" The first draft is just you telling yourself the story." -Terry Pratchett |
I had the pleasure of reading some amazing literature as a part of my English Composition I class. As much as this literature was informative to me it was haunting as well. I never realized that particular social classes could determine the level of literature one could be taught, or how one may have been informed as a student. Before reading these pieces, I had no idea that history could affect you even through your unconsciousness. Due to society’s ideal of belonging it has made some of us feel as though in order to feel important, well connected, and informed we need to be a part of something. We long as humans to be a part of a community or a bigger part of something. It makes me wonder if that means you are less valued if you don’t belong to a community, religious group, or social club. I have included the following texts for you to evaluate and read for yourself To You, I Belong (Becky Thompson), Our Discourse Community Values, What is Literacy? (James Paul Gee), and We Are Many (Pablo Neruda) . “A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals,” says John Swales. Swales also mention in his sixth characteristics that “A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims.” I believe the discourse of my classroom community has and will continue to help my classmate and myself shape our author identity even more. Before starting this class, I always loved working alone and I’ve never been big on group projects, but this community has taught me differently. This class challenges me in so many positive ways. I never imagined myself as an author or evening be a good writer. I’m challenged every day to read literature that I never in a million years thought I would’ve read, and even grew to be fond of. Our discourse community allows me to express myself and my emotions and tap back into my past, which Becky Thomas says, “Our lives are connected through history, experience, love, and hardship.” She also mentions that “Historical memory can be transmitted through tangible processes-writing, art, song, dance, the media, photography.” Which I feel is true and I was able to see that in my process of writing my memoir. My memoir is a specific story based on my past that involve many emotions. I was able to comfortably tap into in my past and emotions while embracing my writing process. Giving the fact that our discourse community allows us to talk freely, express ourselves, treat one another with respect, and give advice to our author selves without being cruel. It has created a connection between us as human beings. “In I Belong” Becky Thomas mentions a poet by the name of Joy Harjo who writes, “ Grief is the land of wet tenderness.” Becky Thomas then says, “This is one reason that community building needs to be a part of everyday class, not just at the beginning of the semester.” As I read “What Literacy” it was difficult at first and hard to understand. It wasn’t until our professor went more in details in the group amongst our classroom. As I decided to read the literature two more times myself, to get a better understanding, certain statements stood out more than others. I knew the focus was supposed to be on community of discourse, but what I interpreted from this literature was the segregation of culture, and people. The only thing I could take away from this was the fact how people learned was not by choice, but more so inherited without them even consciously being aware. I also found the hard truth when James Paul Gee says, “discourses are intimately related to the distribution of social power and hierarchical structure in society.” It almost seemed to me that if you were not in a certain social class, then your literature, education, and money reflected off of it and you didn’t have the same opportunities.
6 Comments
Sabatino
10/28/2019 08:45:08 am
I am happy to hear you value our course commitment to community and meaning-making processes.
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10/28/2019 02:23:24 pm
Thank you professor I was actually worried. I thought I got side tracked and missed the concept of the blog.
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ShanellDodd
10/28/2019 09:27:45 am
Wow Shayla. I love how you interpret these literatures. I agree with our professor. Your ideas are well organized and the information was presented smoothly. Keep it up. Learning is evident in you blog.
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10/28/2019 02:28:43 pm
Thanks Shanell I appreciate your honest feed back.
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Bedouens Philistin
10/28/2019 01:23:36 pm
Right off the bat, you were able to connect the readings to how they made you feel. And how they opened you eyes to a lot of things. By right off the bat, I mean just in the intro. Great job Shayla!
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10/28/2019 03:06:27 pm
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog and I appreciate the feed back.
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Shayla MontgomeryHi I'm Shayla I'm a wife, mother, and student. I currently work full-time while going to school part-time to obtain an degree i nursing. Archives
December 2019
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