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.

Project #3 Topic

For Project #3 on the Discourse Community Ethnography, I chose to talk about the discourse community of Sororitys and Fraternitys. Although I am not in a fraternity or sorority, my brother just graduated from Kent State and was a member of a fraternity and I have a lot of friends who are newly in Sororitys here at Ohio University. I wanted to join this year but I actually wanted to go to ten fest more so I decided against it but I am love the idea of them. It's funny because I feel like all of my brothers "brothers" of his frat, I almost consider my brothers. The idea of the family aspect is awesome and they do a lot for the community also. There is so much going on behind Frats and Sororitys that I am so interested in and would love to be apart of the community sometime, maybe informal rush or rushing next year. I think my interest in this discourse and my connections through friends and family with this discourse will hopefully help me to find out what Sororitys and Fraternitys are really about behind closed doors.

Devitt Reading

Devitt Reading:

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

2. There can definitely be many conflicts when switching genres. A way you can see this is how it is very different when say you are asked to write a paper for your English class and then your Art History class, ironically I happen to be currently taking both of them. It seems as though the things that your English professor asks you to write could be extremely different than the things your art history teacher would be asking you to write about. Your English professor could be looking for perfect correct grammar and spelling when your art history teacher could simply be looking for the time and information you have in your paper with a less focus on perfect grammar. Writing papers definitely differs from class to class because each teacher is different and in a different discourse community that could be asking for a different approach to the paper or different set up of your information. This causes conflict because you could be better at writing a research paper in art than English maybe because you are more interested in art. So, even though you are a great writer it is harder to write about English than art and so you struggle with your English writings.

3. Some genres inside of Ohio University are seemingly endless. They could be all sorts of things like, classes your taking, the dorm you live in, if you are in a sorority or fraternity, if you play a sport, if you’re in a club, a group or organization, what your major is and your gender. All of these things could be genres that you are in and these are probably not even half of them. The purposes of these are they give you a place that you belong in at the university. They pair you with some groups of people and set you apart from a different group of people. Although it seems that I am not a part of a lot of groups or organizations, I am apart of some of the genres. I am a part of the genre of where I live, the people in my dorm and even on my floor are parts of a genre that nobody else is. I am part of a genre with my learning community. We all take the same three classes and have a class all our own where we have our own rules and language.

Applying and Exploring Ideas:

3. I think I can discover something completely different about discourse communities and their genres by researching more through ethnographic field world as opposed to reading scholarly articles because it opens up the discourse so much more. Instead of spending your time in the library reading articles and trying to dig deep into the discourse, why not go out and really see what the discourse is all about? Why not talk to the actual people, go into the field and see what is really going on. You can gain so much more from the actual group itself and talking to the members of that discourse than you could reading books about it. The people are your main source of correct up to date information. Even though it seems different because it is “scholarly” articles, the people in that actual discourse are just as good of a source if not better. They are people you can directly hear the information from rather than books or the internet.

Meta Moment:

Although this basically ties into what I said in the above question, I definitely think that the best route to understanding discourse communities occurs through ethnographic fieldwork. You can read a million and one scholarly research articles or books but nothing will compare to actually going in and deep researching on the particular discourse in which you are interested in. That way it gives you real life depictions and shows what it really is like to be in that group. Also what it takes to get into that group is going to come from putting in the hours and doing the fieldwork for it. You have to pull as much from the people in the group not just sit at home and wait for it to come to you.

Wardle Writing

1. The three ways that newcomers try to belong in a new community are engagement, imagination and alignment. Engagement is finding a common ground between yourself and old-timers as Wenger says. It is creating relationships and finding common things between the two groups. Imagination is trying to extend your knowledge and broaden your thinking. It is trying to picture a new world and trying to find your place inside of it. Trying to connect what you are doing with a broader and bigger picture. Alignment is also finding common ground but in a different way, it is using artifacts and objects to look at commonalities. It causes you to broaden your discourse and viewing other people’s goals and ambitions and aliening them with yours. These all can come with negatives though. Engagement can cause hard feelings if there is a lack of mutuality. Imagination can be disconnected and ineffective. Alignment can be a crushing blow on your personal identity.

3. The conflicts between Alan and his work community did not have positive results because Alan refused to put the correct amount of work and effort in it that he should have been putting into it. Like Wardle says he clung to his own ways of writing and communicating. He stayed stubborn and refused to open up or even perceive new ways. Like the above question, it showed the people around him that he refused to show engagement, imagination and alignment. He couldn’t imagine himself as a worker in that workplace. Therefore the people around him decided to put just as much effort into Alan as Alan was putting into them. Alan no longer felt he fit in. This all could have been very different if Alan would have showed he had engagement, imagination and alignment. He could have showed involvement and willing to change and his workplace would have accepted him more.

5. I think I agree with both of them. Although what Gee says that you will always carry with you your dominant Discourse, it is able to be manipulated and changed. I believe it can actually be completely gone away with all together. If you really want to completely change the person you are than you can. So although Alan’s dominant Discourse had a lot of affect and control on what he believed in and how he acted towards his new work place, if he would have given it his all and actually wanted to adapt he probably could have done it. People change all the time and if you really want it then it is easy. This is where I disagree with Gee because I believe he really could have worked to fit in in that workplace.

7. My teachers are an example of an institutionally ascribed authority. I think every teacher is definitely not perfect and when they disagree with something you have to say then they do seem to sort of loose their authority. If someone who is supposed to be ahead of you, you are automatically supposed to respect them but if they don’t respect you then you lose respect for them. Or maybe that’s just how I think.  When they degrade you or do something that you do not believe is right, it is hard to maintain that respect for them that you have and to see them as your authority when you believe they are completely wrong.

Gee Reading

Gee Reading

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

3. A Discourse is basically the big picture. Meaning that it is what you base your beliefs on, like he says it is “saying-doing-being-valuing-believing”. Discourses is how you base your place in the world, they are your basis for how you use words, how you act, what your values are, what your beliefs are, what your attitude is and what your social identity is. On the other hand, discourse is sort of a subcategory of a Discourse. The part of Discourse that is discourse is strictly language. They are connected stretches of language that make sense. To me, Discourse definitely makes sense but discourse is a little bit fuzzier. He makes Discourses something I can relate to but I’m not sure how discourse fits in there.

5. When he says “Discourses are connected with displays of an identity” he means that your identity is who you are. If you have complete fluency in your Discourse that that is who you are and what your life revolves around. If you are not sure of your identity or even a part of your identity then you are considered to be a “pretender”, “a beginner” or an “outsider”. As he says “You are either in it or you’re not”. If you lack frequency in the Discourse you are considered a nonmember, in turn you do not have the identity which is included in that particular Discourse.

11. Metaknowledge is the ability to see how the Discourse you already have relate to the ones that you are attempting to acquire and how the ones you are trying to acquire relate to yourself and your society. The value of metaknowledge is the liberation and power that comes from it.  This metaknowledge leads to the ability to manipulate and analyze new information; also to resist some information while advancing. Metaknowledge is a way to have an advantage and be socially maladapted.

13. A new Discourse that I would love to be involved in is to learn American Sign Language. That is a group that I would like to become an apprentice in. Yes, it can be easy to learn but there is a huge population behind this language. I love the language and it is very fun to me but to be accepted into this is very hard. It is a very patient process because you don’t get to choose if you want to be in it, they sort of have to accept you in with them based on your knowledge of the language. I would definitely have to have a good teacher and some friends involved in this Discourse. There are definitely points that I feel like a pretender because I am not deaf so this is something that I don’t need but I am interested in which this community might not understand. I would love to be in this and help people connect with the hearing world.

Applying and Exploring:

3. Dear Miss Campbell,

                We are all apart of Discourse communities in our lives. We all grow up in one, like a group we belong in that shapes who we are. My family has been my Discourse community, they are the reason I act how I act and I believe in what I believe in. There are many types of Discourses though; they could be a certain group, business, religion or language. You are a part of a very important Discourse yourself. You are a part of the Deaf Discourse and you are connected with American Sign Language Discourse. These groups have affected who you are and what you believe in throughout your entire life. Your dominant Discourse is what you began with in life and those beliefs but your nondominant Discourse is the American Sign Language Discourse that you are in. My nondominant Discourse is something I would also like to be the American Sign Language Discourse. I am asking you to help me and my fellow students join this discourse. I am willing to be patient but I would love for you to work with us to learn the language. Eventually getting respect from the Discourse and being able to join in.

Thanks!

Kelly Safford

4. Two Discourses that I belong to that have conflicts and tensions would be my church and my sorority. These two obviously have very different values, beliefs, attitudes and language use. To me, I am always the same person and I would hope that they would both accept me for the other one that I am in. I behave differently but I would never do anything to shame either. They are both a huge part of my life and I think both Discourses in some way understand that. Neither makes me change my beliefs that I have in the other. It isn’t very hard to navigate.  

Glenn Reading

Glenn Reading

Pre-Reading:

1.       I looked at an advertisement for “Chick Fil A” and it does have an animated animal. One of the main slogans they use is showing a cow holding a sign and it states “Eat More Chicken”. This is an individual thought but to me it just grosses me out. I am a vegetarian so the fact that they use this kind of advertisement making it a comedy is repulsive. Eating chicken is no better than eating a cow. It doesn’t mean I hate the company, there advertisements just do not appeal to me.  

2.       I have never grown up on a farm and vary rarely visited one so I do not have much of a connection to farm animals. That being said though, I am a huge animal lover so I love every kind of animal that is out there. I was always an outdoor kind of girl and I was in 4-H so I have had some exposure to farm animals but it was mostly horses. I’ve never really been close to a cow or a pig. Just seen them at the county fair or from a distance. I do not have much knowledge of the farm culture.

Questions for Journaling and Discussion:

1.       The main characteristics of “factory farm discourse” are the way that farm institutions create certain rules or truths that in turn becomes reality in our society. They use “doublespeak” to mislead people by being funny or avoiding certain subjects. We begin to think of things in a different way due to advertisements and “doublespeak” from the factory farm discourse and how they want to shape us to perceive animals. They make us unintentionally ignore or even endorse poor industry practices even if they are possibly very dangerous. They tend to get us to turn a blind eye but again, unintentionally. I think this type of discourse is completely unethical but it is such a wide used method that it would be so hard to fully go against it because it is all we have known. Nobody else see’s the other side of the factory farm discourse. Nobody realizes that behind the glitz and glamour there could be serious problems. This type of advertisement is misleading and full of so many bluffs and lies.

Appling and Exploring Ideas:

2.       As soon as I read this question I knew exactly what company I was going to choose, Chipotle. One of their main slogans on their website is this: “Food with integrity is our commitment to finding the very best ingredients raised with respect for the animals, the environment and the farmers.” They are not a factory farm and I know this because it says this exactly in their website. It has a page for each one of the animals it uses, pigs, cows and chickens. It tells how they are raised and specifically says that they are not raised on “factory farms” but farms that use “ranching naturally raised” methods. This way very easy to find.

4) I think one important name that comes into my head when I think of this question is Nike. Everybody knows that Nike uses sweatshops. You read every day in the paper about the harmful and deadly use of sweatshops overseas.  We read about how young foreign girls are forced to work in deadly conditions and kill themselves because they would rather die than work in the factories. All of this information is been continually thrown at our faces but does it stop the sales at Nike? No. We find a way to make living beings into non-human commodities. We are not there to feel the direct affect so it is not our problem. That seems to be the outlook of many Americans today and if I was wrong about that then they would no longer exist.

Project 2 Lab Work

Group Topic: Why is it easier to memorize something we don't have to know rather then something we are required to know?

Individual Topic: Why is it easier to memorize an whole album of music rather than my anatomy and physiology homework?

What i will bring to my group is the fact that i can listen to a whole CD for a couple days and pop it into the CD player and know the whole thing but if i try to sit down and force myself to study science or memorize math methods i cannot. I will bring this together to show the main topic how music has changed my writing and reading literacy.

Literacy

English Literacy

                It always amazed me growing up from the day that I could start to make complete sentences or sing and still does to this day that I could memorize so much. To be more specific, how I could buy an album at Best Buy listen to it for the whole day and the next day I get in my car, pop the CD in the CD player and I would have every single word to all 12 songs completely memorized in the album. I knew when to begin singing and when the chorus was going to start. So how could I memorize 12 songs with thousands of words but not memorize my anatomy and physiology before my test? I think it has something to do with the “selective hearing” that kids and teenagers have such a great sense of. The ability to listen to what we want to and memorize what we want to is a crazy feature of our brain. Growing up, music was always such a huge part of my life. From the second I was out of the womb it seemed I have been surrounded by music. One of the best things I love about going home is Sundays. A day full of family, cooking and music. Music like Chicago and James Taylor burst throughout my house, flowing from room to room. As far as I can remember, this has always been a tradition. I know I got my love of music from my dad. He has always known how to play so many instruments so it was not only the singing I got involved with but also the musical notes. So as soon as I could get into my first music class in 6^th grade I did not hesitate. Three years of music classes and four years of the highest singing group in my high school, the Vocalise, I had a passion for music. Instead of sitting down and doing my English homework I would rather sing and make music. Music and rhythm was something that became a form of literacy to me. My dad and I could sit for hours and sing together. We worked on harmonization and sung together every Sunday at church. It was something that was enjoyable and a challenge to me. I would rather read a book of notes than letters. To me, music was my favorite literacy.

Wysocki

Wysocki Reading

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

2. Wysocki is definitely trying to change up the visual field for her audience. The reading is so much different than normal readings in novels or even text books for a class. The writings in “Readings on Writings” seem to honestly usually bore me. It is always the same structure and drawn out pages of simply reading. When I have to read 10 or 20 pages of straight writing with no change up I seem to get bored and really it is just hurting myself. When I start to get bored my mind then drifts off and I began to think about other things. Therefore, the fact that she tries to change up the visual work and use different types of organization for her paper it keeps me interested. It helps that I can look at different things and my mind attracts to different areas of the paper. It keeps the flow of the paper going because you are not starring at the same pages every time you turn the paper, there is always something new to look at. I think all these qualities make it a high-visual text as Bernhardt would explain it. There is layout changes and images and things to connect your reading to an actual physical image.

Applying and Exploring:

2. I truly believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty and appreciation are individual thoughts. You cannot tell someone or force them to believe something is beautiful when in their opinion it could be foul or hideous. No one person can look at a painting, a sculpture, magazine, book, clothing, shoes, sunset or a puppy and see the same things. What we take away from things we see like said in the book, are egocentric. What we have gone through in our past shapes the way we view things and what we classify as beautiful or not. You cannot force someone to appreciate something that just does not appreciate. I agree with Wysocki on this one when she says “beauty is something we construct together”.  Beauty is not something that pleases universally like Kant believes because like I said one person could see something beautiful and the other person could see crap. Beauty is subject to opinions and social forces.

Meta Moment:

I think this statement completely applies to Wysocki’s article. I went into this reading thinking it would be like any other reading in “Readings on Writing” but even starting looking at the first page you can automatically see that it is different from a normal article. You go into every article or reading thinking that it will be the same. 10 to 20 pages of continuous information and reading and then it ends. The pictures and breaking down of different structure make her work different. So these things are what give this article more freedom and possibility of change. It pushes the boundaries of normal articles especially from the other articles that are in the same book. It pushes the horizontal and parallel lines of expected writing. It changes frequently in the writing to show different ways in which you can differentiate your writing. It gives the paper a new life and new flavor. This statement could apply to many other visual arts like magazines, articles, paintings, and drawings.

Baron Writing

Baron Writing

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

2. I do agree that one of his main messages it the fact that new technologies in writing people seem to shrug at and suggest that it is hard to see that they change the shape and nature of writing. It seems as though every time a new writing would come at, example the pencil then the telephone and the computer, it was always doubted. No matter how technologically “brand new” the idea was, everyone was hesitant to use it, even the inventors of the products. People seemed to be afraid of the change and frankly thought they did not need the change at all. They were happy with the products they had and thought any new products in writing were useless. So it seems that it is hard at first to see how much the telephone or computer changed the course of writing when you are living in its new invention period. I think this is totally correct. If you put it into today’s terms, look at the iPad. When it first came out, it had its doubters. What is the difference between it and a computer? What more can it do for me? How is it different from an iPhone? Me like a lot of other people had many doubts but we can see how big of a technological change it has had on my generation.

4. Another technology that goes exactly along with the pencil is the pen. Also just like the pen, is colored pencils and crayons. Although these are all still widely used, I can’t think of a lot of people who think of those things as “technology”. Instead of giving a child a piece of paper and some crayons, you can now sit them in front of a computer and open up “Paint” so they can interactively color and push things further than they ever could with colored pencils. You can give anybody an iPad or laptop and they suddenly can create master pieces of art, unlike they could ever do with a plain white sheet or paper and a pencil. Paper is also one; paper has hugely become a thing of the past. Use of paper, such as mailing letters or writing things on paper has gone down so much in today’s society because there are far more efficient ways to communicate. Instead of taking the time to write someone a letter on a piece of paper and mail it, you can simply shoot somebody a text. Then along with that, the mail system is also hugely down in this generation. It is simply no longer a huge part of today’s technology. I see a pattern here.

Applying and Exploring:

3. There are definitely beneficial factors to both writing that can keep records and one that cannot keep records. Say if you are writing a paper on Microsoft Word, just as I am doing right now. It is super important that I be able to save my work so I can turn in my homework and I get the grade for it. If I lost my paper I would continually have to restart every time my computer logged off or the power went out. If I want to look back at my emails to remember something my mother sent me, it is important that I have the ability to save those records. Also with text messages, sometimes you need to look back and see what a person said so you need those records safe. Along with the negative side can be fraudulent and hurtful things. There is always work to be stolen when your technological ways of writing are simply floating around the internet. Things that you do not want to end up on the internet like phone call conversations, text conversations, pictures, emails can have the ability to stay on the internet forever. Paper is a huge way of keeping records but at the same time is nowhere concrete as a phone or a computer. Paper can be easily burned.

Meta Moment:

It is definitely hard for me to think of writing as a technology in the generation that I grew up in but I definitely consider it a technology. If we did not have writing such as pencils, pens, telephones, computers, phones, email, Facebook, twitter, we would simply still be cavemen (over-exaggerating of course). But at the same time, it would take us way back in history. We would be much more less advanced and have trouble with every day simple tasks that seem like no problem at all today. Writing is definitely a technology that we take for granted. It is not something you think about every time you write, but it is a privilege to have a way to communicate with a person. It can bring us closer to a person who is across the world. We can share news and pictures immediately with family and friends wherever they are. It is a privilege to have writing in such a technological way in this generation.

10/3 Reading

Malcolm X:

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

1.       It seems that Malcolm’s audience could be a different number of people. In one way you could say that his audience is young black men in jail or young black men struggling on the streets that want to drop out of school. Men that went through the same thing that he went through and he wants to show them the difference an education can make. Another audience you could say was black people in general because they can relate to every argument and every book he ever read on slavery or oppression of African Americans. Though, I think I anybody can relate to this reading. We can all relate to having struggles that we have had to push through and show resilience. Everybody at some point in their lives has a wakeup call that can truly change your life.

3) Malcolm’s literary sponsors include Charlestown prison, his letters, Mr. Elijah Muhammad, Bimbi, Norfolk Prison Colony’s Library, and Parkhurst. I think the two biggest that stand out of these groups were the prison and Muhammad. Malcolm lived a life on the streets before going to prison and weirdly enough, if he did not have that opportunity he wouldn’t have gained all the knowledge and maturity he has after he gets out. Prison opened him up to a place where he had almost fifteen hours to write and read each day. It was a safe environment with free, available all the time, books! Prison is what started his interest in reading. The other motivator, Muhammad is a man that he mentions and continually goes back to so much in the reading. He wrote to him all the time and he felt embarrassed of his writing skills. Therefore through his letters he wanted to change. He took away so much knowledge from Muhammad’s teaching.

6. When I am truly motivated to read, I will read up a storm. This is my thing; I am so much more motivated to read when I am not forced to a time limit or a book that I just really do not want to read. On the contrary and example like college, I am truly motivated to read because it is something I have to do to get my education, broaden my knowledge and become a well-rounded individual in society. I think there are so many motivators to my reading but the main one is I. I know what I want to read and when I want to do it. I know what I have to read and when I have to do it.

Applying and Exploring Ideas:

1.       Technologies such as the World Wide Web, text messaging, Skype, Facebook and Twitter have totally changed the literacy in the United States today. Instead of writing talk to you later, you can write “ttyl”, instead of laughing you can now write “LOL” and instead of saying see you later, you can write “cya”. When you read a text messaging conversation between two teen girls it seriously can seem like there are illiterate. Technology is faster and more efficient so we have found faster and more efficient ways to communicate, read and speak to each other. I can still sit down and write a well thought out and correct punctuation essay but when I am texting or tweeting my friends it sounds nowhere near that.

2.       The biggest literary sponsor I had early in my childhood that had the most impact on my life and my reading and writing today would definitely my mother. While I went through pre-school, kindergarten and first years of elementary school I struggled with reading. I truly could not really catch onto the concept of it. I was put into special classes and after school groups. I was taken out of class to do extra help. I took lunch and recess time to try to grasp the concept. I carried myself through all of this while my mother watched as I continued to be unsuccessful. She watched my frustration and tears as I realized everyone around me was starting to read bigger books then me and faster than me. I just didn’t understand why I could not get it. So one day she finally got fed up, she took me out of all the extra help and decided to take the task on herself. She worked as a cleaning lady and got to schedule her own hours so whenever I needed her to be there, she was. So it began, every day after school we walked down to the library a couple blocks from my house. We would talk out sentences or words that I didn’t understand that day at school. Instead of shoving in down my throat like all the help at school seemed to do, she had the time and the patience to really explain it to me. Once we got into the library it was like a giant jungle gym to me. Books high and books low, places to sit, computers, activities and so many things to look at! That is finally where I got to experience freedom in my writing and reading. So my mom set me loose to pick out any book from any section I wanted. It could be about butterflies or it could be about dinosaurs but the most important thing was that it was MY choice.  After that we sat down in a place where I was comfortable. A place where I could focus but at the same time I was relaxed. I wasn’t forced into a classroom with screaming kids around me. I got to go at my speed not what some instructor expected me to do. The most important thing about all of this, everything was my choice. She sat with me for however long it took and we looked at each individual word and each individual sentence. She put things together and explained things to me in a way that made sense to me. I was learning but at the same time I was enjoying it and it did not have to feel like learning. There was no pressure just me and my mom spending time together. So every day I began to learn new words and new meanings. I started to learn what words should go with other words and put images to my words. Instead of being scared and afraid or reading, I actually began to like it. All I needed was someone to be patient and show me that reading is fun and a way to open up your world into endless possibilities. My mom showed me this world with a way that I could enjoy. She took the time, she had the patience and she actually cared about my understanding. Although it was a long process and was at many times difficult my mom helped shaped the great reader I became into. Throughout the rest of my schooling, I loved reading. Every summer my mom would pay my five dollars for every book I completed and at that age that was big bucks!! She encouraged me to read in a way that was enjoyable and truly shaped the literary person I am today.

Meta Moment:

I think what you get out of this reading is definitely an individual thing. He isn’t trying to teach you a topic or prove a point, he is promoting learning. What you get out of this article is almost personal. So whatever my teacher would say that I could get out of this could be completely different than what I take out of it. For me, I can relate to the story because I’ve gone through a lot of bad things in my life to get to really good things. So I can relate to Malcolm’s resilience and hunger to learn.

 

Alexie Reading:

Applying and Exploring:

1.       I totally agree that anyone can truly overcome poverty and discrimination if they just have enough determination to read and write. It all has to do with what is inside of you. If you really want to do something and put your mind to it then it is as simple as that, accomplish it. It does not matter where you were born or who you grow up with, if you set a priority for it, it can always happen. In this day and age, reading and writing is always around us. It is harder to avoid it then find it. It’s on every road sign, billboard, magazine, article, advertisement, food. So to say that it is not available is crazy. Brandt shows us examples of people who overcame obstacles and had the opportunity to get educated. She shows us that no matter who you are, there could be literary sponsors all around you, like your dad working at a college or you find a random Spiderman comic book. There is no reason to deny the opportunities that are out there no matter what shape or form they come in.

Hooks Reading:

As You Read:

1.       I think some memories that I actually make up in my mind that I think are real are my dreams. I feel like I do not remember  a lot from my childhood just due to my forgetful nature so sometimes I start to confuse my dreams with reality and I have to call my mom or dad or my brother and see what really happened. I have memories of things that used to happen at my house or with some of my childhood friends when it reality most of them are dreams.

Questions for Discussion and Journaling:

4) At the beginning of her writing, she is very hesitant and afraid. She states that she is scared to give away her family secrets. It is like they are looked in a chest and for only her family to know. She does not want to be the one who breaks the seal. She tried to write it but she couldn’t remember. As she got the first reminder from the young black man she met, she starts to open up. She starts to remember things and it opens up her mind to all that she has been missing. A smell or an idea brought back all the memories slowly back into her head. Her mind then lets her heart go of all the memories so she can write them down. She uses real memories and imagination to comfort her. By the end she is confident in her mind and to express all her memories and ideas down.

Applying and Exploring:

3) I think that when you write down your memories or traumatic events, the idea of them changes. Instead of listing the exact order in which things happen or exactly how they happen, you are writing the feelings that came along with them. Things are over exaggerated based on how your emotions where effected by that event. If it was a huge life changing event that you can now long back on, it will be described so much differently later on in life then when it first happened. Writing allows our memories and our hearts to let go of the hurt or the strain it had on us. If the memories are holding us down, expressing them gets them out of your head and allows you to heal. The memory becomes then easier to address and to face. It is something easier handled a huge burden sitting on top of your head. Once it is out, it is out and you have room to heal your hurt or happiness.