Author: smanuels

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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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2. A conventional story is described as a “Narrative that assumes the more literate one is the more, successful he or she will be” (Alexander 609). What Alexander is implying is that society has this image that students need to be successful in literacy to become successful in the real world, or as Gee was say enter a dominant secondary discourse. In todays education reading and writing can seem almost like a chore. In high school most kids feel as they aren’t able to master an assignment because of all the crazy requirements needed for a paper. Also students in lower education can feel that there success can be put on a hold do to an episode that has effected there literacy outlook. They are held to these traditional standards, but not everyone has a bad experience. When trying to learn about someones literacy discourse they have to express themselves through an writing prompt. Something where they can show what they have mastered while learning where they are emotionally with literacy. Students papers will be attacked for not having the right exact standards which when a students hopes of accomplishing a paper are let down it can cause them to close u with literacy which is what happened with my my senior year. My writing style just wasn’t what was required for that course and it was extremely difficult when my teacher wouldn’t give me the time of day. She acted like because I couldn’t do it to begin with I would never accomplish it. So it was hard to find the light, but like the other examples in the story somehow I was able to regroup.

4. The two types of writing Alexander talks about is “little” and “master”. The main contrast between the two is “The importance of the “little” or local, more specifc, narratives of literacy that contrast with and challenge the master narratives” (Alexander 611). What she is saying is that the “little” writing style is better for a literacy narrative because it expresses challenges which is in almost every literacy narrative that is told. Where as a “master” is expressed differently. It is told to be “like the success narrative, are orthodox and legitimate” (Alexander 611), so it is a story that is true and excepted. Most literacy narratives are not true and excepted they are something that is unauthorized, or not expected to be the same for everyone. For an example Alexander tells us about all these “littles” that people talk about in their narratives, the most common one being victim. Alexander expresses victim as “students wrote about negative school-based literacy experiences that stigmatized and marked them, including being misread by poor or insensitive teachers, having a ‘masterpiece’ ruined by a teacher’s notorious red ink, or being forced to write research papers and read books or critique rather than pleasure” (Alexander 617). As you see this little can be different than a mastered narrative because it does show a true story. A victim story can be told in many different forms and not set to one strict way. 

6. The cultural narrative type that intrests me the most is the victim narrative. This is mostly likely because after reading what victim narrative was and rethinking my literacy narrative I realized that my cultural narrative was a victim narrative. As Alexander states a victim narrative is a “Negative school-based literacy experiences that stigmatized and marked them” (617). In my literacy narrative I discussed how a teacher of mine during my senior year ruined my confidence in writing and would never help. She was considered a sponsor to my lack of literacy success as Brandt would say. A sponsor is “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” (Brandt 556). So as you see my sponsor doesn’t have to be someone that helps they can withhold me as well. My teacher withheld me from trying to ask questions by giving me the thought that because I didn’t come into the course with a well understanding that I never would understand. Although by the end of that course I accomplished getting an above average grade because I tried. I wanted to prove her wrong, so I found the light of the situation.

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While annotating Alexander I found the common themes that have been discussed in both Gee and Brandt. When I saw a cross text relation I highlighted it in orange and explained why it related to the texted. I also did some chunky when needed. Chunky is great when a chunk of text is explaining the same topic that is key to the reading. When I saw key points for the reading or needed to explain something more I would highlight in pink and write in explanation in pink pen. Throughout the reading I did have questions that came up from me not understanding the text or not understand why Alexander was saying what she was saying those questions are blue. There were some conflicts that I found she was was getting at based of culture, so when I came across a conflict I noted it in yellow to stand out.

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