Month: October 2017

1. This combination is important for James Paul Gee because he states that “At any moment we are using language, we must say or write the right thing in the right way while playing… attitudes” (Page 2).  What this means to Gee is what is important is not language, or even grammar but Discourses which are saying (writing)- doing-being-valuing-believing combinations. Even the way he capitalizes the “D” in Discourse shows how important that series of combinations is. For example, a Discourse is a way or ways of being in the world, like life forms with identities including physical matter like clothing. Not just the matter of clothing, but where one is, the action one is completing, and what one is doing all play significant and equal factors in Gee’s “Discourse.” If a construction worker, wearing dirty jeans containing paint on them, at a school event asked the principal of his sons school “U got a smoke”, the Discourse is not “there”.
2. There is often conflict and tension between the values, beliefs and attitudes of being in the world where Discourses represent. Gee states in passage seven, “Discourses are not bodies of knowledge like physics… you”. This states that Discourses are not just something you can learn, but they are embedded within oneself. One can not just take a “Discourse” class and learn everything one needs to know.  Gee also lets us know that based on ones specific Discourse, someone can get a certain job out of it. Also, he says that if people have Discourses that are initial key things, anybody could need, like, for example, the attempt to interact with others in social settings. To become a linguist, one needs the most exact requirements. Linguistics will help give insight to drive people on important aspects of human knowledge. And becoming a historian, studies majors and classes related to the field with the exact requirements. Gee contradicted how to become a linguist by saying: you can teach them the linguistics, but not how to be a linguist which is not completely accurate, but wise.
3. Gee talks about these articles for, basically, all of page seven because they are significant to his points. The authors of those articles think one person did a good job, and the other failed, but Gee heavily disagrees. The first case was clearly a failure and the second one sounded decent, but lacked key components. She was lacking the values for that specific task (Discourse). Aside from not answering the question completely, she wasn’t showing good signs. She wasn’t acting very confident and lacked Discourse. In job interviews one is supposed to “brag” about themselves and show themselves off to show confidence and their accomplishments. However, she did the complete opposite. Gee says “She fails to characterize her own expertise in the overly optimistic form called for by such interviews.” This means that during an interview you should not show flaws and you must remain optimistic throughout to show that you are competent.

collreadwrit1a

The beginning of this chapter begins with the question “What’s the authors argument”. This is a hard question to answer especially because I have experienced being asked that in English class. The text says that after a class was asked this question and struggled, it was usually just answered with a summary of the text. The line “thinking of writing as the art of entering conversations” stood out to me. After being asked a question by changing the format of the question, it changes approaches in reading or answering it when finding out what the authors argument is, instead of thinking of the argument of a text as isolated. This would provoke other arguments. The move from reading for the authors argument in isolation v.s. how the authors argument is in a conversation helps readers become more active. I thought that reading for the conversation was interesting. Figuring out what views the author is responding to or what the the authors argument is was intriguing. There is a challenge when reading for the conversation though, it is that sometimes writers build their arguments by responding to a lack of discussion. This grabbed my attention because I know how difficult it is to figure out views the writers are responding to because it lacks identification. A good example from the chapter is in a passage from Gender Trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity by Butler. The passage is fairly easy to stumble over and is difficult academic reading. She shares that perspectives show confusion of views by her word choice. Readers feel intimidated before even finishing the passage and I related to this because I thought the same way. It turns out that if you break down the passage into essential parts, it turns into a lucid piece that conforms classic They Say I Say pattern. Basically reading for the conversation means looking not just for the thesis, but views that motivate the thesis. Also, this chapter taught me that I must be alert for strategies writers use to engage the reader. The final piece of information that stood out to me was the “need to be armed with various strategies for detecting a conversation in a reading.”

Collegereadwrit1a

My work space may not look like anything significant or special to someone, but it is incredibly special to me. As you can notice, my desk does not contain much material on it. That is so I do not get easily distracted and halt my train of thought and a consistent basis. I often just have my materials that I need for that specific task because that is how I am the most productive I could be. I also have a poster of my favorite athlete of all time on my wall, and this serves a bigger purpose than one may think. Allen Iverson was the most creative basketball player ever, so he reminds me to always be creative, thoughtful, and work to impress people. He also went through a tragic and tough childhood, so he teaches me that if he made it, I can too;  just not an NBA player. I also have a coffee machine on my desk because I love drinking coffee and it keeps me focused while doing work. My desk is under my bunk bed in my dorm room so it allows me to have my phone completely out of sight, (On top of my bed) because my cell phone is the biggest distraction to my work production. I will so easily get caught up in social media and not even realize that I have had work on the screen for two hours that I have yet to start. My room is also a very quiet place and I often get distracted with noise, especially while reading. My roommates play a huge factor in this to allow me to work to my full potential in my favorite spot to work that I have come across. One of my most key components to my workspace is the lacrosse head I keep on my desk. This reminds me to put in the same amount of effort and determination in my school work that I do in lacrosse. Dale Carnegie’s workspace is similar to mine because we both keep a few key items on our desk (They probably mean something to him). Also, we both have a window that we can turn to look out of, but our desk is not directly in front of the window, so we will not get distracted. He looks to be in a quiet room as well.

collreadwrit1a