Malcolm X IWA

Summary
        In the excerpt "Learning to Read" from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X describes his literacy history that he developed while in prison. He acquired literacy first through writing- copying the dictionary and writing letters. As he began to read his own handwriting, Malcolm X then began to simply read more, and he focused on the historical injustices dealt to people of color around the world. According to Malcolm X, his time spent in prison developing his own literacies--specifically the history of injustice--this "homemade education"--was better than anything a university could have offered him.

Synthesis
   Both Malcolm X's and bell hooks's pieces describe the relationship between literacy(ies)--writing and/or reading--and personal identity. X's piece also exemplifies some of the "sponsors of literacy" that Brandt talks about in her article of the same name. We can see how his race and class affected his literacy: not having a formal education beyond the 8th grade and driving him to criminal activity.

QD
3. Sponsors of Literacy:
-Elijah Muhammad- the Nation of Islam
-"The streets" (354)
-Bimbi from Charlestown Prison
-Norfolk Prison Library- Parkhurst
-The history books (often written by white men)

   I think the sponsors who were most influential to Malcolm X were of course the Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad as well as the Norfolk Prison Library left by Parkhurst. The prison library was intended to "rehabilitate" the prisoners. This is an example of Brandt's misappropriation: Malcolm X took the history books and saw their biases and historical prejudices.
6. "I imagine that one of the biggest troubles with colleges is there are too many distractions, too much panty-raiding, fraternities, and boola-boola and all of that" (360). I think X definitely has a point with this. He is differentiating between his own motivation to to acquire literacy and the motivation of young students in college. I think he is right that a college education is seen as a "status symbol" rather than an opportunity to find what interests you and drives what will become your livelihood. Most students are not voracious readers and will read only what they are assigned. I'm not sure if they lack the curiosity, but certainly they lack the personal motivation that Malcolm X had. I consider myself a feminist and my own interest in women's issues (which consequently also leads me to care deeply about all issues of injustice) motivates what I read and spend my free time doing. My motivation is not necessarily to understand my own experience but it's to understand others'.

MM
It's hard to pick only one idea as the most important from this piece. I suppose with the unit we're discussing, the most important part would be the various sponsors Malcolm X encountered. But I also thing another salient point is literacy(ies) as a sort of process. This excerpt describes X's literacy leading him to hatred for the white man. But if you know more about Malcolm X than what is provided here, you know that he does not remain as hostile as he is here (though he does turn around rather late in his shortened life). I think this fact emphasizes the fluidity of literacy(ies) and how they are always changing and growing.

Thoughts
   I enjoyed this piece and I know it will spark an interesting discussion. Of course I am worried about discussing race in a room full of white students. I wonder how much they know about Malcolm X if anything at all. I also like the point from the framing the reading about this piece making the reader think about the "worlds in which you would be considered illiterate" (353). I guess if they object to what Malcolm X says, my response would be if they would consider themselves "literate" in history, particularly the history of injustices.

hooks IWA

Pre-reading
     Autobiographies are life histories written by oneself. They differ from memoirs in that it is really an overview of that person's entire life (the big life experiences- the ones that shaped them into the person they are) rather than an in-depth look into one area of their lives. I think a proper autobiography should include childhood experiences and family dynamics, adolescence, and then post-18 experiences. Relationships are important areas of exploration as well.

Summary
    In bell hooks's text "Writing Autobiography," she recalls her struggle with writing her own autobiography. Initially, hooks explains that she wanted to write the autobiography to erase her old, unpleasant past experience and identity and create a brand new one. Throughout the process of writing--of remembering--hooks learns that autobiography is a writing style of both fiction and nonfiction--biomythography--which changes the relationship one has to the past. Ultimately, hooks learns that writing about the past does not erase it but reshapes it into something meaningful.

Synthesis
   By writing about autobiography, hooks's piece most resembles Donald M. Murray's "All Writing is Autobiography." Both pieces argue that autobiogaphy is not nonfiction: memory and the act of remembering are unreliable and subjective. hooks calls this process "biomythography." In both this piece and the Malcolm X excerpt, autobiography as a genre acts as an outlet for people to reveal their unique experiences--people who otherwise lacked a voice or an outlet: a black woman growing up in the segregated south and an illiterate black man. Furthermore, hooks's desire to create a new identity recalls McCloud's "masking effect" from "The Vocabulary of Comics."

QD
1. This tragic statement from hooks means that she wanted to completely erase her painful past. I can't even imagine a past so painful that would make someone want to build a new, separate identity, completely removed from that period of her life. hooks doesn't reveal what made her past so tragic, but she doesn't need to; I don't think this fact takes away from her reliability as a narrator; she invites her reader to imagine what could have happened to her with this information: she was a black woman who grew up in the Jim Crow south.

4. Initially, hooks wanted to "kill the self", that is, erase her old identity and create a new one. The process of writing her autobiography does not do this. Instead of an erasure of the past, hooks writes that writing her autobiography "enabled [her] to look at my past from a different perspective and to use this knowledge as a means of self-growth and change in a practical way" (hooks 180). Rather than "kill" her old identity, she looks upon the past as a building block for her current self.

AE
4. I think my students and I will be able to relate to the act of writing for a discourse community. Like Allen says, I don't think anyone ever feels particularly welcome in a community, so really, every time you write an academic piece, you are putting on a mask to use McCloud's terms or I guess creating a new identity. Going along with Allen, every time we "imitate" we adopt a new identity.

Thoughts
I love bell hooks and cannot wait for Wednesday's discussion.

Journal V

This was an interesting week in that the students did not have much class readings to do and instead had to (or should have) focused their time on their first drafts. I think they were relieved about the lightened reading load. However, the one day in which we discussed Dawkins and Bryson reminded me of an ongoing issue I have with these texts. I assigned them dialectical notebooks for both with the addition of summaries and a synthesis, since that's what they need the most practice on. They prefer doing DNs to reading responses, and reading their DNs breaks the monotony i find in the responses; the dilemma is which tool is more effective for them understanding and retaining the main points of these articles. The jury's still out, I guess. It seems like the RR would garner the best retention and understanding, but oftentimes their responses are so generic and fill-in-the-blank-like that both methods seem flawed. Maybe next semester, I will revamp the reading responses.

Monday
     I went on a grading binge to get their Intros and Syntheses back to them Sunday evening. I kept a list of common errors to address to the class as a whole (MLA, quotations, punctuation (apropos for the discussion we were about to enter over Dawkins). I found out that they hadn't read my comments on their intros and syntheses yet. This, frankly, pissed me off and worried me about how they would do the rest of the week.
    We transitioned into discussing Dawkins first and then Bryson. We basically discussed raising/lowering and punctuation as a rhetorical device. I didn't have time to do a group activity like Javan suggested in class, but next time I think I will so I can see how they do using punctuation rhetorically. I think the students have figured out that these readings do not have consequences or are incidental; that is, they will not be tested over what we do so it is okay if they don't understand or remember the readings. I don't know how to combat this attitude. As I expected, the Bryson reading went better. We ended class discussing the fluidity of the English language and they were very vocal about examples of how it's changed, so I let them roll with it. They said that they vastly prefer the Readings on Writing book to Writing about Writing. Interesting.

Wednesday
     Their homework for Wednesday was to complete a peer review of the Due Today, Do Tomorrow essay. I told them to imitate what I had done on their own papers. Rather than bring in their peer reviews, I had them answer these questions and compose a letter to the peer. After going over some technical things like how to submit to SafeAssign (which not all students remembered to do or figured out-ugh! Why don't they write stuff down??) I split them into groups. each member was to share his/her letter to the peer and then as a group, they were to collectively write a letter and then share with the class. I was very impressed with how their letters turned out. They touched on all the important shortcomings of the essay and each group actually had different suggestions for how to improve the essay. I hope I didn't insult them by being so shocked and impressed that they did such a good job, but I was proud. The rest of the class involved getting through as much of the paper as a class as time allowed. They did pretty well on this, too. I left feeling satisfied they would do well on their peer reviews.

Friday
   All but 2 students turned their papers into SafeAssign on time. None of their reports were shockingly high. I think we will briefly go over the SA reports sometime next week since I didn't get to it this week. I let them know that their papers are only in the peer review stage and that if they wanted my input or comments, they'd have to schedule a conference with me, but I'd be more than happy to do it. So far, no takers. As an aside, the students were ROWDY today, apparently because of "10 fest." There was a lot of irrelevant chatter and talking over me, which I think is actually becoming a bit of an issue. I'm not a yeller, so I just continue talking until they stop, but I've had to employ more "guys...." or shushings than normal. I didn't nip this in the bud when it first started happening because they used to be so quiet I was just happy they were talking. But now it's something I certainly need to get control of next week.
    After I went over the homework assignment for Monday and told them exactly what was expected of their peer review (cover letter, cc me, etc.) we just workshopped an outside sample for the rest of the class. Even though they did so well with Wednesday's sample essay, this essay, they seemed to focus on surface level errors much more. I had to keep reminding them that that wasn't the focus of this peer review. Hopefully, they'll understand that.

Overall, I think they met my goals in terms of learning how to peer review. Areas of concern are my lack of authority in the classroom and the effectiveness of RR and DNs. I think that moving onto Project 2 will allow me to enact some changes (and become stricter over class discussions). I'm both incredibly excited and a little worried about how the hooks and X readings will go over. I'm highly sensitive to the issues of race, class, and gender that these readings bring up and from things I've overheard, I'm expecting callous attitudes. But I want to look at this as a learning opportunity. Unfortunately, when a privileged group first learns about their privilege, it does not usually go over well. 

Brandt Dialectical Notebook

Brandt explains how literacy came to be a highly valued commodity/skill. It widens what one has access to.	“The pre-steam press economy enabled some of the most basic aspects of the apprentices’ literacy, especially their access to material production and the public meaning or worth of their skills” (333).
I like how Brandt argues for the economic value of literacy. I think this is definitely true, but certainly something a lot of people (or at least me) don’t think of it as. It’s simply taken for granted.	“Literacy looms as one of the great engines of profit and competitive advantage in the 20th century” (333).
Brandt defines what she considers sponsors. This is a pretty inclusive list, so no one can say “I didn’t have a sponsor.” It’s also important to remember that Brandt claims sponsors are not altruistic—they have their own interests in mind.	“Sponsors, as I have come to think of them, are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit regulate, suppress or withhold literacy—and gain advantage by it in some way” (334).
It’s unsettling anytime something has so much power.	“…sponsors nevertheless set the terms for access to literacy and wield powerful incentives for compliance and loyalty” (334).
Brandt outlines what her purpose is for this article. These sentences make me anticipate how she will show the “persistent stratification of opportunity”” that literacy (a focus on literacy) enables.	“In this essay I set out a case for why the concept of sponsorship is so richly suggestive for exploring economies of literacy and their effects. Then, through use of extended case examples, I demonstrate the practical application of this approach for interpreting current conditions of literacy teaching and learning, including persistent stratification of opportunity and escalating standards for literacy achievement” (334).
Again, this list makes it so that almost everyone has a sponsor. Which make sense if literacy is so valued.	“older relatives, teachers, priests, supervisors, military officers, editors, influential  authors” (335)
I think this is a good simile and will be helpful to students who read this. You gain literacy through other people’s self-interest. I guess this is an example of a win-win situation.	“Like little Leaguers who wear the logo of a local insurance agency on their uniforms, not out of a concern for enhancing the agency’s image but as a means for getting to play ball…” (335).
Class/ race bias/ stratification	“A statistical correlation between high literacy achievement and high socioeconomic, majority-race status routinely shows up in results of national tests of reading and writing performance” (337).
This is such a significant point of Brandt’s piece. I hope my students can pick up on this and are willing to discuss this.	“Throughout their lives, affluent people from high-caste racial groups have multiple and redundant contacts with powerful literacy sponsors as a routine part of their economic and political privileges. Poor people and those from low-caste racial groups have less consistent, less politically secured access to literacy sponsors—especially to the ones that can grease their way to academic and economic success” (337).
I want to hear about my students’ experiences with technology. Have they thought about what it’d be like to not have computers/internet access? I don’t think they grew up without access to this type of technology.	“Raymond received his first personal computer as a Christmas present from his parents when he was twelve years old, and a modem the year after that” (337).
Example of a good sponsor- but it was necessary to make up for a gap in literacy skills.	“The computers were being used to help the children be brought up to grade level in their reading and writing skills” (338).
I’m interested to know how my students will react to this (especially in relation to the hooks/Malcolm X readings coming up). It’s hard when you first learn about your privilege, because no one wants to think that his/her own troubles are less worthy. But I think this is a necessary point—something I’m glad their running into their freshman year.	“In Raymond Branch’s account of his early literacy learning we are able to see behind the scenes of his majority-race membership, male gender, and high-end socioeconomic family profile” (338).
The demands of literacy are increasing. Will this make students take the reading and writing they do more seriously?	“More and more people are now being expected to accomplish more and more things with reading and writing” (340).
“Struggle for dominance”= it’s all about power. So power is the commodity, but literacy is the means through which to acquire more power.	“This struggle for dominance shaped the kinds of literacy skills required of Lowery, the kinds of genre he learned and used, and the kinds of literate identity he developed” (342).
Brandt explains why it can be overwhelming and feel “destabilized.”	“…forms of literacy and their sponsors can now rise and recede many times within a single life span” (344).
Mixture of forms of literacies. Increase contact.	“We need models of literacy that more astutely account for these kinds of multiple contacts, both in and out of school and across a lifetime” (345).
	“So, here, two women—one Native American and both working class—filch contemporary literacy resources (public relations techniques and accounting practices) from more-educated, higher-status men” (347).
People “making-do” with the emphasis on literacy. They’re adapting to the high importance of literacy.	“Many of the cultural formations we associate with writing development—community practices, disciplinary traditions, technological potentials—can be appreciated as make-do response to the economics of literacy, past and present” (348).
This is a great final line by Brandt. Literacy here sounds predatory.	“…as we assist and study individual in pursuit of literacy, we also recognize how literacy is in pursuit of them” (338).

Peer Review of Sample Essay

Peer Review with Margin and End Comments

Journal IV

This was the most stressful and, frankly, disappointing week as a teacher so far.

Monday: On Friday we had done some in-class work with one of their sources, so I began Monday's class by reviewing a couple things about the Allen piece and then I transitioned into the Porter piece. I thought that this discussion would go much better than it actually did. I thought they would latch onto the idea of intertextuality; I showed a video that described intertextuality in film; I loved this video and thought it was a great supplemental aid to the material. They seemed momentarily into the video, but quickly faded when I began to ask them questions about what intertextuality implied for originality. I broke them up into 4 groups and asked each group a questions. They did okay with this task, but I was still disappointed with the discussion overall. I then wanted to focus on synthesis because they have been doing so poorly with these in their reading responses. Their effort just seems so minimal- like the can barely even connect back to even one previous reading. They said they have trouble remembering who said what. I understand that this is brand new for them, but I told them that they have to memorize their biology terms, and they just have to memorize a couple points per reading. It's just something they have to do because they'll be doing these syntheses for the rest of the term. I then passed out a handout describing what my expectations were for their intros and synthesis. I also put up a sample intro and synth so they could see a visual representation of what I wanted.

Wednesday: Because of their confusion about their syntheses, I prepared a powerpoint describing exactly what synthesis was and some tips on how to do it. I then selected some examples from their Bernhardt reading responses to show what I thought was a good synthesis and what needed work. We then discussed Bernhardt; I rushed through this a bit because we had a lot to do, but they were so resistant to this discussion anyway. None of them had really understood that he wasn't arguing that their own papers needed to be so visual because they're writing for a particular community. I tried to explain this more clearly, but I think they had shut down by then. For the rest of the time I workshopped the sample intro and synthesis. I was disappointed to find out that even though I put it up a couple days early, no one had even glanced at the sample yet.

Wednesday evening I sent out emails to everyone who had minor violations. I got one email from a student who had dropped down to a 'C' who clearly never understood the grade contract completely. He also claimed that he had turned in the Bernhardt response on blackboard, but it didn't show up "for some reason." I accepted his late work. It's also significant that this student was absent for Wednesday's class because he would later plagiarize the synthesis (and summary) that I had chosen as an example of a strong synthesis/summary. I emailed this student on Friday telling him I needed him to come to my office hours on Monday because I had something incredibly important to discuss about his reading response. He hasn't responded, so I'm waiting to see how it goes...

Friday: I was quite deflated after the plagiarism incident because it seems so pathetic to me. Despite the fact that I hated this week, Friday's class went really well. We watched Beyond the Red Ink and I had them respond with some freewriting and then I asked them what they wanted most out of my comments. For the rest of the time we workshopped two papers. I made them read through the papers because I feel like I always talk too much and I wanted them to stay awake. They seemed alert throughout the workshop, and I left feeling better about the week as a whole.

Next time I think I will set up the readings a little better the days before it is due so maybe they can understand them better. I also will start teaching them about synthesis earlier. Ultimately I do think all the synthesis lessons paid off because their synthesis were decent (much much better than their reading responses). Overall, I thought there intros and syntheses were pretty good. No one completely missed the mark on them.

Dawkins IWA

"Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool" by John Dawkins

Pre-reading Exercise
     All my roommates said that they didn't think that grammar rules are "bendable," though they did admit that some rules are more important than others. I agree that it's easier to remember some rules and ignore the rest. One roommate is appalled that we instructors are not grading for grammar or punctuation because she does not know when else they are supposed to learn. But these kids are only 4 years younger than I am, and I had a ton of grammar lessons in K-12. I figure that they know the rules that matter so the rest is not as important. Then again, I haven't read any of their formal writing yet, so maybe I too will be appalled.

Summary
    In his text "Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool," John Dawkins, while providing numerous examples from professional "good" writers, argues that punctuation can be a stylistic choice that writers employ for rhetorical purposes, either to clarify meaning or add emphasis. Dawkins designs a "Hierarchy of Functional Punctuation Marks" that he ultimately proposes instructors begin teaching students to help them with their writing. Students can choose to either raise or lower their sentences by selecting punctuation (zero, comma, colon, semicolon, or period) thus altering or revealing their intended "connection between words, phrases, or clauses" (152).

Synthesis
    Dawkins's article is similar to Bill Bryson's piece "Good English and Bad" because they both argue against traditional grammar rules. While Bryson addresses many grammar rules and other conventions about language, Dawkins focuses specifically on independent clauses. Dawkins argues that some writers choose grammatical choices (so-called "incorrect" usages) as a rhetorical device- for emphasis, clarity, etc. According to Dawkins, the rules for punctuation within sentences change depending on the intended rhetorical situation, which also recalls Margaret Kantz's discussion of how to identify the rhetorical situation and attend to it.

QD
1. Dawkins challenges the notion that handbook's have all the answers for how to properly write a sentence. He also challenges the notion that "good" writers follow punctuation rules by showing professional writers- writers who are considered very "good"- who ignore punctuation or specifically choose a punctuation tool in order to emphasize or change a sentence's meaning to fit his/her rhetorical goal.
5. I didn't know that you don't have to put a comma between two independent clauses when there is a coordinating conjunction already separating the clauses. I have always been taught that you always insert a comma between two independent clauses- but only if there is a coordinating conjunction; otherwise, it becomes the dreaded comma splice. For the longest time, I didn't actually know what a comma splice was, because the idea that I just mentioned had been so drilled into me, that I also used a comma to separate two independent clauses when there was an "and" "but" "so" between them. I think commas cause a lot of trouble, so it was nice to hear I could mess up and blame it on a stylistic choice. Although this seems more appropriate for creative writing than more academic writing.
6. Grammar like Bryson talks about in his article comes more naturally for me, so I do tend to fixate more on punctuation. Like I mentioned early, I still sometimes get tripped up on commas, especially in more complex sentences. Reading Dawkins has not really changed my thinking, though I did enjoy the piece. I think I write for a discourse community (Porter) that expects particular punctuation. I don't think they would care what rhetorical choices I was trying to make if it means I have a comma splice or no comma separating an independent clause from a dependent clause where there is a coordinator.

MM
I think it is very useful to see the examples of what Dawkins is speaking about. We need to see the examples so we can see how we would "properly" punctuate a sentence; then we can compare how it reads with another type of punctuation and see the differences in meaning. It is also helpful to see professional writers- writers who are considered excellent writers and masters of grammar- to play with sentences and grammar rules in this way. It directly subverts the notion of how "good" writers write. We can see that what makes a good writer is his/her ability to convey their intended meaning to an audience, not that they used proper grammar or punctuation.

Thoughts
   Like the Bryson article, I also enjoyed Dawkins's piece, though maybe to a lesser extent. While I think the examples are helpful, I also think my students might get tired of them, and it doesn't help that they probably won't be familiar with most of the author's Dawkins uses. I do like that Dawkins offers a new pedagogical method- the hierarchy- as a new way to teach students. I'm interested to hear their thoughts on raising and lowering and how well they think they'll be able to adopt a method like this for other genres besides creative writing.