February 22nd Homework

Johns Summary
In her article, Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice, Ann Johns argues that communities of practice are closely related to John Swales' discourse communities. She then describes what it is like to be in academic communities and professional communities. Johns talks a lot about the language and text within a discourse community and she describes the conflicts that occur within these different communities.

1. There are several complications that Johns points out regarding joining a discourse community. The first one is the cost of affiliation, which means everything costs money and some people might not join because they don't have any. The next problem is the authority of the community. People will disagree who should be in charge causing arguments within the group. Another complication is change because when new people come into the group they might break rules or change other things regarding the community. Dialogue and critique are also factors that cause problems within a group because disagreements arise.
2. Change in a discourse community often occur as members grow older, they meet new people that have different views, and when they read new information. Their views change because they learn new things, causing their thoughts and opinions to change. A historical example of this is when  Martin Luther King Jr. became the civil rights leader and began to slowly change people's views.
3. I do not think that learning to read and write in different discourse communities have altered my sense of self, values, or beliefs. I stick strong to my beliefs and values that I have always had and I feel like I have been exempt from this conflict because I have never been in a discourse community that tried to change my personal views.
4. I think that Johns' views on learning how to read and write do not change your identity because although you do learn new things, you are still the same person, just maybe a little wiser. When I learn new information, my opinions rarely change I just realize why other people might think differently than I do.
5. The authority I have had over the types of texts I write in college has been a little greater than in high school because I am allowed to express my own thoughts more freely. There is still an assignment sheet that I have to follow, but it is not near as strict as it has been in the past.
6. I think it is considered a minefield because you never know how long you can break the rules without getting punished severely. I have been punished a few times for not following the criteria perfectly, but the teachers just made me correct so I wouldn't get a failing grade.  

MM
Understanding what Johns wrote about in this article will help me decide if I want to become part of a  new discourse community because I will know the pros and cons of it. The positive things I learned from her writing that will help me out is whether I can financially afford the group and I will know to examine the community before joining and see if I would actually fit in. A negative thing I learned is that some discourse communities might try to persuade me to believe in certain thing that the rest of the group does.

Reflection
I think this article was interesting and it expanding on John Swales' article that we had previously read. Although I didn't completely agree with everything Ann Johns' said, I think this article will help me later in life when I attempt to join new discourse communities. 

February 20th Homework

Swales Summary
In this article, The Concept of Discourse Community, John Swales generates his own concept of what he calls discourse communities. He argues that there are six characteristics that are necessary for identifying a group of people as their own discourse community. Groups are formed depending on common interests, and Swales describes this as "genres". These genres allow people to stay on topic and make sure that those who join the group understand the criteria of this group.

1.

•  Goals are set by the discourse community that point out its morals, beliefs, expectations, and aspirations. My athletic teams are a discourse community that have the same expectations...to win each game.
• These communities have their own communication styles that they use to send messages to all their members. In sports, we have a way of communicating while playing so we know what each other is doing. (eg hand signals)
• Certain forms of technology and print sources, such as newspapers and books that interest the group's common interests, provide a way of obtaining information.
• Based on opinions of the group and the changing values of the original discourse community, the individuals will adapt and expand their expectations.
• Communities have their own vocabulary, such as grammar that keeps others from gaining information.
• Discourse communities are experiencing shifts of members as people pass away, leave, or become wiser. As my friends and I get older, we have adapted to new interests and began hanging out with different people.

3. No, a first-year college classroom would not count as a discourse community, but a graduate class would because once you have been in school with the same people for over 4 years, you will more than likely share common goals and interests.
5. A discourse community I belong to is my high school basketball team. We all share common goals, such as winning each game and getting better each and every day at practice. Our lexis is combined in signals or names that we all know, usually plays. Our genres that are recognizable by our members, are texts that show basketball plays step-by-step with X's and O's.

MM
No after reading this, I do not notice anything different about my own reading experiences.

Swales Response
This article was a boring read for me, although it did prove some interesting points about discourse communities. I learned a lot from this article and now when I write for certain discourse communities I will understand how to present my information better.

Gee Summary
In his article, Literacy, Discouse, and Linguistics: Introduction, James Paul Gee attempts to prove that the main focus for literacy studies shouldn't be language, or literacy, but social practices instead. He argues that Discourses, with a capital D, are combinations of saying, doing, being, valuing, and believing and that we all acquire some sort of Discourse throughout our life, normally early in life or in peer groups.

3. Discourse with a capital 'D' means the combination of saying(writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing and discourse with a lowercase 'd' means connected stretches of language that make sense. I think this makes sense because Discourse evaluates all forms of expressions instead of just through language.
4. Primary Discourses are the ones we first use to make sense of the world and interact with others.
    Secondary Discourses are gained after our initial socialization within our home community,  
    non-home-base social institutions, such as local stores, churches, schools, and other organizations.
    Dominant Discourses are secondary Discourses that bring potential acquisitions of social goods,
    like money, prestige, and status.
    Nondominant Discourses are secondary Discourses that bring solidarity with a certain social
    network, but not greater value in status or social goods.
5. This means that if you don't display an identity then you're a pretender or beginner. The implications of this are, for example, if you don't display fluency in a Discourse then you're marked as a nonmember of the group.
6. He shows that there is a similarity between the relationship of Discourse and identity by saying that while you are in that certain Discourse, you develop a growing ability to say, do, value, and believe within that Discourse. You show your identity within the Discourse community.
7. Gee is saying that when someone is taught, within their Discourse group, how to communicate correctly, other members will interrogate them based on the language they use. I have seen a few of my friends act completely different when they are with friends they grew up with because while they were in that Discourse, they communicated differently to fit in with the rest of the members.
8. Dominant Discourse "tests" happen to provide group members with the assurance that they have friends that can relate to them. I think it is a way of fitting in with the rest of your group.
11. Metaknowledge is the sum of what has been perceived or discovered and it is valuable because it allows a combination for successful students and successful social change.
12. I know I am a part of my church Discourse because we all share the same values and believes.

AEI
2. While I am in my primary Discourse I express myself without worrying about grammatical usage and I normally use phrases that my family would only understand. My tone of voice normally stays the same because I don't get to excited or flustered about anything; my values are almost identical to my parents and brother because I was raised that way and I want to stick to them.
In my academic Discourse I try to be more grammatically correct when writing or talking and since nobody would understand some of my phrases, I stray away from using them. My tone of voice is a lot more argumentative while in this Discourse and my values usually stay the same, although I am willingly to learn about other students values.
The sources that overlap are my values, while the rest alter a little bit while I am in an academic Discourse.
4. I navigate between these different Discourses by sticking to my beliefs and values, but changing what I talk about or do within each Discourse. Like within my team Discourse, I become extremely competitive and I probably give more effort to reach a common goal, compared to when I am with my classroom Discourse.


Gee Response
I thought this article was interesting because it made me evaluate all my different groups and think more in depth about how I act and speak while I go from one Discourse to the other. Some of the questions within this article were difficult to answer, but I definitely learned a lot while reading about Gee's perspective on Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics.

Cover Letter Paper #3

For this multi-modal assignment regarding Literacy History, we tried to find out what motivates children to learn how to read and write. We interviewed six people and included our own stories in this project to help us figure out what the main motivation is for students. We did not come up with a single motivation that stood out among the rest because everyone has their own stories, and finds motivation in something different. The people we interviewed were completely random and we realized that parents are a big reason why people learn to read and write, but competitiveness and siblings are also factors when it comes to kids wanting to be good readers and writers. I really liked being able to change from the normal written paper format and do this project by creating a website. I think we have good background stories for this assignment and the only weak part might be how we support our claim through our conclusion. We had a few difficulties with the website malfunctioning, which made the process longer, but it all worked out. I want our peer editors to make sure we answered all the questions effectively.

Link  http://literacyhistory.webs.com/

Homework #13

Summary
In Cecchini and Perez's article, Motivation in Literacy and Development, they attempt to show students the numerous motivations there are to find that drive to write and read successfully. They back up their points by interviewing eight first-year honor students at the University of Central Florida, and discover the methods used by each students to develop academic success in literacy, as well as other subjects. All eight students had interesting backgrounds that drove them to want to be literate in reading and writing, whether it was their parents encouragement, siblings teasing them about not being able to read, or the development of computer programs that provided goals and enjoyment in reading/writing.

Do the authors put their own histories into the paper?
There were no personal stories or motivations listed in this paper about the authors' history in reading/writing. They solely relied on other students' stories to help construct their paper. It probably would have helped their paper if they would have included some personal stories of when they were first learning to read and finding that motivation.

Do you refer to yourself in 1st or 3rd Person?
I normally refer to myself in 1st person when writing a paper such as this one. Whenever I include myself in one of my papers, I always use first person; however, I do remember writing a narrative story once in middle school when I used one of my own personal stories and gave myself another character name.

Reflection
I enjoyed this paper because I think it will help me out some with my next paper that is closely related to this topic. My main motivation to read in elementary school was a program that our school started, called Accelerated Reader. With this program, I could read for competitive purposes because I wanted to get more AR points than my friends; plus at the end of the year we could use our points to buy things like CD players and basketballs.

Topic for Paper #4

For this academic article, I will be questioning if writing technologies have affected people as writers. And if so, whether this was in a positive or negative way.

Final Draft Paper #2

In this paper, Writing: A Unique Process, I was trying to show the readers how I go through my writing process and that I need to be in my comfort zone to write a successful paper. I also wanted to prove to them that writing is a unique process for everyone because we all write in our own way. My main claim was that by creating my own space to write without distractions, I can write much easier and quicker. I supported this claim with a few texts from Stephen King and some other authors. I think overall my paper works pretty well and has a good flow, but is lacking good counter-arguments. My peer suggested to introduce my quotes from our book better and showed me a few errors I made, as well as some sentences that were confusing. I made sure to include the article that the author had written and attempted to write a more interesting introduction and conclusion.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/81192564/Final-Draft-2-Writing-a-Unique-Process

Reading Response February 8

Malcom X Summary
In his article, Learning to Read, Malcolm X explains how he learned more about writing and reading while he was in prison. He discovered his love for reading through extensive reading, starting with the dictionary, and moving on to much higher level books. Malcolm said he spent so much time reading because it was how he satisfied his curiosity. Starting as a boy with only an eight grade education, Malcolm shows how he evolved into a great speaker, reader, and writer.

1. Malcolm X's intended audience is students or children raised in lower class families, who had similar educations and lived in rough cities, like he did. His article is written in a motivational style.
2. He defines literacy as being able to read and understand. School-based literacy is being able to read and comprehend it for the upcoming test, but I think in each definition you still have to understand what you are reading.
3. Mr. Muhammad, Norfolk Prison Colony Library, correspondence, visitors, books, and civil rights. Mr. Muhammad and the history of civil rights were the most influential because they showed him how the white men had written history books and simply left the black man out.
4. I think this was a case for Malcolm X because after his only eight years of schooling there was definitely an ideological control surrounding his reading and writing.
6. I have never had a huge interest in reading throughout high school or the first year of college so far. I think the only motivation I had growing up was to be active in sports or spend time outside and this is what caused me to not read as much as I should have.

AEI
I think technologies have changed what it means to be literate in the U.S. today in a negative way because text messaging causes people to start using poor grammar and the Internet has many distractions as well as quick access to answers, which allow people to read less.

Response
I really enjoyed reading this article and thought it was a lot more interesting than the other articles in this chapter. Malcolm X did a great job at writing his article with that motivational perspective and it gave me a reason to want to read more in the future.

Alexie Summary
In his article, The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me, Sherman Alexie shows his readers how he taught himself, a Spokan Indian living on the reservation, how to read through Superman Comics. He did not go to a highly literate schooling system on the reservation and had to teach himself how to read. He had his father to look up to as an influence though because he was an active reader that bought many books from Goodwill and the Salvation Army.

1. When I was in elementary school, my brother would often read Harry Potter books into the wee hours of the night. This was a positive expectation for me because my parents expected me to read like he did and it gave me motivation to gain an interest in reading.

AEI
They did make me believe that anyone can overcome poverty and discrimination as long as they have that determination to read and write. Deborah Brandt's research showed me that even though the stats demonstrate how poor students don't have the same motivation as most children, they can still overcome this by having a good literacy sponsor to teach them.

Response
I really enjoyed this article too because it showed how poorly educated children can overcome their rough lives by reading and finding that interests in education, rather than not paying attention in school and not even bringing writing utensils to class. I can't really relate to this situation, but I think it will help many other students if they chose to read this article.