Author: cati312

Having chosen to live my life as a believer of Jesus Christ and a Christian I cannot help but notice so many parallels between the structure of this novel and new and old testament. On one hand there is the change in structure while Dan seems to replace Sello in the second half of the book, Christian’s especially in biblical times experienced a God who changed from the old testament to the new testament. After the atonement of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world people were able to come to their God without any kind of intercession. This ability or opportunity changed the structure of their practices and beliefs.
In this quote there is a closer reading of these parallels, “‘The Father’ had stood on the doorstep of her hut on the one night, with the light of the sun on his face. He had returned again the next night with the air of one who had come back to make a final statement about their past relationship. He had stood looking at her for a moment, with an intent expression, and then he mentioned a name she could not later recall.” (nook edition pg 92). What could be seen here is an alluding to the idea of the second coming, the belief that Jesus will return with his kingdom. Also, an idea of the return of Jesus to his disciples after he was crucified, possibly a reference to the Jews sacred name for God which was “yahweh”, and to the story of Elijah experiencing the presence of God. In the first sentence of this quote there could be a reading the references Christ return to his disciples after his resurrection and crucifixion. He returns to them to explain or redefine their relationship, now that the sins have been atoned the relationship the disciples and Christ has changed. In the final sentence where she discusses the name that she could not recall made me think of the scared name “yahweh” which in todays society we are not sure how to pronounce it was such a scared and personal name of God that not even the Jews would pronounce it. And, that brings us to the middle sentence which could be the experience of the presence of God for Elijah it was great brilliance and because of the glory of God Elijah was only able to see the back of God. While this sentence describes the sun on the front of Dan’s face the idea of brilliance and veneration is still presence in this passage.

As of yet I am not sure what to think of this novel, I like it, it is interesting, and moves through the text as if the writer/narrator is aimlessly walking taking each little divergent path that comes along and then they slowly find their way back to the main road. A few major ideas that seem to keep catching my attention is the idea of race, culture, mental stability, and belief systems based around ideas of religion and/or good and evil. Right now thought the only idea I believe I have a grasp on is the idea of race. There are many moments in the text when a person is simply referred to by the race or culture identification, such as German or English. And, there is an evident conflict for Elizabeth as she is dark skinned by the world standards but born of a white woman. As a baby and a child they did not know what to with her, she did not seem to fit into their classification systems, “The woman on the committee said: ‘What can we do with this child? It’s mother is white'” (pg 14 Nook Edition). She was born of a white mother and a black father, she seemed like a culture-less child one that would struggle to find her identity solely in either her mother’s or her farther’s country, nonetheless, she is forced to chose or have the choice made for her. Which is strongly outlined by this quote above where the child welfare committee does not what to do with her because she does not fit into the given classification system, she is different and new. With the character Elizabeth being so aware of this confusion I find it interesting that our narrator refers to people by generic racial classifications yet is unable to place to Elizabeth in one. Perhaps this is the point to show the uniqueness of an individual and the destruction that a generic classification system can take on a person, culture, and race. As a reader I would think that it would make our narrator more sensitive to the unique identities of those from “Asia” or “Germany”, just like Africa these countries have specific parts that make the inhabitants of those areas different from their countrymen. When Elizabeth goes to Botswana we see racism come out in yet a different as she is not “dark” enough once again showing the stark difference between her mother and her father. There are some interesting movements going on with this idea of race in this first part and these are just some observations as I am moving through the text.

Teaching in genre is an interesting approach to teaching first year composition and I think on a basic level you have to work with in genre to help students develop their writing. In Elizabeth Wardle’s “‘Mutt Genres’ and the Goal of FYC: Can We Help Students Write the Genres of the University?” and Barwashi and Reiff “Chapter 11: Rhetorical Genre Studies Approaches to Teaching Writing” they discuss the possible pros and cons to teaching a first year composition with genre as its focus. However, one constant theme that comes up between the two articles is the complexity that comes with working within different genres. It is difficult to make that complexity transfer over especially when the class is not able to work specifically with in the genre but through example only. While working with in different genres the students gain the opportunity to see how these genres work they still fail to experience the genre with in its context and in turn do not have the opportunity to see how it functions with in its own rules and exceptions. It seems like teaching in genre would be like teaching a survey of writing, giving students a sample of the different ways in which writing can take shape. However, it doesn’t seem that, that would help them develop as writers who can learn to translate their skill across genres and life. They would be learning to write in genre to pass the class but not be able to take any as a transferable skill that they could learn to apply outside of this classroom environment. In looking at this perspective it then leads me to question as well, where does the idea of inquiry come in to play and their skills as individual researchers and writers. I don’t want to discredit the idea of learning to write in a genre but I think for a first year composition class that specifically teaching to develop writing in this sense is not going to set the students up for success. I don’t think that they need formulas on how different disciplines write but rather guidance how develop critical thinking and how to ask questions about those disciplines.

In looking at literacy based upon the texts “Unpackaging Literacy” by Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole and “Literacy in Three Metaphors” by Sylvia Scribner there is an over arching theme or idea based around the individual. Literacy is something that is difficult to measure empirically because it is based upon individual experience as well as individual cultures and communities. Therefore to create an over arching definition for literacy can perhaps leave one wanting, there is not way to define something that spans across contents, history, time, and culture there are simply to many variables. If we look at the idea of the individual their literacy is based upon gender, age, culture, country, economic situation, and perhaps their career goals and aspirations. First this is seen in “Unpackaging Literacy” where Scribner and Cole discuss this idea that literacy is determined on a social or cultural level. When they look at differing theories about the cognitive consequences of literacy they determine that while the theories are interesting they based in general perspective of the norms of society stating that “Inference about cognitive changes in individuals are shaky if they rest only on the analysis of cultural phenomena.” (125). And this idea continues over to “Literacy in Three Metaphors” where they address many of the ares in which we link the idea of literacy too. Literacy as adaption discusses the aspects of functional literacy, what we need and use literacy for in our day to day activities and it is important to notice that Scribner makes a point to say that she is talking about this nation, the United States, because if we were in a different culture or country the literacy required could be different and once again we would see yet another definition for literacy. And, this pulls us back again to the idea of the individual, that a working definition of literacy is based upon an individual experiences. Next is literacy as power which pulls on another idea for our nation and that is that literacy is required to work with in the system. If you want to be part of the productive aspects of society, or at minimum what is deemed the productive parts of society, than you must have literacy to be an effective part “in our country’s economic and educational institutions.”(19). However, as we reader further on this idea the theme of the individual comes in again, because Scribner states “…literacy has different meanings for members of different groups.” (19). What this shows us is that even either the United States literacy acting as or working as power once again is contingent upon the different communities and their value of literacy. Last the reader sees literacy as a state of grace, which draws on the idea of someone being cultured and/or spiritually enlightened. This means that there is a greater intellectual depth because of a persons literate success, however, how can we or do we gage this success. Literacy supplies knowledge but discernment wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom are two very different things and while one may have knowledge if they do not know how to apply it, it is useless and the most literate person can fail in application, while someone who is deemed illiterate can perhaps be the key to unlocking that knowledge and turn it into wisdom.

Analysis of Kazoo Ishiguro novel The Remains of the Day and Chapter 2 of Rob Burton’s book Artists of the Floating World Contemporary Writers Between Cultures 

I think that most people have an aspect of the floating world in them. As humans we are constantly shifting between perspectives or roles. And, on a basic level I agree with Rob Burton’s quote of Kazuo Ishiguro saying that “Most of use are like butlers because we have these small, little tasks that we learn to do, but most of us don’t attempt to run the world. We just learn a job and try to do it to the best of our ability.” (Burton 51). Meaning that there is perhaps aspects of Stevens personality in all of us; not to say that we are all butlers but that in our human nature we only have so much capacity to learn and to do. Now perhaps where we learn Stevens tragic flaw is, is that he does not development this capacity past the learning of one aspect. Stevens does not contemplate what could be beyond his butler-ing abilities. And, while we has humans can not know and learn all there is, we have a great capacity and many of us are great proficients in topics of great interest or that deem to be a great success for us, such as our hobbies and our jobs. Some of us are lucky enough to have a job that is both a hobby and job; but most of us have jobs or careers that we are successful at and proficient at and then quite separate of that hobbies that spark the desire of our passions and interests. It is in this area that we once again have the opportunity to learn form Stevens character, he has no hobbies or interests outside of his work and attempts to learn bantering not for his own amusement or cognitive stimulation but to be more proficient at his butler-ing tasks.

Diverging from this idea this chapter also made me consider how we function with in these narratives. How do we function with in our own narrative, a national narrative, and then even a fictional narrative. What do these different narrative structures do for our development of reality?  Stevens seems to miss the national narrative, to have no concept of goes on beyond the walls of Darlington Hall. To me this is a two sided sword, while on one hand he is a successful butler, admired and respected for his abilities as a butler, and would have little influence on the world outside of those tasks so why should he be concerned with a world outside of those tasks? But, on the other side of my sword what good countryman and well for that matter considerate human being would want to ignorant of what goes on outside of their own little world? There is another quote that Rob Burton uses by Kathleen Wall which states “What Stevens…[does not] possess…is a self-reflexive awareness of [his] narrative tracks. Further, [his] reluctance to reside in the floating world indicates a resistance to the world of change, of hybridized experiences, of global interconnectedness…” (Burton 52). Stevens inability to have a discourse with his reader, as a narrator, about the larger picture of what is going on in the world and the human rights violations that Hitler imposed upon society shows his lack of interconnectedness. Any time, his narration begins to venture down a track that would take the reader off the ideas of the household tasks that are occurring during the discussion of global matters the reader is pulled right back into the household tasks with some discussion of silver polish. Rather take the reader down a “dangerous” discourse that deals with matters that are controversial and perhaps beyond Stevens depth, he adverts their attention to menial matters that as a reader I could really careless about. Though it makes me question aspect of human capacity and interest. We rarely enter into a conversation or argument that we do not have strength of knowledge on our sides. We do this for many reasons, for our pride, for respect of the topic, humility, and general disinterest but what Stevens makes painfully obvious and perhaps contradictory is his aversion of the topic and his desire to be the new generation of butler that works for lord who endeavors to make society a better place. And, yet he does not address the topics of human rights and works for a lord who, perhaps ignorantly, aids one of the worst regimes the world has seen.

In these readings I couldn’t help going back to asking the question what is our or my working definition of literacy. How does my idea of what literacy is function in society? Do all of these other parts of society really factor in to how literacy is acquired or do the simply work along side one another. Like looking at Graff’s idea of myth, there are components of literacy that can not be quantitatively understood as Graff explains and that leads to question how do we measure some of the effects of literacy, how does it gain its value and/or necessity if there are aspects of it we cannot measure. That considered it leads me to also think of Gates and his statement about race, race is not a thing we are not any different when it comes to the basics of human development so does race has such an impact on our society. Race is again something is constructed and ambiguous yet it so relative to our sense of self and equality. Is that perhaps why race and literacy are lead to such big discussions of their importance and impact upon society. These are some of the questions that these articles lead me to think about, I do not think there is a cut and dry answer to these questions, race is something that exists because at some point it was important to distinguish between groups of people, literacy is important because for some reason, whether we choose to agree this idea or not, it impacts our lives in so many ways that we often do not even realize that it can does perpetuate some of these stereotypical definitions and social questions.

Much of Jennie Nelson’s article “Reading Classrooms as Texts: Exploring Student Writers’ Interpretive Practices” is really interesting and at the same so logical. There are some strong and valid points about students learning to adapt to the structure of the classroom and in turn perhaps not being as authentic a student or learner that they could be; but at the same time I think that her greater argument about students learning to read the classroom space like a text is a better of understanding of how students interact with their courses. That their reading of a classroom like a text means that they are so familiar with the basic format of the classroom and schooling that they skip over certain parts because they feel like they know it so well. However, I believe that this is where the use of the article, “Sequencing for Scaffolding”, by Sweetland Writing Center can come into play. There discussion and proposal for a classroom set up could be something to create more interaction for the students and change the structure of the classroom and as they see it. It would greatly depend upon the instructor and the assignments that were chosen and the amount of agency was given to the students in how they completed and worked with those assignments, but it could still be another stepping stone for those students in helping them to not skip over the “familiar” of the classroom setup. I guess in reading these articles there was another parallel I saw and that is that the classroom structure and the assignments are not necessarily separated. Just as having assignments that build on each other, including prior skills and developing new skills as Sweetland explains it is important to keep that in mind in the classroom. The students coming in have been in school and understand how it works, but as they progress through school there should be constantly new elements added and built upon in that classroom environment. Students shouldn’t walk into their college classroom for the first time and expect to be treated like high school students and in the same token they should be expected to grasp a full understanding of how a college classroom should operate. I think that there is an interesting correlation between this idea of building on writing and the students ability to read a classroom.

Common core for k-12

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/

http://www.youthlit.org

The Phonibet Song

http://youthlit.org/uploads/cc51_The_Phonibet_Song_cdsd.pdf