Le Marseillais

[theodu13-blog]

Civic Literacy Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTW49FSgLlQ

[theodu13-blog]

Public Power

Catherine Gabor goes on to explain that Service Learning is a method of teaching that requires students to give something tangible to the local community, while learning the academic content of the course. I have actually had to do this for an AP Environmental Science class. At the end of each quarter, every student had to volunteer for an Environment related activity and then write a 4 page reflection. Gabor describes “Writing for”, a form of Service learning for community organization enable to afford the time or human power to produce much needed documents. This  differs from “Writing with”, which requires people to work with local stakeholders on specific issues- by coming together to exercise your civic literacy by planning and publicizing an event or writing a document for a target audience.

In her “Writing as Public Power: Civic Literacies”, Catherine Gabor explains what Civic Literacy is. She starts off by saying that Civic Literacies was used by civilizations as old as the Greeks to exercise their rights. By putting herself into our shoes, Gabor makes it easy for the reader to understand. Gabor and other educators, such as Berlin, believe that students must learn to use writing for their citizenship, along with the other goals of the english/writing class. Catherine Gabor then defines Civic literacy in her own words, “it is the understanding of and ability to use writing as power in public, political, and community-based situations.” Another part of the definition is Civic literacy is a way of creating knowledge as we choose specific ideas and “knowledges” to write about.

Gabor goes on to talk about civic rhetoric writings and how they can be more powerful than violence if used the right way. Rhetoric writing is persuasive writing and speech that was born at the same time as democracy in the history of Western Civilisation (Athens). Gabor describes some results of studies mentioning that young adults did not feel they have the skills to engage in civic debate or/and do not feel like they have access to the civic or political system. It is interesting because I fall under both categories and also agree that my only way to feel politically engaged is by volunteering in different communities. She uses good examples to show that volunteering and civic literacy are not completely different. She uses the example of a volunteer participating in feeding the homeless, or another way to volunteer would be to write a letter or speak to the mayor to persuade him not to close the homeless shelter. Again, civic literacy is the use of words and rhetorical symbols to persuade an audience to act a certain way regarding an issue of public concern. Catherine Gabor says that a good example of a civic literacy  is The Declaration of Independence because Thomas Jefferson was not president when he wrote it. He was trying to use his persuasive language to settle a public, political problem without violence.

Locations of Civic literacy are in any writing assignments, as they require you to persuade and provide information about a certain knowledge. Gabor describes and analyzes a few assignments that use Civic Rhetoric and how they can benefit the person doing the assignments. She explains what  community-based research is and how it differs from rhetoric. Rhetoric is more about the ability to understand how arguments are structured and presented, while community-based research is more about identifying a current civic issue and gathering documents from many stakeholders in order to present a full picture of the people using civic literacy in regards to a certain issue. Gabor explains that college professors, students, administrators, and politicians argue about the place of political engagement in education. I have seen this over the years, like the differences in France and America. In France, most teachers are open to talk about politics. However, when I came to America, it seemed like a taboo subject for teacher. I found it interesting that she included the survey describing how a group of faculty in California got together to study the best way to infuse education with civic and political engagement.

[kriswash]

I think that John Swale makes very interesting points in his excerpt. We never really stop to think about the ways we have evolved into doing the things that we do. We have become so accustomed to doing certain things that’s its pretty much automatic. His example of the wedding invitations was...

[theodu13-blog]

The Concept of Discourse Community

The first part of our reading introduces John Swale and his passion for linguistics. The text makes it clear that Dr. Swale is devoted to what he does, as he has published books and some research. John Swales has spent most of his career in linguistics working with non native English speakers on strategies to help them succeed as readers and writers in the university. I think this is an interesting career because I learned English as my second language and had to go through different sponsors to learn it and some were more useful than others. The writer then explains that Swale’s chapter is going to be Genre analysis, which is a debate or argument about what a discourse community is and how it is different from a speech community. In this dry and informational argument, Swales defines his six characteristics of a discourse community. The narrator also explains to the audience that Swales expects the reader to know what he is talking about, as he does not define words that are very specific. The narrator proceeds to define genre for us. I like how the narrator defines it; she explains that it is not just a different way of writing. She uses the example of memos written within AT&T and how they might look very different from memos written by the members of the local school board.

On pages 171-173, the six characteristics are told by Swales himself. The first one is « A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals. » To clarify this characteristic, he explains that public goals may be formally inscribed in documents such as in associations and clubs, or that they may be more tacit. The second characteristic is « A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members. » I think that I could understand this characteristic without his example. It makes sense to me; my friends and I use words that we can only understand. Anyone outside the group cannot understand what we are talking about. The third characteristic is « A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback.» Swales explains that the secondary purposes of the information will vary according to the common goals. He then gives us examples such as : to improve performance in a football squad or in an orchestra. The fourth characteristic is that « a discourse community utilizes and hence processes one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. » I had trouble differentiating this characteristic with the second one. The fifth characteristic is « In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis.» Swales explains that this involves using lexical items (relating to the nature of a dictionary) known to the wider speech communities in special and technical ways. Last but not least, the sixth characteristic is « A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.» Swales details that discourse communities have changing memberships; individuals subscribe as apprentices and leave by death or some other less involuntary ways.

[sarahcmelvin-blog]

Let me start off this blog post by saying that I have never related to a piece of writing in this class more than when I read Writing Across the University by Fiona Glade. Throughout my writing experiences I have always had trouble with different rules and expectation a class, teacher, or subject...

[theodu13-blog]

Writing Across the University

Fiona Glade begins her text with a quote, which I agreed with a lot. The quote says that students should be free to choose what genre to write in because each genre takes different skills, but uphold identical goals. Fiona then describes her struggles throughout college with writing in different genres. She, like most of people, learned that a good essay has five paragraphs and cannot begin a sentence with and, but, or because. This was not helpful for her writing as she had different expectations from each professor. Five paragraph essays did not work for most of them. Glade proceeds to talk about the rules and guidelines in an academic discourse, which are speaking and writing. She mentions that writing is the most important, as most knowledge and information is passed on by writing. Then, she explains that there cannot be a true definition for academic discourse; this is because one college might view a text as political, or dry and boring. She makes it clear that it is important to understand that there is no single academic discourse. As she mentions, writers of the humanities usually use MLA format, but writers in the Social Sciences often use American Psychology Association format rules. They look different and emphasize on different topics within the text, but both would have the same information. I like when she says  “In order to be able to participate more fully in the academic discourse community, we need to consider not only how to write for each specific context, but also why each of those contexts has its own set of rules and guidelines.” Fiona use’s Freire’s article to explain problem-posing. Problem-posing is a strategy that can help a writer figure out the conventions of a discourse community because it fits well into any stage of the writing process. This is used to fix the problem when students are not encouraged to think for themselves. Fiona explains how this technique has helped her over the years with writing articles. Using Freire’s problem-posing strategy to read academic discourses is a useful way to learn about the rules and guidelines followed by a particular community according to Fiona. There is a wide range of writing assignments in college. I can personally see from writing a whole study out in Psychology lab; I had to write biography, interviews, and even comic strips. Then, she explains that academic discourse communities are not necessarily always explicit about their assumptions, which can make it difficult for newcomers to read and write the texts of that community. The next topic is the participation across the curriculum. I agree that instructors are always the one that tell students to write. This is therefor a challenge that can prevent us from feeling as though we are full participants. However, full participation in academic discourse consists of a range of activities according to Mrs. Glade. Those range of activities that are written differently by each student and the professor, but the difference in writing is what has influence on those discourse communities.

[theodu13-blog]

How I Learned to Write this Essay- My first experience with the American flag (might have to zoom in to see text) 

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#Shittyfirstdraft

In this passage of “Bird by Bird” (1994), Anne Lamott begins by saying that all first drafts are “shitty”. She means that no one can sit down and write well formed passages and be done with it. Lamott explains, in her experience as a writer, she has never come across a writer that can feel inspired, sit down, and write something that is ready to be published. Anne Lamott says she knows a solution. The method that she uses, which is writing shitty, is irrational first drafts. As a child would do it, writing everything down that goes across your mind on a piece of paper, even if it not organized, is an effective method. After that, stop and re-read it later and one can discover the ideas that they truly want to write about. I agree with Anne Lamott. I always need to write whatever is on my mind in my first drafts, regardless if it is not organized. Lamott says that she doesn’t like people to see her “shitty” first drafts, but I disagree with that. I always show my first draft to someone to make sure my ideas are not irrational.

Also, Anne Lamott describes her experience writing food reviews for California Magazine. She explains her routines and emotions she went through to write a food review. At first, Lamott says that it was always hard, sometimes so hard that her emotions would distract her from from writing. She would start typing, just to type something, which would result in a review that was twice as long as it was supposed to be and unorganized. She describes her first drafts as “long and incoherent and hideous”. The next day she would sit down with a colored pen and take off everything she could, which made her second draft. Then a month later she would sit down and review the whole thing again before submitting it to the magazine. I like what her friend said about the third draft, “it is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy”.

[theodu13-blog]

Malcolm X

I have watched the Malcolm X movie a long time ago and do not remember much of it. Even now, the topic interests me a lot. I admire Malcolm X for being such a powerful man, because of his words, speech, and how he learned all his education while in prison. I found it amazing that he had determination to learn something that had no use for him in a prison, except for mentioning sending letters to Mr. Elijah Muhammad. I think his technique to learn was interesting. Not everyone would have chosen to write down every word in the dictionary, especially if they didn’t know any of the words. It seems like an impossible task to learn the meaning of every word in the dictionary. This also means he learned words that he wasn’t going to use, like “aardvark”. Malcolm X explained that he never felt as free as he had after educating himself and being able to read and comprehend what he read. It’s intriguing to have a perspective of how things work inside the prison if you are trying to educate yourself. For example, Malcolm X mentioned instructors from Harvard and Boston universities taught inmates and led debates on subjects such as “Should Babies Be fed Milk?”. He then explained that if one was known to read a lot, they could check out more books from the library then ordinary inmates. Malcolm X did not just read frequently; he read past the “lights out” (10 pm), he read on the floor where he could get just a little bit of light till 3 or 4 in the morning. After learning how to read and write, he wondered about the Black man’s history, which he mentioned was put into one paragraph at school. After learning about the different races and where they came from, Malcolm began reading about the horrors of slavery, which became his favorite subject. I think that Malcolm X had no idea that the white race had done such horrors and tortures to Blacks. This provoked him to read more books on the pillaging, raping, and bleeding of the non-whites by whites. He made a connection between the white people’s religion, Christianity. He believed Christianity was the reason slaughters of Blacks occurred. I strongly agree that religion is what has given people excuses to slaughter each other over the course of history. Still, we can see today in Nigeria and France extremists use religion as justification to execute people that do not share the same beliefs. Even with Israel and Palestine, it shows that religion is a force that raises conflict and destroys many lives. After studying history, Malcolm studied psychology and how the occidental philosophers got most of their information from oriental philosophers. I find it interesting how this passage ends. Malcolm X explained that he thought things would have gone differently for him if he had attended college because of all the distractions at school. I believe prison is what made him so curious about the world and built his thirst for knowledge.

[theodu13-blog]

Sponsors of Literacy

The text starts by stating the majority-race and people with high socioeconomic status have better performance on national tests of reading and writing performance. It goes further to explain this phenomenon happens because rich people are more exposed to certain pieces of literacy that for some are cults. I think that its unfair and unfortunate for the poor to be less exposed. Although, I don’t think it is true for all cases, seeing as poor people and minorities have written great pieces of literature. I think the theory is true sometimes. For example, if you put a soccer player on a team where every player is bad, the player can only get worst. If he was placed on a team where the competition is very high and players are very good, the player can only get better. I thought it was interesting that the author used the story of Raymond and Dora. Both were born in same year and town, but have different ethical and social backgrounds. Even know, one may be exposed to more privileges. In this case Raymond, I do not think that Dora had many more disadvantages. She had things that Raymond did not: she was fluent in Spanish, and she went through hard times with her family. Therefore, she would not give up something as easily as Raymond would, theoretically speaking. I believe that everyone, no matter their background, can bring their perspective of literacy and that can only be beneficial for everyone else.

[theodu13-blog]

Scribner Litteracy in 3 Metaphors

Defining literacy is impossible; there is not one word to define it. In my opinion, this is because literacy is not something uniform. Literacy varies from person to person, town to town, state to state, country to country, and religion to religion. I agree with the text when it says that literacy is a social achievement, and that individuals in societies without writing systems do not become literate. However, I believe that in a few cases literacy can be attributed to an individual’s abilities. There are many individuals who made literacy go a step forward because of their writing abilities, Shakespeare for example. If we were to look at the writing system in England 10 years before Shakespeare and 10 years after Shakespeare, we can see the writing system improved and influenced the education system (which is still done today in Europe).  I also agree that literacy changes with time. The literature in Victor Hugo’s times will be very different than the one today. As the world changes, literacy evolves with it because we write what we have on our minds and that is influenced by the outside world. I thought that it was interesting the author defined literacy through 3 metaphors: Literacy as Adaptation, Literacy as Power, and Literacy as a State of Grace. The Literacy as Adaptation metaphor seemed like common sense to me that literacy is a social norm today and that it is needed in our daily lives. My granddad comes from a little town in the Alps of France where most of the people’s income came from hunting or agriculture. He told me that at his time there were a good percentage of people who didn’t know how to read and write because they were told to work when their bodies were physically able to. This ties back to the point that literacy changes in correlation to the social needs that also change overtime. The second metaphor, Literacy as Power, emphasized a relationship between literacy and group or community advancement. I agree with this because I have always thought that words are the best weapon. Someone who knows how to write and talk can convince masses. There are many examples, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or Malcolm X, who were minorities but wrote down their ideas in journals before they expressed them to people by words. The last metaphor, Literacy as a State of Grace, the author mentions that she does not like this name because it gives an unsatisfactory specific religious interpretation. The author is trying to depict the tendency in many societies to endow the literate person with special virtues. Although I’m not religious, I thought this point was very interesting and agreed with most of it. I believe that the books that represent religion are very well written because people have been reading them and respecting them for so many years. It is also true that those texted encouraged people to learn how to read and write. I thought this quote illustrated the metaphors very well « the literate individual’s life derives its meaning and significance from intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual participation in the accumulated creations and knowledge of humankind, made available through the written word. ». 

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Go back 20, 30 years.

The comment that was the most interesting to me and the one I agreed the most with was when Anne Trubek talks about what people use to do 20-30 years ago. Trubek says "Go back 20, 30 years and you will find all of us doing more talking than writing. We rued literacy levels and worried over whether all this phone-yakking and television-watching spelled the end of writing.", I think she is right when she says this because back then that is the only technology we had to communicate. I've never had a TV at home because my parents and grandparents have always been scared that TV makes you stupid and ruins your vocabulary. I don't think all the writing on social medias has a positive impact on every aspect, but it has had a better impact that TV had 20-30 years ago.