Week 5: What is Language?

I would like to research and present the English Only Movement and how it relates to Literacy and "Discourse" from a social status perspective (socialization in the community and at home) when literacy (linguistics) is taught at home and enforced in society, at work, and at school. I will present how it has changed the way people view literacy in the views of Gee, Brandt, and Delpit using agents, discourse, Discourse and Bartholomae's use of the University.

The passage I feel that is most important to me would be “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. Differences in their performances are often attributed to family background (namely education and income of parents) or to particular norms and values operating within different ethnic groups and social classes. (Brandt, p.559)

This passage helps me to identify how the different classes and cultures in today’s society are structured around language and its interpretation through what is viewed as “one size fits all” and not necessarily that which is diverse and acceptable to all.

Language and its interpretation can be forced and not accepted.

Week 4: Sponsors in Literacy

My sponsors in my life can vary in only two direct areas of my life. At home, my sponsors would have been my family members. Brandt will state that sponsors, or agents, are people who stand in your life to benefit or gain from some sort of economic advantage through means of support or other mechanisms of opportunity. Brandt will go on to explain the benefits that are gained through learning to read and write through sponsors or agents in our lives.

Learning to read and write can vary depending on the resources that are available to you, or the society in which you live, and the resources that are available to you. Some benefit more than others. I have seen this most in the inner city, for example MPS, as opposed to living in the suburbs.  Not all students are given the same access and materials to successfully learn to read and write. In my own personal life, my family was my sponsors in that they pushed me to succeed and then through that I was able to go to school and get an education. I learned by watching my own family live, struggle, and survive in their own lives and their actions were a form of literacy for me.  These very actions pushed me into college where I would go on to continue my education, and get 2 degrees so far.

The family name that I was given, the name that was printed on my birth certificate and the signature that I learned to sign was my first agent. The second were my instructors in society who taught me the knowledge that I have today.

Mary Goodwin

Literacy: Blah, Blah, Blah! - Week 3

Literacy is the ability to read and write. Or is it the ability to have competence in one area, or two? Could it be taught at home, or in Discourse or a course? And what would we call it? What letters would we use, how would we spell it? Could we then say that my alphabet starts with this letter called yuzz. It’s the letter I use to spell yuzz-a-ma-tuzz. You’ll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond ‘Z’ and start poking around. (Dr. Seuss) Literacy, Literacy oh how could it be that a single word could have so many meanings, yet we still have to be able to read and write it to comprehend it.

Gee says “It is not what you say, but how you say it.” and your either primary or secondary. Primary or Secondary sounds like he or she is better than me. Discourse and discourse are both a course in literacy, but you won’t be the same person when you speak this language. One you do inside of the house and the other you do outside. And the good news is you now have an identity kit, according to Gee. It comes complete with “the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act and talk” so that others will recognize you. (Shapiro p.537) You mean finally someone will know who I am? How does one acquire such a language or discourse is what we all want to know, it varies according to place and time. And I could linger on and on. But would it answer what I really want to know, and am I privileged enough to know? Literacy is part of a larger political entity according to Gee. (Shapiro, p.546) I have to be born into it, so to say, in order to obtain it. And if not, then I probably will never get in. This builds an argument in my eyes then as now literacy has become a sort of social stratification. And it now therefore is based on my class, race, and gender. Hey wait a cotton pickin' minute! Who said I wanted to be on this course?

Literacy can be a more complicated word than we think. I would much rather prefer that it only mean that I could read and write. However, that would be the easy way out. And I am finding that being taught to comprehend also means that I know not. Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. (Dr. Seuss)

Maria Goodwin