Sean's ePortfolio

Sean McCarthy

Narratives I read:

• “Reality Check”
• “Success”
• “A Mother Knows Best”
• “Reading With a Purpose”
• “Writing Development”
• “The Men on Horses”
• “How I overcame one of the Biggest Challenges in my Life”
• “Literacy Narrative (Hannah Metta)”

 

As I was reading these peoples literacy narratives, I was extremely intrigued. There were various different stories, from a number of different people, but all stories shared a similar theme. All of the narratives I read consist of that specific student having important learning experiences in his or her educational career. In the literacy narrative “Success”, Matt Lorman talks about how he and a friend were assigned a project, and he disliked school projects. But through doing a project he had great interest in, he started to like doing assigned projects more. “Reading With a Purpose” by Justin Augur, tells the story of him disliking reading until one specific book changed his whole outlook on reading. “Writing Development” by Chris Sobral tells a story in which he overcame a big challenge in his life and became a better writer. The students in all of the stories I read employed a growth mindset to overcome a challenge, or an activity they strongly disliked. Through not giving up and telling him or herself they could not do it, they ultimately accomplished their task or goal. Without this growth mindset, none of these students would have overcome their challenges and turned “negatives” into “positives”. After reading these stories, I can infer that reading, writing and learning are not just very important to me, but to other students as well. Also, these stories show that reading and writing is not easy, and we must put in work and motive to get result. Also, as seen in these stories, it is always a huge sigh of relief when one gets where they want to be in their learning career. I should also say that most of these writers felt like they were not where they needed to be with their studies. As a reader I was wondering if these students simply felt like they were not in the discourse. For example Chris Sobral did not feel like he was in the reading and writing discourse and therefore just felt out of place. And throughout reading, I was wondering what these students would do to get in the correct discourse and most of their stories were highly intriguing.

There are many pictures on Google of people with the same name as me, but none of them are actually of me. On DogPile I do not come up either. On Pintrest, photo bucket, and my high school home page, I am not there as well. However, on twitter I do come up and Instagram, I do pop up.

These photos are from Instagram and Twitter. My Twitter and Instagram photos depict me as a friendly guy, as most of my pictures are of my friends and I. It shows that I can make friends really well and am loving person. Also, my lacrosse pictures show I am a hard-working and determined individual. Social media pages do not show who you are, but it can show an uncurated version of myself.

 

Framing Statement

Writing as a Recursive Process:

Original: “In today’s era language and communication are so often associated with the content of what one physically says. However, there is much more to language than simply “speaking” and there is a lot more going on than language itself. Gee calls this Discourse: the saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combination. Discourse is very significant in the way one communicates and is often deemed as important by one’s peers.”

 

Edited: “In today’s era language and communication are so often associated with the content of what one physically says. However, there is much more to language than simply “speaking,” and there is a lot more going on than language itself. James Paul Gee, who wrote Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics:Introduction calls Discourse: the “saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combination” (6). Discourse is very significant in the way one communicates and is often deemed as important by one’s peers. Gee says that to enter these Discourses, you must fully be involved in it and changing Discourses can be extremely difficult or near impossible. Amy Cuddy, who does not specifically talk about “Discourses,” has completely different views on entering what Gee calls secondary Discourses, and she says that one can “Fake it til you make it” (15:36).

 

Original: “Cuddy and Gee differ on their views on entering a Discourse, as Cuddy thinks one can fake it, and Gee thinks you must be in it or you’re not. I heavily agree on some of Cuddy’s principles through evidence and real life experience. Secondary Discourses shape who we are, but you can “fake it til you become it”.

 

Edited: “Cuddy and Gee differ on their views on entering a Discourse drastically. Gee thinks that you must be fully in a Discourse to be considered apart of it. Cuddy’s view is that one can fake it and then possibly become it. Through power posing and bringing forth positive behaviors can help one “fake it” speaking and eventually they will get confident enough to accomplish the saying-doing-being-valuing-believing concept. Although they both have strong points, I agree with Cuddy.”

 

Explanation: Often writing introductions and conclusions can be the hardest part of writing essays. Introductions are meant to be strong (to lure the reader in), and I feel like my first one lacked that. In the edited version, I integrated the authors, and their writings as well. I had to deeper explain things, but stay broad and I felt like I did a good job with that. My first conclusion seemed very “tired” and that I just wanted to be done with the essay. This is definitely not the route to go, so after rereading it a bunch of times, changing my conclusion was a given because I must wrap up my essay well and not make it look like I half-assed it.

 

Integrate Ideas with Those of Others

 

Original: “In today’s era language and communication are so often associated with the content of what one physically says. However, there is much more to language than simply “speaking” and there is a lot more going on than language itself. Gee calls this Discourse: the saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combination. Discourse is very significant in the way one communicates and is often deemed as important by one’s peers.”

 

Comment: “this project uses G and C. SEt them up in a way that signals the problem/issue. And work to signal your take on the issue.

 

YOu have some of what you need in this draft intro, so that’s a good start.”

 

Edited: “In today’s era language and communication are so often associated with the content of what one physically says. However, there is much more to language than simply “speaking,” and there is a lot more going on than language itself. James Paul Gee, who wrote Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics:Introduction calls Discourse: the “saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combination” (6). Discourse is very significant in the way one communicates and is often deemed as important by one’s peers. Gee says that to enter these Discourses, you must fully be involved in it and changing Discourses can be extremely difficult or near impossible. Amy Cuddy, who does not specifically talk about “Discourses,” has completely different views on entering what Gee calls secondary Discourses, and she says that one can “Fake it til you make it” (15:36).”

 

Explanation: I certainly agree with what Cripps said and took his advice. Since my essay is about arguing about Gee and Cuddy, I must introduce them and their works in the introduction. The introduction sets up the plot in a broad way, and in my edited version, I have a stronger introduction.

 

Active Reading, Critical Reading and Informal Reading response

 

I chose this one because I frequently wrote in my essay that Gee defines discourse by, not by one simply says, or what one is simply doing. But it is the whole saying-doing-being-believing-valuing combination. So if one does not have every single one down pat, they are not in the Discourse.

 

Critique Own and Others’ work

 

What Justin said: “You cannot teach anyone to write or read outside any Discourse”. Gee is saying here that if you are not in discourse no one can teach you outside of it to get you inside of it.

 

My comment: “I like your evidence, but you must elaborate on this using your opinion. It is always great to bring up quotes, but further explain them so the reader thoroughly understands.”

 

I think it is important to add quotes but you must explain them to strengthen your opinion and idea.

 

MLA

 

Original: Cuddy integrates her idea into talking about job interviews and says: “What do you do before you go into a job interview? You do this. You’re sitting down. You’re looking at your iPhone — or your Android, not trying to leave anyone out. You’re looking at your notes, you’re hunching up, making yourself small, when really what you should be doing maybe is this, like, in the bathroom, right?” (13:31).

 

Edited:  I agree with Cuddy on many different levels and believe one can “Fake it til [they] make it”. Cuddy integrates her idea into talking about job interviews and says:

What do you do before you go into a job interview? You do this. You’re sitting down. You’re looking at your iPhone — or your Android, not trying to leave anyone out. You’re looking at your notes, you’re hunching up, making yourself small, when really what you should be doing maybe is this, [power posing] like, in the bathroom, right? (13:31).

 

Now I have proper quotes (Block quotes) and took out the quotations because I did not need them.

Control Individualized Error Patterns

I was making constant MLA errors, but with revising, editing and reading the blue book, I got a handle on it a bit.

 

Framing Statement

Although this Gee and Cuddy essay was one of the hardest essays I have written, I am still showing signs of positivity (improvement), but also I am not progressing quickly enough in certain areas as well. Writing as a recursive process is one of the areas I am rapidly improving in. Often introductions and conclusions can be the hardest part of essays, and I did not feel my essay had strong enough opening and conclusion paragraphs. So after I realized that I seemed bored of my essay on my conclusion, I changed it up. Also, my introduction was missing key pieces and lacked a strong point, so I had to go back and fix that as well. I think I have also been improving in taking in the ideas of others and integrating it into my essay (if it is valid). Cripps left me some great markers, and with my essay not being where I wanted it to be, I took his advice and did some editing. I have also gotten better at using the MLA format. The MLA format always confused me a bit, but Cripps does a stellar job teaching it. Also reading the Seagull book helped drastically if I had any uncertainty. I had a bunch of MLA errors in my draft including not citing correctly, punctuation in the wrong places, and not using block quotes when needed. I can say I am pretty confident in where I am right now with the MLA format for our essays. Progression is very important and those are some key areas where I am improving. Although I am improving rather quickly in those areas, there are some aspects of these outcomes where I would rather be improving faster. One of them is Critiquing others work. I find this to be one of the harder things we do in English 123 and that is because we edit so in depth. It is difficult to integrate your ideas when you know your essay is not perfect either, and you have not yet reached mastery level english. Although the peer editing is extremely helpful, it also comes with some difficulty. Another area where I could improve is reading actively. I tend to tell myself I’ll understand that paragraph or I’ll know where to go back to if I need it. This does not help me at all because annotations can guide you through your reading, and then help you with your writing in the future. I must do a better job at consistently taking notes while reading and not telling myself I do not need to. The Error pattern learning outcome is one I really need to improve in. I need to keep reading my essay over or even give it to a friend to read over to find some mistakes I need to edit. Overall, I think I am improving as a writer with the help of Cripps and through practice. However, I can still rapidly improve.

These two block quotes are indented when on Google Docs. For some reason on this website it does not indent.

Original: Cuddy also says that she was nervous because of a big talk she had to do and this is how her boss responded: “You’re going to stay, and this is what you’re going to do. You are going to fake it. You’re going to do every talk that you ever get asked to do. You’re just going to do it and do it and do it, even if you’re terrified and just paralyzed and having an out-of-body experience, until you have this moment where you say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m doing it. Like, I have become this. I am actually doing this.” (17:03).

Edited: 

Cuddy also says that she was nervous because of a big talk she had to do and this is how her boss responded optimistically. 

You’re going to stay, and this is what you’re going to do. You are going to fake it. You’re going to do every talk that you ever get asked to do. You’re just going to do it and do it and do it, even if you’re terrified and just paralyzed and having an out-of-body experience, until you have this moment where you say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m doing it. Like, I have become this. I am actually doing this. (17:03)

Explanation: This needed a block quote because it was more than four lines long. Also I did not write Cuddy in parentheses because I introduced her in the sentence before. Also, I added a full sentence before the quote.

Original: 

Cuddy integrates her idea into talking about job interviews and says: “What do you do before you go into a job interview? You do this. You’re sitting down. You’re looking at your iPhone — or your Android, not trying to leave anyone out. You’re looking at your notes, you’re hunching up, making yourself small, when really what you should be doing maybe is this, like, in the bathroom, right?” (13:31).

Edited: 

Cuddy integrates her idea into talking about job interviews:

What do you do before you go into a job interview? You do this. You’re sitting down. You’re looking at your iPhone — or your Android, not trying to leave anyone out. You’re looking at your notes, you’re hunching up, making yourself small, when really what you should be doing maybe is this, like, in the bathroom, right? (13:31)

Explanation: It was more than four lines so I had to make a block quote. I indented and took away the quotes because we don’t need them. We already understand that someone is saying something. Also, I removed the period after the parentheses. I also took off “And says” before the quote because I didn’t need it.

Original:  I agree with Cuddy on many different levels and believe one can “Fake it til you make it”.

Edited: I agree with Cuddy on many different levels and believe one can “Fake it til [they] make it”.

Explanation: It makes more sense in the edited way than the original. In the context it is in, I think it is appropriate to add brackets. Brackets show that the writer didn’t exactly say those words.

Original: Gee says that “You are either in it or you’re not” regarding Discourses. (Pg 5).

Edited: Gee is obsessed with the idea that you must be completely in a Discourse, or you’re not in it. For example, you must speak languages fluent; not somewhat (5).

Explanation: I already mentioned that Gee said “You are either in it or you’re not”, so I don’t need to say this again. I can paraphrase and the reader will still know that I am using Gees same idea. You don’t always need to quote every single thing.

collreadwrit1a

 

Original: Gee says that “You are either in it or you’re not” regarding Discourses. (Pg 5). This is not especially true because there are many Discourses you can fake your way into. And you don’t have to be fully “in it” to make yourself “in” that Discourse. You can just make yourself feel powerful and fake it from there.

Edited: Gee says that “You are either in it or you’re not”, or it seems that way to him at least, regarding Discourses. (Pg 5). However, there are many Discourses you can fake your way into. And you don’t have to be fully “in it” to make yourself “in” that Discourse. You can just make yourself feel powerful and fake it from there.

Explanation: I changed this because I wanted to make my argument stronger without using “This is especially true because…”. Now the reader knows what my point of view is but he doesn’t have to listen to me state it in the way where it is obvious I’m showing my opinion.

Original: I agree with Cuddy on many different levels and believe one can “Fake it til [they] make it”. Cuddy integrates her idea into talking about job interviews and says: “What do you do before you go into a job interview? You do this. You’re sitting down. You’re looking at your iPhone — or your Android, not trying to leave anyone out. You’re looking at your notes, you’re hunching up, making yourself small, when really what you should be doing maybe is this, like, in the bathroom, right?” (13:31).

Edited: Anyone who is familiar with entering secondary Discourses should agree that one can “Fake it til [they] make it”. Cuddy integrates her idea into talking about job interviews and says: “What do you do before you go into a job interview? You do this. You’re sitting down. You’re looking at your iPhone — or your Android, not trying to leave anyone out. You’re looking at your notes, you’re hunching up, making yourself small, when really what you should be doing maybe is this, like, in the bathroom, right?” (13:31).

Explanation: I think this strengthens my claim. Readers get bored when they constantly see “I agree” or “I believe that”. So, the reader can still understand what I am saying without getting tired of the same phrases and losing interest. Also, I don’t have to bring up Cuddy in that sentence because I bring her up in the next. It is an overall better topic sentence that strengthens my argument.

Original: Gee says that Discourses can often conflict, but this is not really an option if one fakes it in each Discourse they need to.

Edited: Contrary to Gees belief, Discourses cannot conflict as one can fake it into every Discourse they need to.

Explanation: I did this because I can just as clearly state my opinion with this better word choice. The reader will understand that I do not agree with Gees idea that Discourses can conflict.

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1: Cuddy says through faking it, one can acquire a Discouse

2:  Gee talks about “Mushfake Discourse” and this relates to Cuddy because of the examples she gives about the job interviews. If you aren’t 100% there, you can fake it and make it look like someone you are not.

3: Cuddy talks about that MBA student and not only faking it tip you make it, but faking it tip you become it. This applies here as well.

Counter Argument: I think Sarah is right and I need to incorporate more counter arguments. Throughout the paper, I am just arguing for my point, but not strengthening the quality with counter-arguments. In an argumentative paper, counter-arguments are very important, and without them, ones argument is not as strong. I must add some counter-arguments.

Opinions: Sarah is right again. I did integrate some opinion in my essay but I could definitely use more. I did think it was difficult to write an opinion paper but use so much of the works of two different writers. But I need to insert my opinions in more to strengthen my argument or claim.

Introduction: Justin is right. My introduction is kind of lousy. I do think introductions are very hard, but I can work on this to strengthen my final draft. I do not engage the reader very much in my introduction, and that is important in an introduction paragraph.

I found it interesting when Gee talks about “filtering” on page fifteen. He says “Filtering is a process whereby aspects of the language, attitudes, values and other elements of certain types of secondary Discourses are filtered into primary Discourse. He is saying that some secondary Discourses can influence your primary Discourse (The way you grew  up; Discourse in your home) and I find this intriguing. This is very important and I will add it to my final draft.

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4. Cuddy’s research explores nonverbal communication, as she tells us (para.  Why is this nonverbal behavior important to those who would be in the Discourse of business? Be sure to provide evidence from Cuddy in your response. ………………Amy Cuddy talks about nonverbal behavior and how this can be important in many aspects of one’s life. But nonverbal behavior is especially important in the business Discourse, and the business part of society. She talks about job interviews, and how one’s body language almost says it all. She asks the question: “What’s mine [body language] communicating to you?” This is important because body language can often talk to people, and if you seem confident, with good body language, and present yourself very well, your judge will think higher of you than if you lack those features. She says “It’s about the presence that they’re bringing to the speech”, and that all starts with your body language and acting confident throughout, so you actually get confident. Having positive body language can lead one to be themselves in an interview, have success and get them the job they want in the future. Also, if one shows power in the business world it will help them to feel confident and less stressed. Showing your strength in the business world can often lead your peers to respect you, and lead to great success.
5. What is the difference between a primary and a secondary Discourse? Why is Gee’s distinction between dominant and nondominant discourses important?

Gee classifies primary discourse as one’s first discourse that him or her acquires in their home throughout family interaction. There are many factors in one’s primary discourse including where they grew up, how they grew up and with whom they grew up with. Every person, however, will have a different primary discourse and one’s primary discourse is very unique. Secondary discourse is the discourse one has with social groups, and is beyond family discourse. This includes friend groups, sports teams, and one going to school. One can have many secondary discourses, but only one primary discourse. Dominant discourse is a discourse that gives you social status and money and often come with respect. Non-dominant discourses do not give one money but have to do with one’s social feelings, and satisfaction without making money. However, these two discourses conflict and can cause problems.Gee uses learning a language as an example. And how if one learned Spanish in their primary discourse and learned English in their secondary and have been speaking much more English, one may get an english accent while speaking spanish. Or even use english words when they forget a Spanish one. Gee classifies this conflict as very significant.

 

1. Gee defines Discourses (capital D) as “saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations” (6). Explain this concept in your own words and illustrate it in a specific passage from Cuddy’s TED talk.

Gee explains Discourse as saying-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations. This means that it isn’t just what one says, or how they do it but all of these factors combined. Cuddy also talks about this, especially in paragraph 27, where she says that it isn’t just about the content of what you say in your job interview. But it is how positive you are, how you’re going about your interview in expressing yourself etc. It is a combination of all of those factors which lead you to your ultimate goal.

Annotations:

1- I chose this because I thought it was important how Discourse isn’t just the way one speaks. But it is the whole combination. Body language, however, is one of those key things so I thought it was relevant.

2- I thought it was very interesting and true when Gee says that your Discourse depends on the people around you. Obviously people will act different with their friends than at a job interview when speaking. This goes with the idea that one has many secondary Discourses.

3- I thought this was important because it shows how people can have several different secondary Discourses. Also your body language is apart of the saying-doing-valuing-being-believing combinations. Cuddy talks about body language a lot so this was significant.

4-This one was important because it shows you must have certain Discourse to be successful in a job interview. You have to open up and remain positive and be yourself. If you slouch and close up, one will not think you are confidents enough for the job.

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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.

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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.”

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