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.