Monday, December 26, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Reflective Piece
Two concepts and their readings were very memorable for me in this course. In fact, most of the things we learned in this class were very new to me and I was not aware of the rich history of literacy in the West. From the very beginning when we read the history of “Reading” and “Writing” and the whole concept that “Silent reading” did not always exist and that it was a surprise for people when it began was a wonder for me. Although I knew that oral reading was a lot more common in the ancient times, I never suspected it was due to the absence of silent reading!
More importantly, I was not aware of this physiological change that writing has undergone and how text used to be scriptua continua or “unseperated text”. There’s just so much that I’ve learned about the history of language in this class that I do not think I could’ve learned in a lifetime! I’m pretty sure most people do not know that the space between words were put in there to help with recitation and is similar to the purpose of punctuation marks. In addition, another really memorable reading to me was the book by Victoria titled “Other People’s Words”. It was just so amazing and sad at the same time to realize the true lack of basic literacy skills of reading and writing here in the United States. It is not too weird for me to hear that somewhere in smaller towns in Iran or perhaps really poor families there may not know how to read and write and it is still ok because they can somehow “survive”. But now I have understood that even here in the United States, the nation of equal opportunities and of the best kind of education available (which is what most other nations think) illiteracy exists. It came as a shock to me but it was also an awakening call to watch out for this in my students and be aware instead of ignorant.
What I've learned in this class has enlightened me and enhanced my appreciation for the Language Arts. I am determined to continue my studies in this field even after my the completion of this program.
More importantly, I was not aware of this physiological change that writing has undergone and how text used to be scriptua continua or “unseperated text”. There’s just so much that I’ve learned about the history of language in this class that I do not think I could’ve learned in a lifetime! I’m pretty sure most people do not know that the space between words were put in there to help with recitation and is similar to the purpose of punctuation marks. In addition, another really memorable reading to me was the book by Victoria titled “Other People’s Words”. It was just so amazing and sad at the same time to realize the true lack of basic literacy skills of reading and writing here in the United States. It is not too weird for me to hear that somewhere in smaller towns in Iran or perhaps really poor families there may not know how to read and write and it is still ok because they can somehow “survive”. But now I have understood that even here in the United States, the nation of equal opportunities and of the best kind of education available (which is what most other nations think) illiteracy exists. It came as a shock to me but it was also an awakening call to watch out for this in my students and be aware instead of ignorant.
I would like to learn more about multimodal composing. I know that it is probably quite the challenge to want to incorporate this to my teaching because not all school curriculums look kindly to this media. However, I’m determined to at least incorporate some form of digital literacy and multimodal composing into my classes for my students.
What I've learned in this class has enlightened me and enhanced my appreciation for the Language Arts. I am determined to continue my studies in this field even after my the completion of this program.
6 Comments from Fall 2011
Comment 1: (from October 23, 2011 8:16 PM)
I wanted to also respond to this text and I thought it best to just write it as a comment here instead of starting a new post. Firstly, Nayanda, as you mention it is very important for the university to try to find ways to incorporate the students' backgrounds into the rhetoric and teaching, which isn't very easy at times. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the particular scaffolding assignment of the students doing a narrative about their language history then an analysis of their own beliefs within that narrative, then interviewing classmates and comparing the backgrounds of their classmates with theirs, etc. This was a very practical assignment that I think I would like to use for my own students in the future perhaps. It's not just theories.
Another thing I want to point out is when the authors point out that sometimes students from different backgrounds are not even aware of what plagiarism really is and why it's so bad: "The assumption underlying Western academic views of plagiarism--that ideas are the property of individuals--is foreign to many culture groups" (19). I know for a fact in my country, Iran, there is no such thing as "copy right" to begin with, let alone plagiarism in student papers! In fact, I experienced this a lot at the writing center at LaGuardia Community College. A lot of the students understood that they have to "cite" information they find elsewhere but they did not quite understand WHY. So, it is very ignorant of teachers especially of a very diverse classroom to just assume the whole class knows why plagiarism is bad and just go on to make sure everyone just doesn't do it. It is our responsibility as teachers to be aware of these culture and rhetoric differences at all times.
I wanted to also respond to this text and I thought it best to just write it as a comment here instead of starting a new post. Firstly, Nayanda, as you mention it is very important for the university to try to find ways to incorporate the students' backgrounds into the rhetoric and teaching, which isn't very easy at times. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the particular scaffolding assignment of the students doing a narrative about their language history then an analysis of their own beliefs within that narrative, then interviewing classmates and comparing the backgrounds of their classmates with theirs, etc. This was a very practical assignment that I think I would like to use for my own students in the future perhaps. It's not just theories.
Another thing I want to point out is when the authors point out that sometimes students from different backgrounds are not even aware of what plagiarism really is and why it's so bad: "The assumption underlying Western academic views of plagiarism--that ideas are the property of individuals--is foreign to many culture groups" (19). I know for a fact in my country, Iran, there is no such thing as "copy right" to begin with, let alone plagiarism in student papers! In fact, I experienced this a lot at the writing center at LaGuardia Community College. A lot of the students understood that they have to "cite" information they find elsewhere but they did not quite understand WHY. So, it is very ignorant of teachers especially of a very diverse classroom to just assume the whole class knows why plagiarism is bad and just go on to make sure everyone just doesn't do it. It is our responsibility as teachers to be aware of these culture and rhetoric differences at all times.
Comment 2: (from December 19, 2011 7:43 AM)
I'm not sure if I agree with you there Frank. Although I do agree that there exists a "multicultural rhetoric" and that it is our job as the 'future educators' to respect that the Western rhetoric is not the ONLY right one. However, I do not think we can simply disregard our rhetorical concepts and try to accomodate the culture for the sake of students from other nations like the Chinese or Arabic. These people have come to the U.S. because they believe that this is how they will find success with THIS educational system. Thus, it is not our job to make it disregard our own standards and adapt theirs. However, it is definitely our responsibilities to accept that there is a difference and be prepared to have students who come from such backgrounds and do our best to teach them the standards here. Of course, in the process, we may be more forgiving with those students. However, we cannot disregard anything because after they leave our classes, they have to achieve success in the world here. How can they truly succeed if they have not been properly educated in school? Although idealistically speaking, living in a perfect world would allow students to explore their own writing natures creatively and so on. However, we must train our students from multicultural rhetorics by perhaps even employing their way of learning in the context of standard writing conventions in the West so that they can not only pass that Basic Writing class but also know how the system works.
Comment 3: (from SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2011 6:24 AM )
Chapter 6 of "The Culture and Politics of Literacy" by W. Ross Winterowd
It's amazing when you have experience of teaching, because you can always find something in readings related to Literacy that can relate to your field. So, as I was reading this chapter, I especially paid attention to the different forms of writing and their purposes. In fact, I really wish I would've read this before the beginning of this semester, because I have struggled so much with trying to have my students think of a purpose and an audience for their papers. It's hard for them to understand that writing papers does not mean writing for your teacher to get a grade, since this is mostly what they have been used to since high school. (My students are mostly freshmen).
From page 104 to 110, Winterowd talks extensively about the different genres of writing like "informative writing", "Argumentative", "Exploratory" and etc. For instance, on page 110, he has put all six kinds of writing (that he has identified here) with the writer's purpose and the prospective readers. So for the "Argumentative" essay, the "Writer" would be "the disinterested investigator setting forth the evidence, either data or reasoning" and the "Reader" would be "the critical observer, weighing and evaluating the evidence." And what was especially interesting for me was the distinction that is made between "Persuasive" writing and the "Argumentative" because more often we think of the two being the same when they are actually different. For the "Persuasion" genre, the writer is actually "the honorable person attempting to bring about a change for the better in the behavior or thinking of the reader" and the reader is "a person willing to change if the benefits seem real and feasible. So in fact, there is a difference between two regarding the audience. Perhaps the purpose is to persuade more or less for both genres but it makes a difference for the person who is writing when having in mind who the prospective reader would be.
After the different genres, Winterowd focuses on the writing process throughout the chapter. It is especially very useful for prospective or practicing teachers in my opinion because I am already thinking of perhaps making copies of some parts of the this to take to my students to read as a class even though it is almost the end of the semester.
Comment 4: (from December 19, 2011 6:17 AM)
I think what Cynthia Selfe is justifying here is what only lies in our natural selves as humans. Oral culture used to be the core and base of communication amongst our ancestors. Suddenly, along with the shift in manufacturing and advancement in science and business, we began to completely disregard this part of ourselves. Selfe is merely admitting to this loss. However, she is is also showing that the newest advancements today in technology and the world of Web 2.0 and Facebook has shun a new light on our old and traditional way of communication, which is the employment of aurality/orality. It is unfair to try to make students write in a two-dimensional way with their audience and purpose in mind while in reality, they are constantly communicating in the three-dimensional digital way. To ask students to put that behind and concentrate on nothing but the written word as a means of communication is, at the end of the day, unfair.
Comment 5: (from October 16, 2011 7:31 PM)
Elisa,
I think it is important to distinguish what "literacy" you're referring to in your response. Is it literacy vs. illiteracy of technology? Perhaps in those days, technology meant writing in itself and as Ong writes, today technology usually equals computers and other electronics. Though I was a bit confused about your points in the end of your response, overall I do agree with what you're saying. I interpreted that oral culture has diminished over the years and continues doing so today because they are not appreciated for what they truly are. This is especially true when the author distinguishes between how a person from an oral culture can think of a concept of a word and literate person never truly can.
Ong claims:
"If functionally literate persons are asked to think of the word "nevertheless," they will all have present in imagination the letters of the word--vaguely perhaps, but unavoidably--in handwriting or typescript or print. If they are asked to think of the word "nevertheless" for two minutes, 120 seconds, without ever allowing any letters at all to enter their imaginations, they cannot comply. A person from a completely oral background of course has no such problem. He or she will think only of the real word, a sequence of sounds, "ne-ver-the-less." For the real word "nevertheless," the sounded word, cannot ever be present all at once, as written words deceptively seem to be. Sound exists only when it is going out of existence..."
This really got my attention in that it made me think of the word itself and just as he said, I couldn't take the letters out of my mind. He is claiming that imagination is in a sense taken away from us because we rely heavily on words. Similarly, in the technology today, often people criticize the computer and typing instead of writing or the e-reader for reading instead of holding the actual book in our hands, in the same manner. It's like more and more, as technology advances, man is separated from nature and from itself and as mentioned above, "from the plenum of existence".
I think it is important to distinguish what "literacy" you're referring to in your response. Is it literacy vs. illiteracy of technology? Perhaps in those days, technology meant writing in itself and as Ong writes, today technology usually equals computers and other electronics. Though I was a bit confused about your points in the end of your response, overall I do agree with what you're saying. I interpreted that oral culture has diminished over the years and continues doing so today because they are not appreciated for what they truly are. This is especially true when the author distinguishes between how a person from an oral culture can think of a concept of a word and literate person never truly can.
Ong claims:
"If functionally literate persons are asked to think of the word "nevertheless," they will all have present in imagination the letters of the word--vaguely perhaps, but unavoidably--in handwriting or typescript or print. If they are asked to think of the word "nevertheless" for two minutes, 120 seconds, without ever allowing any letters at all to enter their imaginations, they cannot comply. A person from a completely oral background of course has no such problem. He or she will think only of the real word, a sequence of sounds, "ne-ver-the-less." For the real word "nevertheless," the sounded word, cannot ever be present all at once, as written words deceptively seem to be. Sound exists only when it is going out of existence..."
This really got my attention in that it made me think of the word itself and just as he said, I couldn't take the letters out of my mind. He is claiming that imagination is in a sense taken away from us because we rely heavily on words. Similarly, in the technology today, often people criticize the computer and typing instead of writing or the e-reader for reading instead of holding the actual book in our hands, in the same manner. It's like more and more, as technology advances, man is separated from nature and from itself and as mentioned above, "from the plenum of existence".
Comment 6: (from December 19, 2011 2:32 PM )
As I've written my paper on the term "space between words" it is very interesting to look back at this concept especially now that we have advanced to learning about digital literacy and multimodal composing and multicultural rhetoric. So it's all quite interesting. As for the concept of "scriptura continua", I am coming to the realization more and more that it is like Cynthia L. Selfe believes that it is in our nature to read aloud and express ourselves loudly. It is very similar to this lexical ability that the author talks about in here. Paul Saenger has written about how psychologists have observed that although it is absolutely possible for us to eventually adapt to this way of reading without having the space between the words, but it is more difficult.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Essay 1: Observations and Responses to Columbia U Workshop
Here is my Observations and Responses to Columbia U Workshop essay. It is a google doc and is available to be viewed by anyone with the link.
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