February 20th homework

Swales summary:
In his article "The Concept of Discourse Community," Swales attempts to describe the six things that are  guidelines to what is included in a discourse community. He argues that there is no specific clear definition of what a discourse community is so he clarifies what a discourse community is and gives examples of things that wouldn't be discourse communities.
QD
1. 1. common goals the discourse community has that they are interested in. When I was in competitive cheerleading we were all learning the same routine and all hoping to win the competitions so we were all in the same discourse community 2. places where they can put communication like the blog in this class we can all go here to put information in the class 3. feed back- places people can go where info is communicated 4. genres that become like categories because people continue to use them 5. language- their own words 6. change- a system for new members to be able to become a part. These are all six parts of a discourse community.
3. No, because not everyone in the class has the same goal because they are all in different majors after the class. But in a way it could be because the students have some common goals because they are doing the same assignments and trying to understand the class.
5. Well this class is a discourse community that I am in because; we all have the goal of passing the class, we can communicate on our blogs and put information on them, we get feedback from peers on all of ours blogs and papers, the things we learn we continue to use, we are all becoming better writers or that is the goal and were all new members to the class.
MM
I learned some things that I didn't know about discourse communities but the majority of it I was already aware of.
Reflection
I thought this was interesting because it explained the guidelines of discourse communities which made it easier to define one. This probably will be helpful to me because we talk a lot about discourse communities in this class and it helped me to understand them better. I agree with him with these guidelines they make sense and are a good set of guidelines.
Gee Summary
In his article "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics," Gee talks about his opinion of Discourse and the different parts of it and how it relates to a discourse community. In this he talks about dominant and nondominant Discourses, primary and secondary Discourses,  metaknowledge, and mushfake and discuses their meanings. He argues that a person needs to be fluent to be in a discourse community and that discourse can not be taught but that it can be learned by practicing because they vary too much.
QD
3. He says discourse with a "D" is  a combination of views, identity kit, saying or writing, doing, looking, being ect. and that Discourse is identity and discourse is part of a Discourse. This makes sense to me because he explains it well.
4.primary Discourse is focused on self and cannot be critiqued as meta-language unlike secondary Discourse which contains dominant and nondominant discourses and bring money prestige, status ect.
5.He means that one is all about one person and their identity not a group of people.
6.This relates because no one teaches you your identity or teaches you to be you, so you can not teach someone Discourse because that wouldn't be the persons identity.
7. He means that if you are with a discourse community you can tell who belongs and who doesn't because it is obvious they do not fit in and this has to do with the language. This could relate to cheerleading if someone on my cheerleading squad doesn't know the chants that we do it is obvious that they haven't been on the cheerleading squad the past years like the rest of the girls.
8. This is so you can tell if a person belongs with the discourse community or not so you know if they should be in it or if they shouldn't.
11. Metaknowledge is knowledge about knowledge and it helps people to know what is going on or what things are.
12. I am part of a tumbling discourse community because I have been doing it since I was very young and I understand what the names of all the different tricks are and I would be able to have a conversation with anyone about tumbling and know what they are saying when they use specific words relating to it.
AEI
2. The discourse community that I was born into was Cleveland. People always say that I have a "Cleveland" accent and that a pronounce words like bAckpack and bAgle, I talk very sarcastically like many other people I know from home. Also, the area I lived in was a very good school district so students were held to very high standards and expected to value school very much. Here we are held to a high standard for doing well in school and value the education here so it is very similar.
4. I don't have conflicts or tensions between my discourses because I am able to act how I need to the the situation that I am in and it is not difficult because I know enough about each discourse. Between these discourses it isn't difficult to navigate because they are separate things that do not interfere.
Reflection
This article was not interesting while I read it because it was a little confusing to me. Once we went over it in class I understood it better so it will be helpful to me in the future. I agree with him because the whole identity thing really makes sense relating to the article.

Cover Letter 4

On our website, The Values of Literact in the World Today we are telling our readers how much they should value the opportunity to learn to read and write. We argue that people take for granit the ability to be literate because for most people it is a way of life and they don't realize not everyone has the privilege to learn these skills. We talk about how the basis of learning starts out with reading and writing and without it we couldn't learn anything. Examples we use are that people from earlier centuries did not have the privileges that we do and either do people in other countries. We also share our own personal stories of what we remember of becoming literate. Another thing we did was ask some old english teachers their opinions on the values of literacy and literacy sponsors (some haven't responded yet). I think we did a good job of making the sections clear and easy to find what they want to read. However, we feel we may be missing something. We would like any advice or feedback that you have to make our website better!

Febuary 15th homework

Summary:
In the article "Motivation in Literacy Development," Cecchini and Perez attempt to discuss the main motivations factors for people to read early on. They interviewed 8 honor students who have shown academic success in all areas. They argue that without motivating factors such as family, read and writing for pleasure, technology, special programs, and self motivation the students wouldn't have had so much academic success because each of these students had at least one if not more of these motivating factors.
Do authors put their own histories into paper?
The authors in this article did not use their own histories in this paper they mainly used the research that they found from the students. Authors usually do include their own histories into papers because it makes the arguments more convincing.
Do you refer to yourself in the first or third person? Why?
I refer to myself in first person because it is like I am talking about myself so I think that it is more convincing although talking in third person can be an interesting way to write something.
Reflection:
 I thought this article was interesting because they got the evidence from students who were successful in school and found similarities that made them academically successful.  This probably won't be helpful to me because I am past the stages of learning to read and write.I agree that all of the factors in the article would help with academic success.

Final Paper 2

For this paper I was trying to describe how everyone has their own process when they write that makes them a better writer. I started with saying what I do before I write and what kind of environment I need to be in when I write. I then described the steps that I found that I take while I am writing a paper and what I do when I am finished with my paper. I think that I put everything that we were told to have in the paper but I think that maybe I did not fully understand how you wanted me to go about telling my story. If I was given more time I would probably read more examples of this type of paper in order to give myself a better idea of how exactly I should have done the paper. My peer review recommended that I changed some sentences to make my paper clearer so I changed those and that instead of write something like "then I did" I changed it to "then I do" so I went through my paper and changed the tense. I'm curious to get your feedback on my paper so I can see what in your opinion could have been done differently.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/81005564/How-i-Write-Final

February 8th homework

Baron:

In his article “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies,” Baron talks about “the histories of writing technologies that we are unlikely to even recognize as “technology” anymore.”(p.422) He claims, “old technologies become automatic and invisible” (p438) because we all become more concerned with the new technologies and that we think of the older technologies used for writing as “natural” because we are so used to the writing technologies.

QD:

2. I think that one of his messages is that we don’t know if new technologies will fundamentally change writing or not.

4. Cameras that weren't digital, VHS movies, and walk-men were all high in technology at one point and are now barley recognized.  They all have new improved inventions.

6. The images give visual examples of what he is saying to give a better understanding.

Reflection:

I thought Barons article was very long and I wasn't necessarily interested in the topic. I'm not sure what it will help me with in the long run but once it is discussed in class I'm sure I will have a better understanding of what it will help me with.

Malcolm X:

Summary:

In "Learning to Read," Malcolm X talks about the process he went through while he was in prison, writing letters and rewriting the dictionary.

QD:

1. His papers intended audience was people who struggle with literacy or haven't learned, I know this because it was very encouraging to people.  

2. He defines "literacy" as understand what is being said to you or what you are reading. 

3. School until he was in the 8th grade, prison supplying books, and the books he read. I think the books he was able to read were the most influential because they helped him the most.

4. Not understanding really what the books said sometimes because he did not understand all the words is an example of how he would misappropriate.

6. When I read it is usually because its an assignment for school I don't really read anything outside of schoolwork. So him reading more than college students makes sense to me. 

AEI

1. I think technologies make it easier to be literate now because we have so many more resources that we can use that help us with being literate.

Alexie:

Summary:

In "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me," Alexie talks about when he first understood reading the and how he was naturally good at it along with all the different things that he read that helped him. He talks about all the things he read even comic books helped him with his writing. 

QD:

1. If a child isn't held to high expectations a lot of the time the child won't try to their ability because they are expected to. When a child is expected to do well the child will work harder to do well than a child who doesn't have expectations to do well in most cases. If certain races to expected to be "stupid" then these kids may not want to be "different" than the other so they will not try as hard to do well. When I was growing up my parents had high expectations for me to do well and so did the school system I was in so I felt pressure to do well so this helped me with trying to do well in school. This shaped me because it made me try harder. 

AEI:

1. I think that it is difficult for people to overcome poverty and discrimination but if people are determined enough they could probably find a way to overcome it.

Reflection:

I thought this was a interesting essay to see someone in a different situations obstacles that they overcame to read and write. Im not sure how this is going to help me in the future but it was interesting for me to read.

February 6th homework

Summary:
In her article "Sponsors of Literacy," Deborah Brandt discusses ways that people become literate and how literacy is sponsored by people. She talks about "literacy sponsorship" and how sponsors are "figures who turned up most typically in people's memories of literacy learning."
QD
1. She defines literacy sponsor as "forces that shape our literacy learning and practices." Literacy sponsors are knowledgeable, wealthy, and religious.
3.They misappropriate because they only take into account the upper and middle class students not the students with limited access.
4.Stratified is how the status of people is organized and the stakes shes referring to are something that limits someone.
AEI
1. My literacy sponsors were my teachers, coaches and parents. My family taught me basic things, my teachers taught me academics, and my coaches taught me teamwork. I think that these were adequate sponsors and I can't think of any literacy's that I wish I would have had access to.
Reflection:
I did really understand this article that well so I didn't find it very interesting. Because I didn't really understand it I'm not really sure how useful it will be to me but maybe once we discuss it in class it will be more clear and I will be able to use it. I could compare this to my experiences because I have had people I could consider sponsors in my life. I agree with what she is saying how sponsors are influences on our literacy's.

Paper #2

With this paper I was trying to explain how you don't have a certain process when you write and you can make your own and still accomplish your writing. My main point was I was not sure if I was a multi or one draft writer and I had my own process of writing. I start by talking about how I was not sure what type of writer I was and saying how I struggle when I write. I then went into how paying attention to how I write while I wrote helped me to understand how I write. Then I told the story of how I wrote paper number one and wrote things that helped me when I struggled. I addressed the fact that you don't need to follow a specific format to write and you can do it however you please. I am not sure if I need to add anything more to the beginning before I tell my story. In your response any advice you have for my paper I would like. If given more time I might have had the chance to think of more ways to approach writing this paper or pay attention to myself while writing something else.



http://www.scribd.com/doc/80273754/how-i-write