Anzaldua

SUMMARY:

In her article “ Tlilli Tlapalli: The Path of the Red and Black Ink” Gloria Anzaldia tells her story. When she was younger she says how she would always stay up late reading, and wouldn’t want to go to sleep. She began creating stories in her head and would begin writing them down. She sees a mosaic pattern within her book that she’s writing. Through out her article she makes many cultural references. For example she refers to Aztecs, tribal cultures, Western aesthetics, Indians, and whites. She also talks about myths.

SYNTHESIS:

I made a connection to Anzaldua’s article with “Queer Texts, Queer Contexts” by Harriet Malinowitz. Anzaldua compares being a writer to being queer. She states that “Being a writer feels very much like being a Chicana or being queer - a lot of squirming, coming up against all sorts of walls.” It reminded me of the discourse community of homosexuals. I also made a connection because she brings up culture. Someone of a different culture, and someone that is homosexual could face some of the same problems, just like every discourse community. 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Through out reading her piece I often got confused or didn’t understand everything. She talks in a way where she doesn’t use typical English words and references. I think she made the choice to not explain the language she uses to leave the reader wondering. I think that she wanted to be different.

OPINIONS:

I thought that the reading was very descriptive and visual. However I found it somewhat hard to follow. I think that she made too many cultural references that were hard to pick up on. It wasn’t a bad read though, it was a good length. 

Cixous

This reading was confusing to me. I don’t quite understand what Cixous is talking about the whole time. I also don’t understand the sexual references that keep being made. What are they trying to say when they are comparing pregnancy to writing on page 257? I also don’t understand the part on page 258 where they are talking about women having a “loving desire” and not a jealous one.

Queer Rhetorical Agency

SUMMARY:
In their article “Queer Rhetorical Agency: Questioning Narratives of Heteronormativity” David L. Wallace and Jonathan Alexander discuss how the homosexual community is treated.They talk about how you shouldn't be discriminated against for being queer. They argue that you people should accept who you are and that you shouldn't hide in your identity.


CONNECTIONS:
This article reminded me of an article by Harriet Malinowitz called “Queer Texts, Queer Contexts. Her article also discusses the LGBT discourse community. They both talk about how they shouldn't be put into their own discourse community for homosexuals. They should be able to join other discourse communities without being judged.

OPINIONS:
I thought that this article was kind of hard to follow and understand. Parts of it were interesting though. I didn't like how they were comparing gays to not a normal family.

Delpit, Smitherman

DELPIT:

 In her article “The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse” Lisa Delpit discusses  literacy educators. She talks about the difficulties the teachers can have while teaching literate discourse styles to all students. Delpit talks about teachers not knowing when students are ready to learn the material or not. She talks about an author that we previously read in class, James Paul Gee. She talks about how she agrees with much that Gee wrote. She also talks about students diversity. She believes that teachers need to treat every student the same. 

SMITHERMAN:

In her article “God Don’t Never Change”: Black English from a Black Perspective Geneva Smiterman attempts to show what English is from black persons perspective. She uses the term Black English to talk about the language. She believes that there is a difference between black and white language. She argues that it is not fair that black people have to learn white language. She believes that black language is just as important as white language. She feels as if society doesn’t accept black language. Smitherman is trying to get the point across that each individual speaks differently and society needs to accept it.

CONNECTIONS: 

I connected this two articles because they both talked about minorities in a way. In the first article talks about not knowing how to deal with students, or not knowing what to teach them, based on their background. The second article is about blacks having to learn white language to be accepted instead of just communicating with black language. 

OPINIONS:

I thought that both of the articles were interesting to read. I liked them because they both dealt with important issues that are going on. The articles made me think more about the topics they were talking about. 

Learning Experience

There is one learning experience that’s constantly in the back of my mind. I’ve learned many things from this experience. The morning of my high school commencement plays in my head every day. I woke up to get ready for commencement. I didn’t want to get out of bed yet, so I looked on twitter. The first tweet I saw was from my friend Savana who is two years older than me, it read “Today I lost my best friend, my other half, my sister, my everything.” My heart instantly dropped. I didn’t know what happened, or what it meant. I messaged her, and all she texted back was “Callie, she’s gone.” It was one of the worst texts I could have ever gotten. It was about my friend Lexi who is a year younger than me, who is Savana’s sister. Savana told me that Lexi got in a car accident and that she was with 4 of her friends, but that she didn’t know about anyone else. I went downstairs to tell my parents, and we were all crying. I then received another text from Savana saying that Blake and Jeff also passed away, and that Kevin and Julia were in critical condition. My parents have always been family friends with Blakes parents. They were devastated. After reading facebook status’s and talking to people I found out more information, also as the days went on we were given more information. They were jumping railroad tracks and when they landed the car spun into a tree. They were not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol, and were all good people that were known through out the Brunswick community. Kevin and Jeff were supposed to be at commencement with us that day. Lexi, Blake and Julia were juniors. Commencement was nothing like it should have been. No one said a word. There was no celebration, no throwing of hats, anything. Just silence. Once commencement was over we all just walked out. Later on that night we all went to a prayer service.After the service we found out that Kevin didn’t make it. Julia managed to walk away with only a broken pinky finger. My hometown Brunswick Ohio lost 4 amazing people that day, the day of our high school commencement, June 3rd, 2012. After the accident the next week and our entire summer was spent hanging blue ribbons all over our city. Being with our family and friends, mostly sitting there in silence, or reminiscing on the good times that we had with them. Also some of our time was spent going to wakes and funerals, at the age of 18. I’ve never been to church and I ended up attending several prayer services. The accident has been such a learning experience. I still don’t understand why it had to happen to them, but everyone is trying to think positive and think about how it can help others.  I have learned that you should live each day to the fullest, because it can be gone instantly. I have learned that you should make more of an effort to spend time with the people that mean the most to you. I have also learned that driving is something that needs to be taken very seriously. I have learned to be more cautious and think more about everything, and make sure everything I’m doing is safe. I have always believed that everything happens for a reason. The accident made me believe it even more. There’s no way this didn’t happen without there being a reason behind it. The tracks were also unsafe, and now the city is going to fix the road to prevent accidents. They could end up saving lives be people hearing their story. My friend Kevin, one of his 50 life goals that we had to write senior year was to save someones life. He is an organ donor, he ended up saving more than one life with his organs. This whole accident was a real eye opener, and made me realize a lot of things about life. Every day I think about it, and learn from it.

Villanueva

ROW: Villanueva (169-176)

SUMMARY:

In his article “Memoria Is a Friend of Ours: On the Discourses of Color” Victor Villanueva attempts to discuss the discourses of color. He brings up stereotypes and racism. He adds in many poems or other writing excerpts into his article. He also talks about memoria. He says that memoria calls and pushes us forward and that she is a friend of ours and that we must invite her into our classrooms and into our scholarship.Villanueva talks about authors that have all written about the connections between narratives by people of color and the need to reclaim a memory. Villanueva states that he’s trying to figure out who he is. He is an uneasy mix of races that makes for no race at all, yet he finds himself a victim to racism.

CONVERSATION:

Villanueva’s article reminded me of Queer Texts, Queer Contexts’ by Harriet Malinowitz.  They both talk about a touchy subject. They both deal with discrimination. Racism is found everywhere and often groups are formed within a race. Same goes for the gay community. They often come together because they need support from each other. 

OPINIONS:

I thought that this article was somewhat hard to follow. I didn’t really like how he kept adding random poems and pieces of writing. I’m not really a fan of poems and trying to figure out what they mean. However the topic of color, which goes along with racism, was interesting. I personally can’t stand when people are racist so I felt bad for Villanueva especially in the last paragraph where he says how he is a victim of racism. 

Autism and Rhetoric

SUMMARY:

In their article ‘Autism and Rhetoric’ Paul Heilker and Melanie Yergeau discuss autism. There is an amazing increase in public discourse about autism. They talk about how autism remains one of the greatest mysteries of medicine. Doctors still know very little about the neurological disorder.They also do not yet know what causes autism. They give supporting information to why autism is rhetorical and that autism is a profoundly rhetorical phenomenon. Autism is a way of being in the world through language. Given the definitional confluence of autism and rhetoric in communication and social interaction, it is simple to assert that autism is a rhetorical phenomenon. Paul Heilker talks about his experience with autism. His son is autistic, and Heilker sates that “understanding rhetoric lets me see that he is returning to his favorite inventive universes.” Melanie Yergeau also shares her experience with autism, she herself is autistic and she talks about her own experiences. In the article they talk about how some scholars suggest that autistics can not read or write in a rhetorically effective manner because they are empathetically challenged. Melanie also talks about the symbol of the puzzle piece that they use for autism speaks. Personally it offends her because she thinks it symbolizes what is wrong with popular autism discourse, representing autistic people as puzzling, mysterious, less than human entities who are “short a few cognitive pieces.”

CONVERSATION:

When I was reading this article, I connected it with “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces” by Elizabeth Wardle. These two were similar to me because they both talked about fitting into a discourse community and identity. In Autism and Rhetoric they talk about the discourse community of autistic people and how it differs from the community of non-autistic people and how there can be issues. In Wardles article she talks about how certain identities won’t work in a specific discourse community. 

OPINIONS:

I personally enjoyed reading this article the most out of all of the articles we have read so far. I found this article very touching, and for me easy to relate to. For many years I have been involved with autistic children. I have volunteer coached a special needs cheerleading team and volunteered in a special needs classroom. In both of those there have been autistic children. I could relate to Heilkers stories about his son, it reminded me of how the children acted that I’ve worked with. Some of the points brought up in the article angered me as well as Yergeau. There were statements made that seemed to degrade autistic people and make them seem not as important. It was brought up how they can’t read or write in a rhetorically manner.They make have some things that they deal with that can make them not fit in as well with their peers but they are capable of doing anything.