not right to be a part of your environment and society and not be educated about what is out there. It is beneficial for me and students my age to know about all kinds of people and to not be ignorant to new ideas. We have to be able to open up and accept the changes that our happening. I think this does hold true for every minority discourse because there all opportunities to open up to new things and ideas.

Deplit & Smitherman

Delpit Reading

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

1.       I honestly don’t think that it matters that she never reveals her race to the audience. To me, good writing should almost be a mystery. You shouldn’t be able to know if the writer is a women or man or black or white, it should make no difference if the writing is good. Even though the context of the writing has to do with racial identity and struggles of races and discourses, a white person could be writing about that.  It doesn’t matter her race, it matters her background. So whether it is from a white or black or Mexican race it shouldn’t matter. All that should matter is that they have enough background with the subject to have knowledge with it and whether the writing is good. I think if you know her background and race it changes how I perceive the writing. Although it doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing or good thing, it definitely changes how I perceive the audience.

 

3) It’s hard because I think I agree with both Delpit and Gee. Although she says that she agrees with Gee’s idea she does propose her problems with it. She is arguing that there are opportunities to overcome to obstacles that might airy with gaining a new discourse. She argues that teachers should teach all kids with an equal opportunity for all kids to learn and be able to gain discourse whether their class or race. She also argues that it isn’t impossible to change or gain new discourses. I think she definitely has a good argument here and she has many good background from it. I think just by reading it you can tell one of her most effective parts of her argument is here own personal story. Although it is not thrown out at you, you can tell by her emotion and connection to the story and it helps her argument. It helps that she has hands on information to direct people in the classroom.

 

Applying and Exploring Ideas:

 

3) I think that generalization can be both effective and problematic in writing and I have talked about this before when answering the questions for Malionwitz. It is true that they can be both beneficial and hurtful, sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t work. Generalizations can be hurtful because you could be putting someone into a category that they are not in. I can definitely see generalizations in this reading because you can tell it is more directed towards people of color and therefore you putting all people of color into this generalization. She does have a bunch of stories and outlooks on the subject but the generalization can be hurtful to some people. I think they are effective to the main idea because it is what the article about but it can be problematic for people in these groups that don’t believe the same ideas. They could completely not agree with what she has to say.

 

Smitherman Writing

“Pre Reading”:

In high school I had to read the book called “A Lesson before Dying” which the character is getting executed and is dealing with the idea. He was a from the deep south and had a strong dialect. It was difficult to understand what he was saying like the words and hard to decipher what he was trying to say. Our teacher had to help and go over and pick out words and explain them to us. It was almost like a translation from one dialect to ours.

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

2.        I think Smitherman is using Black Idiom to prove a point. He could be saying it to get a rise out of people or make people think that he is uneducated or that is how he originally speaks. I think that he uses it to prove a point. He is saying that it is not exactly connected with the black community and you should not be able to discuss these two together. I completely agree with this because anybody could have that kind of talk. I think he is using it rhetorically because he is using it to prove his point, not just doing it for fun or to get a rise out of his audience.

Applying and Exploring Ideas:

5. I definitely agree with his when he says that there is a vital difference. Someone could read that and take two completely different ideas from it. A person who is black or white, or educated or uneducated could maybe not be able to understand one but not understand the other. In my opinion the difference is purely errors in the English. To me, “God doesn’t ever change” makes more sense. I think I think this because of my background and my discourse of English. That sentence is how I would speak or write so I automatically relate to it. The significance of “God don’t never change” I think again is done for a purpose to prove his point.

Flynn Reading

Flynn Reading

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

2. I think that time is definitely a huge factor to consider in a piece of written work. You wouldn’t look at a piece of writing say about the technology from the 1800’s and technology today and be able to compare it! Time causes a huge change in writing. Although I definitely think that there are ways you can try to make them similar, time changes writing a lot. Even great works like Shakespeare, yes, it is a truly great work but can you compare it to how we now fight or love? I don’t think so. Although old written pieces are everywhere around us, new ones are also. Everyday someone is writing something or sharing a new theory. They can still survive through years and generations, there just not comparable to up to date work. Just like this piece of work, women were treated very differently even thirty years ago then they are now. Although we can pick out similar things, a lot has changed.

3. This quote has a strong and meaningful meaning behind it. She states that she believes there is not much women literature in this time; that woman’s voices have been suppressed and silenced. They have seemingly been swept under the rug so that they are not heard. That in a way, the literature that is out there for woman has been very small and very generalized. This is where the universal idea comes in saying that all women should believe the same thing and that their ideas are all the same. What every knowledge that woman are allowed to have is all the same. Individual voices are silenced and no one has a real opinion because they get generalized or not heard all together. This makes it even more difficult for women who are in minorities. They are all merged into one grand idea not only because of their gender but not their race also.

5. I think there are definitely parts of Chodorow’s claim about feminine vs. masculine identification processes are convincing but others can come up to be not true. I believe what she says about the feminine way is mostly true. I know for myself a huge part of who I am is thanks to my mother! So I would say most of me and the background I always carry with me is thanks to my mother, but at the same time I have learned a lot from my friends and situations I have been through. In other cases, some people don’t even have mothers for most of their lives and only live with their dads so they would more relate to the masculine identification. Same way with boys, some boys may not have a father so they would more likely relate to a more relational feminine approach. A boy could be very affectionate and close to his father. So although her Chodorow’s approach seems to be quite right and convincing, I do not believe it is entirely true, it is more for the generalization.

Applying and Exploring:

4. I definitely think that her article does show generalization. Although in some aspect she is sticking up for women and their rights in women’s literature, this is only her view. So even though she does not mean to generalize, there is almost no way to avoid it! This is still looking at her beliefs about the subject and even though she does bring other writers and theorists into the reading, she only brings one’s she wants to in it. I am a woman and I could completely disagree with what she has to say. So she is generalizing because as people always say there is always an exception to the rule. I think that generalizing does not have many benefits because like I said there is always somebody who is different than that generalization. Generalizations can be hurtful and not beneficial depending on what the generalization is.

5. Gender has so much influence on a writer’s language. Depending on whether you are a male or female, affects everything about you. It affects how you speak, talk, walk, how you carry yourself, and how you write. It is the basis for all the beliefs and experiences you have ever had. So depending on what you went through in your life, maybe you have been in a horrible relationship or have a sexist attitude, it would completely affect how you write. It affects how you see the world, how you see other people and how you see yourself. So you will see all these beliefs and theory’s in your writing. It affects how you speak to certain people and how you speak to your audience.

Villanueva Reading

Villanueva Reading

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

3. Starting this piece off with a memory instead of a synthesis or thesis is definitely a very nice change up from all the other pieces I am used to in this class. It is boring to read the same type of set up every single time I begin to read. So it is something to keep me interested. Also it is something that directly pulls me into the reading. It is a direct connection and story with the author. It gives me a peek into what he wants me to take away from this reading and what I am going to take away from this piece. It gives the writing a voice and a tone, something that normal original piece’s might not have, or it might not be as strong. It gives the text more dynamic and a more comfortable feeling in my opinion. It shows dreams and hopes.

4. The different poems and passages contribute to Villanueva’s point because they bring really a ton of emotion to the reading. You see so many things, hopes, dreams, fears, wishes, mishaps, so many things going on. It brings life and a sense of what these people were going through. It brings pride and ignorance. It brings a sense of who Villanueva is to someone who has never read about him before. It brings a sense of the Puerto Rican, African American, Native American; all different back grounds. It brings racism to the table and problems with our and others society’s. It shows us history and struggle to rise. It brings all these different poems and passages together to form one discourse. To show us that no matter where we come from or what we have been through, it is still very important for that to be known. Are past are supposed to be held pride and be told for others to know. We must share who we are and where we came from.

8. Although I said a big chunk of this in the question before, people who doesn’t identify as people of color could still take so much out of this reading. There is so much more meaning in this writing then simply a look at Puerto Rican Race or African American race. It is about the struggles that everyone went through and the overcoming of those struggles. It is about pulling your history through life with you and being proud of it. We need to think about living our lives as an autobiography, we carry our history and our past with us everywhere we go and with every person we meet. You carry your own personal discourse with you and who you are. It is an obligation for the world to see your discourse and to share it with them. We must know ourselves and be able to look back and look forward. We need to show people that you have to bring all of this to the table.

Applying and Exploring:

2. Intertextuality plays a huge role in this piece. It shows us that all of these various backgrounds have their own discourse of course. Inside of these discourses we have intertextuality. Every single discourse has their own intertextuality. Each discourse has its own background and language where they started from and where they came from. This shows us that intertextuality is everywhere, it is all around us and it is in everything that we are as individuals. Like the “memoria”, it shows us how that community has a different type of language that they use for their discourse. It shows us they have different values and understanding of the world than any other discourse has. Every single thing you do is affected by your memories. Your memories are your experiences, and your experiences affect how you react to everything that is new. Everything that I have been through and all of my memories affect not only how I act but how I write. So my memories to appear and affect my writing.

Dialectical Notebook

1.      “Each [of us] is a rhetorical creation. Out of an inventive world (a past, a set of capacities, a way of thinking) […we are] always creating structures of meaning and generating a style, a way of being in the world” (263)

2.      “A rhetorical perspective on autism allows me to see how something
Eli may be blocked into a portion of his invention so private, so secret, so truly original with him, that it will give rise only to private forms of structure and style that will no sustain communication with others.” (263)

3.      “When he recites long strings of stock discourse – reciting the entire script of the movie Toy Story, as he did once on a long vacation car ride – I understand that he is choosing to repeat – to inhabit for a short time, in a world that is endlessly in flux – a very familiar and comforting structure.” (263)

4.      “…rhetoric listening, a practice that urges us to fundamentally alter how we hear and respond to the discourse of others. Defined generally as a trope for interpretive invention, she says, rhetorical listening signifies a stance of openness that a person may choose to assume in relation to any person, text, or culture.” (265)

5.      “In my estimation, the missing piece from the so-called autism puzzle seems quite obvious – autistic people.” (268)

6.      “Conceiving of autism as a rhetoric, as a way of being in the world through language, allows us to reconstrue what we have historically seen as language deficits as, instead, language differences.” (269)

1.      This quote really struck out at me, not because I disagree with it but because I really agree with it. It was almost powerful and moving in my opinion. Instead of labeling as humans, they say we are “rhetorical creation” which is a way I never thought to look at things. We are each a set of beliefs and ways of thinking. I believe when they say that we are constantly looking for ways the structure or meaning of something it is very true. We are always looking, exploring new things, and trying to find a meaning in them and something that we share with it in our own lives.

2.      This is really cool to see how Heiker really speaks from personal experience. He has had to opportunity to watch and study his son to try and understand the rhetorical of autism. This helps me to also understand it just because I do not have much knowledge of it. It helps me see that just because a child or person has autism does not mean they are crazy. It helps me see that they have a language and discourse all their own. Like Heiker says a private and secret world that no one else can tap into.

 3.  This also gave me an interesting way to look into autism. It almost makes me feel like I have been misjudging the disorder from the moment I have known about it. This shows me that kids with autism are still willing to learn and they are very smart. The   interesting thing about it is that they like to learn and be around things they are familiar with and that comfort them. So rather than give a speech, Eli could memorize all the words to Toy Story.

4.      This a quote that not only can be put into conversation about autism but really anything in your life. This will be a very big thing in doing my project, so really get into a discourse you have to be able to listen. Rhetoric listening is so important so that you can really let all the previous built up walls and thoughts you had about a particular discourse and really listen to what is going on.

5.      Although I would not know much more than what I have learned really this article about the autism discourse, this quote seemed strange to me. You would never guess that somebody in the community of autism would feel this way. So misrepresented that she feels the autism puzzle piece is completely wrong and it almost offends her. It just makes you realize that things aren’t always what they seem and even big corporations sometimes seem to mask the small things underneath them.

6.      This quote has proved my wrong about what I thought autism was about and I am glad that it did. I am very glad I read this article. It showed me that autism does not make you different from anybody else. It is simply a difference in how you speak and learn.

Malinowitz Reading

Malinowitz Reading

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

2. The presence of lesbian and gay discourse in the composition classroom and the heterosexual discourse in the composition classroom in my opinion are very important. In today’s society the LGBT is larger than it has ever been before and has been making more progress than ever in history. It is no longer expected that people act like it is not there; it is a huge part of our society and even a huge part of this year’s election. So if it is all among our society, why is it not in the classroom? The importance of recognizing young people’s gender, race and class identities should be a big part of the classroom because that is where the student’s prior knowledge comes from. Their background and the way they live their lives effects everything they do, how they learn, how they speak and how they carry themselves. So to block someone’s gender, race or class out just because they are gay or lesbian can affect their learning environment and ability. It is important for political developments and liberation movements in the nation and in the world.

5. Sojourner Truth deconstructed the category of “woman” by turning it into a slave point of view. She states that nobody helps her into carriages or lifts her over ditches and she is a woman. She states that she worked as hard as each man did around her and that no one still could lead over her. She states that she could eat just as much as a man and take the same lash that a man did. She shows her strength of how she almost lost 13 of her children to slavery. She showed that women are not so fragile and that women have proved that they have earned the right to vote. They can work just as hard as men and have showed they deserve it. Truth changed the reconfigured the look of not only white women but black women also.

11. I think the term “queer” in the society I live in has become such a hurtful and wrongly used word. To me, it should never be used as a destructive word but for people that don’t agree or support the LGBT community, it could be used as hurtful. Also, it could be used as just a word to throw around between friends or take make fun or one of yours friends. To me, like Malinowitz says “queer” is a word used by young activists and artists to simply convey a broad spectrum of a person who is not in the heterosexual form. I completely agree with this. Queer should never be used as a hurtful word or used to insult someone. Queer should be a proud word used to represent a group of people. It doesn’t mean that the group is any different from the heterosexual kind. It is used to simply represent a proud group of people.

Applying and Exploring:

2. I think a huge aspect of my identity that is completely different from about 50% of the population is my gender. I am a female so what comes along with this is a completely different discourse community and language. I think I have learned much of the language in this group from my mother, the biggest teacher of who I should be but also your language could be affected by another other female I meet. My friends have a huge effect on this discourse. Being a girl comes with so much power and an completely different outlook on life than with males have. A time when these powers were silenced was already talked about even in this writing, slavery. Times like slavery and even late times in American history, women’s rights were silenced. I cannot even imagine living during this time. You always hear the quote “Women belong in the kitchen” or something around that. It is unfair to put woman in this situation. Luckily, I have never been put in a serious situation as that but men still can have sexiest opinions. Not saying all men, but they definitely still exist.

Meta Moment:

I think my instructor would say that the most important idea in the text is the adding of lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender discourse in the classroom. Malinowitz brings together a bunch of information about the background and important of this community. I think she brings it all together to show that the world is changed and evolved so much from when this community first started to show its wings in 1993. She wants to show that you cannot shut out somebody’s identity. You cannot simply teach from one angle of gender, role and class, you have to come from every angle to create a well-rounded student. It is not okay to ignore something that is such a huge part of our society, it is time to embrace it and bring the discourse into talk in our classrooms.