Month: February 2017

https://medium.com/rising-cairn/the-mean-teacher-b93daea9bba9#.la0kdf3u8

This mean teacher narrative can relate to questions I’ve asked because it falls along the lines of feeling judged in a classroom setting – but by your teacher. Within this narrative a young boy struggles with a hard teacher who doesn’t do much teaching, and when she does the students are wrong or childish. Lesson being; you can’t always rely on the teacher to do the teaching, you sometimes have to teach yourself in order to get to where you need to be.

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https://medium.com/rising-cairn/cars-turning-over-to-the-sun-ce8e1bb55d56#.z82vo8m91

This narrative gives insight to some of my questions about being scared to answer questions or read out loud in class… Some students have trouble with speaking/pronouncing words and become self conscious. Not all teachers are encouraging when it comes to students with these issues. However, if most teachers were like the one written about in this narrative, maybe students would be more willing to read, or wouldn’t be so worried about judgement.

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The last literacy narrative I read was “Blank Screen” by Meghan Mazzocchi. Mazzocchi describes how she feels during the beginning stages of writing a paper. As a reader you will soon realize that her main issue is finding what to write about, “After spending hours of starting the same sentence over and over again getting frustrated at the computer screen” (Mazzocchi 1), a good answer for this issue is prewriting activites. While reading about Mazzocchis struggle of writing I asked myself, why is all the blame on the person who is trying to master the skill? Could it be they are struggling because the sponsor isn’t engaging enough or isn’t giving the student the resources they need? As she continues to tell a story she states, “He was my english teacher for two years and he never took the time to get to know me as a student” (Mazzocchi 2), this english teacher is the person who is going to draft her essay that determines her future. How can he do that if he doesn’t even know a little bit about her. He simply can not because “He gave me so much advice on how to ‘fix it’ that the essay started to sound more like him then it did me. It was the first time that I felt like I couldn’t speak up in my writing” (Mazzocchi 2). As Mazzocchi explains because he didn’t know who she really was he didn’t understand what she was writing was correct in some way. This so called sponsor was making the essay almost kind of his not hers. So therefor it can’t all be Mazzocchi’s fault that she is struggling because she has a sponsor that isn’t engaging or open for discussion. He doesn’t even really give her resources just advice that if she doesn’t take will effect her grade in the class. The lack of effort from the sponsor will have an effect on the confidence but into that student paper because they soon feel lost and confused. As Brandt would describe Mazzocchi as a victim. As a victim she also answered another question of mine, can someone sponsor themeslves? Yes, as Mazzocchi states “It was that I realized that no matter how much advice you can get from even the most brilliant person in the world there is nothing more important than listening to yourself” (4). Someone can sponsor themselves as long as they have the confidence to do so.

Link to Literacy Narrative

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While reading through Rising Cairn I came across “Live or Die” by Paige Hibbard her Literacy Narrative reminded me a lot of a family member of mine so I could relate a lot. Her story relates a lot to Dora Lopez from the Brandts reading, a girl that has no support for higher education at home so has to seek out and find help. Throughout the reading by Alexander it explains that there should never be discrimination to students who want to better themselves in literacy. However, how can that be when Gee himself discriminates people that are advancing differently by saying they are “mushfake”. Hibbard would be described as mushfake to Gee because her primary discourse is described by this  sentence “I didn’t expect to go to college, my parents never talked to me about it. Their expectations were for me to graduate high school” (1). This sentence in her literacy narrative explains she has no sponsor at home that pushed her to go to college because no one in her family had. She describes her family as non-dominant, but later explains she wants to but effort in and become something else other than a Mcdonalds worker. When Hibbard entered freshmen year she found a teacher that did show her the importance of school and they made a deal. Not only did she make a deal with her teacher but her grandparents as well. Her grandparents found out she wanted to college, so they fully supported her. They showed this support by what Brandt would call a reward, “My reward was $75. I was shocked I never thought I would be getting money for having good grades” (Hibbard 3). In my opinion Gee is in the wrong by discriminating against student who are achieveing goals with what they are supported with.Like Hibbard she used what she could to fully gain everything she could for to understand english. Everyone has to fake on concept of life, but in the end they will overcome in and accomplish something which Hibbard did by attending UNE to soon get a job that will bring a social status.

Link to Literacy Narrative

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In rising Cairn another literacy narrative that I could related to was “Eighth Grade English” by Carolina Dimler, she was able to answer or make sense of the question I had about sponsorship. In Brandt it states  “Sponsors, as I have come to think of them, are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, or model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy — and gain advantage by it in some way” (556), which doesn’t state if a sponsor can come in the form of a spirt or can someone be their own sponsor. In Dimlers writing she explains this story of how her exiting assignment for middle school was to write a letter to her future self. When she recieved it in the mail post graduation she explained how bad her writing was back then. She then states that “Realizing what I had written allowed me to analyze how much I have grown, not only as a person but as a writer” (Dimler 2), so this little assignment that her teacher assigned was a gift which would mean that her eight grade teacher is her sponsor. Although later in the text Dimler explains that “Now I have new opportunity to take this time frame of work and effort to put it towards my four years at college” (3), which explains the growth mindset theory. She is going to take the fact that she did not pay attention to much of her literacy movements in high school and apply it to college. To me as a reader it shows that she is showing a success epsisode as Alexander would explain as future-looking. Dimler is being her own sponsor and modeling to herself who she wanted to be in the future.

Link to Literacy Narrative

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While reading through a couple literacy narratives posted to Rising Cairn this one caught my eye first. This narrative “Education in Africa” by Cassie Waters brought light to one of the questions I made in a previous assignment. The question I stated was based off of the Alexander reading from when she talks about how “English indicated achievement and accomplsihment and was a means to power and advancement” (610), this quote relates to my question of can someone in a non-dominant discourse master literacy? Will reading her assignment I thought yes, someone in a non dominant discourse can master literacy. This is because the African American children she talked about showed that even though they didn’t have what Waters had at home they were still learning.They were learning from what they had such as limit resourses, or more often then not through teamwork. This lead to another question of can someone that hasn’t obviously mastered a discourse yet because they are still in the elementary level education be a sponsor? In Waters literacy narrative she explains that these children did teach her something even though they were younger and not as wise. They not only taught her about their culture, but they also taught her to value an education. After Waters met these kids she said herself “Ever since I came back I have looked at education in a different way and see it as a privilage that I should be taking full advantage of” (4). The children were able to show in there non-dominant discourse that hasn’t even been fully mastered that they are still managing to master or accomplish most aspects of english, so she should be able to do the same thing. They will one day master literacy through the many advancements they made throughout their education.

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 Link to Literacy Narrative

“The most common ‘cultural narrative’ that scholars observe students performing in literacy narratives is the conventional literacy success story” (Alexander 609). What is this conventional story, and why does it seem so prevalent in student literacy narratives? Support your response with evidence from Alexander and a discussion of ways your own literacy narrative from English 122 does or does not fit this kind of story.

The conventional story is the idea of students labeling themselves as victims and having to fight the “oppression” they experience on daily basis in the public school system.  Alexander supports this claim by saying, “The popularity of the victim narrative in student texts indicates that students associate school-based literacy practices with oppression and even cruelty.” (Alexander 618).  The conventional story the students write about highlight their enact ability to overcome the “oppression” and succeed in circumstances that they perceive themselves to be against the odds in.

Alexander contrasts “master” and “little” narratives. What is this contrast, and why is it important for her to make sense of student literacy narratives? Use at least one kind of little narrative discussed by Alexander (614-22) to illustrate how little narratives differ from the “master narrative” one so often finds and explain that difference. Be sure to quote Alexander.

The contrast between “master” and “little” narratives is in how each narrative is told.  Generally “master” narratives tell the story of historically accepted ways of thinking and “little” narratives call into questions these narratives and articulate an argument that can potentially also oppose that of the “master” narrative.  Alexander stresses an importance on the understanding of the difference between the two narrative styles because they can help understand the socio-economic status of the students writing them and is a reflection of how each student grew up.  An example of a little is when Aaron a student from Alexander’s writing said, “I said something inappropriate to another kid, and my mom made me write a two-page paper as punishment.  I wrote the paper and hated it.  I would say that that incident probably spurned my distaste for writing.” (Alexander 617).

Revisit Brandt’s ideas about literacy sponsorship. Select at least one of the cultural narrative types identified by Alexander (614-22) and explore the ways that Alexander’s discussion of that type offers insights into Brandt’s idea of literacy sponsors. As a reminder, Brandt defines literacy sponsors as “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” (556). Be sure to quote Alexander and Brandt. Suggestion: pick a cultural narrative type that interests you!

In the literacy narrative about Jeremy he explores his interests in writing and how being interested in certain types of writing or literacy kept him continuing to be burnt out by literacy.  A passage analyzing Jeremy’s experience explains, “…the joys that reading offered prevailed in the end after be burned out by reading so much literature that didn’t interest me.” (Alexander 616).  As Brandt defines literacy sponsors as “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” (Alexander 556).  Jeremy’s narrative is an example of literacy sponsorship because the enjoyment Jeremy has from reading and writing about topics that are of interest to him as a way of promoting literacy to those student who do not like to read what is assigned to them but take it upon themselves to find books and write stories that are interesting to them.

 

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In the top right I annotated the difference in structure between a master narrative and a little narrative.  A master narrative is an example of a narrative that is accepted yet does not challenge any particular way of thinking.  A little narrative calls into question the content presented by a master and often present alternative ways of thinking.  On the left photo in the middle between the top and bottom annotations I noted that child prodigies being read to by parents and visited libraries and bookstores and had the resources to succeed was an example of filtering.  The filtering was in correlation with the parents reading to their children and helped filter literacy work such as reading and writing into their primary Discourse enabling them to become gifted or “prodigies”.  In the bottom left annotation I responded to the the statement that, “Child prodigy narratives, like the hero narratives, also reinforce the notion that literacy leads to success.” (Alexander 619).  I am unsure of the concept that literacy leads to success, it may be a way of leading to success but I do not not believe a mastery of literacy necessarily is a guarantee of success.  The idea of success is relative and I would argue as much as it may ensure financial well being in a first world country such as the United States it is just as irrelevant in impoverished nations where literacy isn’t a clear path to success.

 

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 2.) “The most common ‘cultural narrative’ that scholars observe students performing in literacy narratives is the conventional literacy success story” (Alexander 609). What is this conventional story, and why does it seem so prevalent in student literacy narratives? Support your response with evidence from Alexander and a discussion of ways your own literacy narrative from English 122 does or does not fit this kind of story.   

The conventional story that is constantly being used for narratives is, how going to school will help get better grades and will allow someone to make their future a success, according to alexander. The reason it is so prevalent in student narratives is it allows the student to develop and grow on ideas and their thoughts through writing. So in a similar way, my 122 literacy narrative, fits this kind if story because the narrative is being written to show development and to show improvement to later on master something.

 

4.) Alexander contrasts “master” and “little” narratives. What is this contrast, and why is it important for her to make sense of student literacy narratives? Use at least one kind of little narrative discussed by Alexander (614-22) to illustrate how little narratives differ from the “master narrative” one so often finds and explain that difference. Be sure to quote Alexander. 

The contrast between “master” and “little” narratives is that the master narrative is one large narrative to frame their literacy experiences. While on the other hand, the little narratives are used to show multiple stories about their literary narartives. For example: ” victim: is a victim of negative literacy experience, in or out of school…” (615 alexander) so in little narratives, it takes an experience and that is what’s used, instead of a master narrative where more then one experience is used throughout the paper.

 

6.) Revisit Brandt’s ideas about literacy sponsorship. Select at least one of the cultural narrative types identified by Alexander (614-22) and explore the ways that Alexander’s discussion of that type offers insights into Brandt’s idea of literacy sponsors. As a reminder, Brandt defines literacy sponsors as “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” (556). Be sure to quote Alexander and Brandt. Suggestion: pick a cultural narrative type that interests you!

 

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