Allow Myself to introduce Myself Volume 3

School and literacy haven’t always co-existed happily for me I recently wrote a poem and one of the lines is I wanted to teach before I’d been taught. In the 11th grade I was put into advanced American Literature which was part of a humanities track that was reserved for “really smart” students and my scholastic achievement to that point certainly didn’t warrant my placement in such a class. On the first or second day the teacher had the class select a passage and analyze its meaning. I can’t remember what passage I chose, why I chose it, or what I said, but I can remember Ms. Scarborough telling me I was brilliant at the bottom of my paper. She lectured about how reading was as much about understanding what the words on the page meant as it was about knowing how to pronounce them and use them correctly. Her class wasn’t just about reading stories it was about understanding them and understanding how and why they made people feel the way they did. Ms. Scarborough was one of many really good teachers I’ve had and her influence is part of the reason I want to be a teacher to this day, she allowed me to look at literacy and my relationship with it in a completely different way. I learned how to read at four but I didn’t learn why I needed to read until I was sixteen. I want to help my students get this place, I want to be a teacher that they remember for teaching them why words are important not just that they are.

"En Los Dos Idiomas"

By Teresa Espinosa

Where There's A Will, There's Lirico

The first part of this article talked about the course of the ethnographic study of Compadrazgo which means Compadre in Spanish which is translated as Godparent. The relationships of the 45 people consisted of family, friends and compadres. Their socio economic status were working class with limited or no formal education. Some had elementary (primaria 1-6th) and middle (secundaria 7-9th) school education while others had to work immediately to help support the family. What did this say about literacy? Well, some were taught literacy in school while others took th initiative to learn on their own. They called it lirico (lyrically). These are men in their mid thirties who learned literacy as lirico, which means they, "picked it up" informally from others (470). Farr called this a bare bones approcah which makes sense since the people were teaching themselves simply by copying the letters from a cigarrette box or by asking questions along the way and no formal schooling.

What I found very interesting was how some men were able to read and wrote poorly and one particular person was able to write but had to have someone read his response letters to him. Farr says, " that neither learning reading first nor writing first is more natural" (473). This study proves that both reading and writing can be learned without formal schooling. I supposed from this we can infer that when learned in this manner, literacy is bare boned and not mastered until there is formal schooling. The people who write lirico say that they know they will probably never write write properly since they don't know punctuation. However his belief that he didn't read well, he scored considerbly high on a fromal test of English literacy. Farr believes that learning lirico literacy is effective.

American Indian Communities

To some degree, Native Americans seem to have common culture with others such as African Americans in that they are strongly rooted in "storytelling traditions, the flow and structure of oral narratives, and the importance of oral traditions" (493). Studying these characteristics when observing a Native Americans writing skills may greatly benefit the teacher in locating the zone of proximal development of the individual student. It doesn't seem too far fetched to embrace the diversity of the cultures when trying to teach English to Native Americans. To deny students the roots of their culture makes the teaching process seem insignificant.

Ever-shifting oral and literature traditions

The societal consequences of literacy are based on the experiences of the people have with written language and their oral interpretation of it. A litterate society differs significantly at the cognitive level from that of a culture of oral tradition. Shirley Brice Heath cites research done by Goody and Watt, Ong, and Havelock to support her assertion of the extreme differences between oral and litterate societies. The differnces don't give one supperiority over te other and Heath uses research from Dodd to explain "Certain discourse forms, such as the parable or proverb are formulaic uses of language which convey meanings without direct explanation."(443) Heath goes on to state that "truth lies in experience and is verified by the experience of listners."(443) Oral tradition are especially prevelant in societies where access to written language is restricted or prohibited. Heath utilizes her own research to decribe the "Literacy Event" Heath says this occurance "is any occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of participants interactions and their interpretive processes.(Heath 1978)"(445)
The oral expression of te written language is an important dynamic in Heath's research, she goes t great length to explain the paralell evolution btween the traditions of what's spoken vs. what's written. She examines the art of story telling as a literary device and an extension of written language and an expression of personal involvement. A story given orally must have all of the same elements that a written story has to be successfull, and a written story is always attempting to invoke the human emotion that comes naturally to stories in te oral tradition. During her breakdown of the differences and similarities between written and oral traditions Heath raises an important question; written improves oral, what is the oral impact on written language?

Autobio #6 "Switching Discourse Gears"

By Teresa Espinosa

I had to do another "week 6" since I had the perfect weekend for this topic...

"Switching Discourse Gears"

It was the perfect weekend for this autobio since my family went to my mother's house for a bbq. It is interesting because I noticed right away when I switched discourse. On the way to my mother's it is about a 30 minute drive and my husband and I were discussing the swine flu issues in Mexico. My argument was how over dramatic some parts of this country is reacting an his argument was that we should over react, this way more people will practice cleanliness more consistantly.

While we both has strong arguments going, once we reached my mother's house, the conversation came to a halt. I tried to carry the conversation over to where my sisters were and they were disinterested. Instead, they changed my topic of conversation to gossip about another sister that wasn't present. Once in a while my sisters will discuss world news but it is not that common. They like to stick to gossip and local news. The discourse changed immediately after arriving.

It's not that I don't enjoy the occassional gossip but it gets boring and tedious after a while. When I try to discuss what is going on in school or world news/politics, they quickly become disinterested and shift gears.

Inventing the University

By Teresa Espinosa

Learn the Discourse First

Bartholomae, author of "Inventing the University", explains how an incoming freshman writes for the faculty of the University for an a placement test but writes by "trying on the discourse" (512) of the University. What he meant by that was how the writer wrote for them using specialized language that is an approximation of their jargon. The article explains how some students make the mistake of not taking into consideration who their reader is. They write blindly without audience awareness. Linda Flowers argues that beginning writers do not imagine how a reader will respond to a text as an expert would.

Bartholomae stated that a "writer has to build bridges between his point of view and his writers" (515). I have heard this before from my teachers and I agree that it is important to consider the reader, however, if it is fiction, creative writing that is being written, I think that is a special occasion when it is not as important to focus on one audience. (I am certain they are just talking about essays here). Bartholomae stated that a successful writer is one who can "manipulate" an audience. Although I think he is right that a writer should know his audience, I don't agree with the extent to which he wants his students to be good writers. I don't know every single one of my professors well enough to know exactly what they would write and I have been successful in writing a well written essay that returned a good grade.

I am going to wrap this precis up by saying that Bartholomae believes that before a student can be a successful writer, he must become part of the communal discourse. If the student does not assimilate into the discourse, he cannot possibly write successfully. Bartholomae seems narrow minded in that sense.

Richard Rodriguez's, The Achievement of Desire

This autobiography has so much to say about the individual. It is obvious that from the beginning of school, that Richard wanted to please his teachers and their idea of what was important about Western Culture. Hiding behind books, his family became irrelevant to his future and he denounced the importance of family for the importance of books and education. His identity as a "scholarship boy" accepted a western education without embracing his own cultural heritage. He thought all his answers could be found in the books he read, but later realized that through this method, he was never allowed to come to his own understanding, it was always the author's understanding. I can see how the pressure and differences between education and a working-class family can put a jagged gap between the importance of family and culture. Richard's family did not have a western education and as Richard looked to succeed, he saw his parents as stupid for what they did not know. I think one of best things that Rodriguez comes to understand is that, "education requires radical self-reformation". Through this theory, Rodriguez realizes the lack of self-esteem he had because of his rejection of his family. He didn't want to reform himself, he wanted to become something completely different than he saw his parents. I agree with Rodriguez's statement, and think that self-beliefs should be challenged for rationality, but that the past and one's familiy also plays a role in educational reformation, setting the balance between who one is before an education, along with the benefits and insights that an education can bring.