Week 10: Reading Responses

·         Cheryl Guisler’s “When Management Becomes Personal: An Activity-Theoretic analysis of Palm

o   Guisler writes, “Activity theory requires us to understand how a tool builds upon the user’s prior tools, responds to her desires and dissatisfactions, and, through its affordances, extends the capacity of the user in unexpected directions” (134).

§  In other words, it is how knowledge is built and manipulated that teachers and users of Activity Theory should take note of.  As we all should know by now, no two students will learn and understand concepts in the exact same way.  Activity Theory speaks directly to this fact.  Teachers should constantly be looking at implementing multiple teaching strategies, as well as different forms of formative and summative assessments and evaluations.  Rather than look at how students learn differently as a hindrance or a burden, teachers should begin using that knowledge as a jumping-off point for future lessons and activities.

·         Bazerman’s “What is Not Institutionally Visible Does Not Count”

o   Bazerman writes, “In practice, schools are rarely so dichotomous that teachers and students are forced totally into one or another extreme position.  Even in the current political enthusiasm for standards, tests, and regulation, while it puts severe pressure on students and teachers to perform well on externally imposed tasks, it cannot stop children from expressing their enthusiasms and interests.  Further, alert teachers cannot stop noticing and responding to students’ expressions of interest, bafflement, and lack of interest” (437-438).

§  1. Amen. 2. This is a constant struggle taking place every day in classrooms across America.  Teachers must “teach to the test”, but what about everything else? What about the subjects and activities the students are actually interested in, but there’s no test for; therefore, it’s not supposed to be taught. (i.e. creative writing).  Sure, a good teacher will find ways to incorporate those types of activities into ones that are tested and, therefore, more time is spent on, but can that happen every time, with every activity or lesson that isn’t “testable”? Walking this fine line is, unfortunately, half of teaching in Alabama public schools now.  Wish me luck, guys!

Week 10: Executive Summary

Paul Prior and Jody Shipka’s “Chronic Lamination: Tracing the Contours of Literate Activity”

            Prior and Shipka being by explaining CHAT (cultural- historical activity theory). They see CHAT as, “a tale of how tools (external aids) mediate activity, altering the flow of behavior” (180).  The authors then go on to explain the domestic activity of the home and the disciplinary activity of the workplace, in respect to gender and their roles and how those aspects play vital parts in the writing process.  CHAT is used to, “help us understand and conceptualize such literate activity as well as how exploring the specific issues of such literate activity—what is afforded theoretically by this disciplinary object—can in turn inform the evolving theories and agendas of CHAT” (181).  Prior and Shipka are immensely concerned with the activities that lead up to the final project rather than the final project as a whole.  As an English/Language Arts teacher, we are taught to implement formative assessments throughout the learning process rather to simple rely on summative assessments.  Formative assessments are assessments taken throughout the learning process to help both the student and teacher better understand where the student is in their own understanding. Summative assessments are mean to be a final expression of the student’s knowledge and a culmination of formative assessments.

            Prior and Shipka ask several students (all post-secondary) to complete a writing/reading/drawing activity to help both the students and the instructors (in this case, Prior and Shipka) gage their level of understanding and the process it took to capture that understanding.  Prior and Shipka give examples of the students drawings and notes and a way, in my opinion, to better see how the project developed.  Formative assessments, or as Prior and Shipka refer to them CHAT activities are vital in the education process, for both the student and the instructor.  Without these extremely important products, students have no way of expressing their knowledge and teachers have no way of knowing what the student does and does not understand.

Week 9: Reading Responses

·         Cushman’s Chapter 1: The Struggle and the Tools

o   Cushman writes, “Language transfer is a socially complicated process that can best be understood when examined in a back-and-forth fashion between community and institutional contexts” (7).

§  As I read this sentence, I couldn’t help but realize that I, too, do this between my personal community and institutional personas, per se.  Being from a small, Southern Alabama town, I have acquired all of the stigmatized attributes of the language associated with the religion.  However, as a member of a family that prides itself on education, I assumed two personas: Kelly, the Valley Girl (or rather, the girl from Valley, Alabama) and Kelly, the Masters of Education, Graduate Student.  Friends of mine from Auburn have heard me on the phone with my Mother or friends from home and even though they may also be from the South, they often times tell me later that they could barely understand what we were talking about.  I definitely agree with Cushman that language transfer or code-switching is extremely prevalent in individuals who are participating in a community and an institution. 
 

·         Cushman’s Chapter 2: Activist Methodology

o   Cushman writes, “Without immersion in the community, I would not have had access to the private ideologies that inform residents’ cunning language use” (14).

§  In reading this, all I could think about was Margaret Mead and her ethnographic studies with the Samoan people.  Why does Cushman think she has actual, true knowledge of the actual language practices of this community?  She mentioned earlier in the book that she was from a similar community and was a woman, which made her more accessible to the families.  I suppose that after hearing what happened with Mead, I am a little more skeptical of ethnographic research, so I guess now I’m always looking for flaws or weaknesses in the system.

·         Cushman’s Chapter 8: The Transfer of Language in Gatekeeping Interactions

o   Cushman writes, “the transfer of language can promote social and political equality, an egaliteration ideology often implicit, yet not actualized, in encounters with social service institutions” (178).

§  I agree that by putting everyone on an even language playing field, there are positive things that can come out of it, but isn’t there something to be said about rising above and making more of yourself?  I cannot imagine walking into my Graduate level classes and talking like I just left my family’s farm and expect to be taken seriously.  I definitely see where Cushman is coming from and in a Utopian world, that would wonderful, but that is not the world we live in.  People with education, power, money, etc. are expected to speak, behave, etc. one way and those without are not.  While I think those social tags are slowly merging, it is still not the norm.

·         Peck et al’s “Community Literacy”

o   Peck et al write, “Community literacy then—in a stark contrast to urban development and social service efforts—places education and inquiry at the center of its practice.  To speak theoretically, the process we want to foster is one in which writers construct a negotiated meaning, rising to greater reflective awareness of multiple voices and sometimes conflicting forces their meaning needed to entertain.  The understandings writers come to in text are a provisional resolution constructed in the middle of an internal conversation” (582).

§  This selection speaks directly to the book I am reviewing for our class’ book review project, so it immediately jumped out at me.  The current trend in the ELA classroom is not for students to simply read and text and move on (as was in previous years), but rather for the student to take steps to have an understand of the text for themselves and to then know how they came to those conclusions, therefore, making them a better writer and reader.  “Meaning making” as it is called is such a crucial aspect in an ELA that most every piece of material is centered around what meaning can be individually made and then to, once again, know how that meaning was made.

Week 9: Executive Summary

Ellen Cushman’s The Struggle and the Tools: Oral and Literate Strategies in an Inner City Community: Preface

           

            Cushman begins the Preface by giving the reader a slice of her background and what has brought her to write this book.  She says that she is from a poor, inner city but has worked her way to now be teaching at the local university.  As she visits the nearby town of Quayville, she overhears young people of the community talk about the “higher-ups” (the students of the university in which Cushman is a student and instructor) and it reminds her of how far she has come, yet still remembering where she came from.  Because of this, she began ethnographic research in the community to look at the linguistic and social patterns that were appearing in the town.  Young people were struggling with being raised by poor parents, yet wanting to go on and do more for themselves.  Cushman discovered that most of the women: 1. Were independent and did not rely on the assistance of the unstable men in the community and 2. Looked to the younger generation as the hope for the community or the gatekeepers, as Cushman calls them.

            Cushman says that by, “portraying the complex oppositional perspectives that residents used in their daily living, I hope to show how they conceptualize the power relations that emerge in everyday interactions” (xii?).  Cushman seems to be interested in the relationships of the community members and how those interactions drive the individuals’ lives and choices.  The Preface goes on to make reference to what will be discussed in each chapter and then concludes by saying, “In the end, this book challenged the validity  of the notion of false consciousness by grounding a discussion of hegemony in the daily political and rhetorical tactics of inner city residents” (xv?).  I feel like after reading the Preface, I have a better understanding not only of what the rest of the book will consist of, but also of how Cushman began piecing together the different ideas and concepts that would eventually make up the book.

Week 8: Reading Repsonses

·         Greene’s “Misperspectives on Literacy: A Critique of an Anglocentric Bias in histories of American Literacy

o   Greene writes, “In the Americas, the Spanish were responsible for many literacy firsts.  Some of the literacy firsts in the US are the following:

§  The first recordings of births, deaths, and marriages

§  The first basic reading grammar text

§  The first theatrical works

§  The first schools

§  The first written musical compositions

§  The first maps

§  The first petitions

§  The first European signature artifact

§  The first written translations of books into Indian languages

§  The first scientific journals
*Not a complete citation

·         I never realized until reading this piece how influential the Spanish were to forming and shaping the language and practices I am involved with on a daily basis.  With English being such a Germanic language, I never would have thought Spanish to be such an important aspect of the English language.  Maybe not to our language itself, but Spanish had more of a impact in the practices we take part in (i.e. recordings of important events, maps, scientific journals, etc.).  I suppose I should never take for granted what I think I already know how the language I use every day or the practices it employs.

·         Mignolo’s “The Materiality of Reading and Writing Cultures: The Chain of Sounds, Graphic Signs, and Sign Carriers”

o   Mignolo writes, “Writing is a communicative device common to all cultures, although its conceptualizations and uses diverge and not every member of a community has access to writing, whereas in Walter Ong’s conception, writing is limited to alphabetic or syllabic systems.

§  So if I’m understanding this correctly, Mignolo is saying that everyone can write (whatever writing means to him…?? But then what is that?) and Ong is saying that writing can only be achieved through an alphabet or syllabic systems?  So I’m inferring from that that Mignolo is viewing writing as any type of pictures, symbols, scribble..?  Once again, what is writing? Not to be confused with the most popular of questions: what is literacy?  I suppose that we will never have a solid definition for the two because they are such universal concepts and with that, comes extreme differences.

Week 8: Executive Summary

Susan Wells’ Out of the Dead House: Nineteenth-Century Women Physicians and the Writing of Medicine

            Wells begins this chapter by introducing the reader to Marie Zakcrzewska, a ten year old girl living in Berlin.  Zakcrzewska was the daughter of a midwife and followed her mother to school.  While at the midwifery school, Zakcrzewska was introduced to medicine and began her life-long career in the field.  Wells brings Zakcrzewska to our attention because she is the perfect example of how females entered the medical field in the nineteenth century.  Wells writes, “The protagonist comes to us as a little girl, curious, unafraid, strangely concentrated, usually accompanied by her mother and almost always be someone who acts as her father” (3).  Zakcrzewska is just one of many who began their careers in medicine during the nineteenth century, and while Wells points out that medical school then was not as rigorous as it is today, female medical school students faced far more obstacles than their male counterparts.  Because of this, female medical school students would convey themselves as females, but write as if they were males.  Wells points out how gender and writing and rhetoric all played such vital, import roles during this time.

            Because gender and writing and rhetoric are such important issues, even today, Wells looks at how the female medical students’ notes would change: some more feminine, some more masculine (she never stated reasons for the differences to her in what caused the separation).  Even the idea that female medical students were possibly looking into new forms of medicine through their female perspective, but were not given the abilities to do so, seems to greatly affect Wells.  “Seeing gender as a performance helps us to appreciate the rhetorical skill of these women physicians and their uses of the slender rhetorical resources available to them” (Wells, 6).  Female medical students were constantly having to prove their worth within the medical community, even though they were the ones pioneering less intervention, less harsh drugs and surgery, and overall, more empathetic to patients’ needs (8).  The gender different was definitely reflected in their notes and journals and Wells even suggests that they were practicing another type of science all together.