Narrative

One time I learned something outside of a classroom setting was when I learned about Greek life. I had no clue about sororities and fraternities before I came to college. I mean I really had no idea what they were about. My roommate ended up having a sister in a sorority and she was going through rush in the fall. My roommate encouraged me to join in with her and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought sororities were partying every night and they were not focused on school. I had my mind made up before I even went into the experience that there is no way I could join a sorority.

          Once I started rushing, I was learning that these groups actually had a purpose for the community and other people. It was also a great way to form new bonds with people from different backgrounds. This is what intrigued me most about them. The philanthropies that they raise money for are incredible; the money is going somewhere and it IS a good cause. I also heard stories about how close girls became with each other after joining a sorority. I learned about bigs and littles and g-bigs and god bigs and every other kind of “family” related term. Within the sorority, there are different families you become associated into. It is truly like a home away from home. They also are very focused on grades. There are many helpful resources within the sorority to help improve grades. I struggled through one of my classes, and the academic chair was with me through the first semester encouraging me to do well. She gave me many resources and believed in me which made me believe in myself.

          One last thing I learned about being a part of Greek life is that there is no drama. I really thought how can a bunch of girls live with each other and not have any kind of conflict. I do not know how it is possible but every girl will do anything for any one of her sisters. Even if you are not the closest friends, if you need someone 100 girls will be there standing next to you. I learned many valuable things through my experience so far, and I am only on my first year of college. I cannot imagine what else I will discover as I grow and go further into my college years through Delta Zeta.

Week 11

In her article “The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse”, Lisa Delpit attempts to explain that anyone can overcome their primary discourse. She argues that if teachers have the ambition to encourage African-American students to learn, then the students will learn. She also says that the goal is not to erase an individual’s primary discourse language, but to add new discourses to it. It makes the individual more successful and more interesting to read when things are written in their native tongue. She gives many examples of successful African American individuals who grew up in a rough community or had parents with low levels of education. Delpit explains the ways in which teachers can help their students succeed and help them to become “learners” instead of “nonlearners”.

 It is very easy to make a connection to Gee’s article because she challenges this article in her own writing. While she explains that she agrees with him on most arguments he makes, she does disagree with a couple points. Gee’s opinion is that a dominant discourse cannot be learned in a classroom setting. It has to be learned by being an “apprentice”, or participating in that discourse for yourself before you fully understand it. This is where Delpit challenges him. She argues that dominant discourses CAN be learned in the classroom, it’s just a matter of the individual. If a teacher and student are willing to put the time and effort into learning then it can be achieved. She says most students are nonlearners and that is why they do not learn a new dominant discourse.

 In my opinion I think she does succeed in persuading me to her counter-points because she uses many examples in her writing. She is proving that you can learn a dominant primary discourse in the classroom, whereas Gee’s opinion is it has to be hands-on, or you have to be an apprentice to learn another discourse. Most of her examples exist in African American students because they had a hard time growing up and becoming educated. But she explains how the teachers’ willingness to push the students gave them the opportunity to become a successful individual.

I can imitate her strategy by using my primary dominant discourse to learn new dominant discourses. Delpit explained that sometimes it engages the reader if you use a discourse that is unfamiliar to them. Also, if I push myself to learn at my fullest potential it is possible for me to learn a new dominant discourse in the classroom. I think this is helpful because it will make my writing sound more educated and professional.

I found this article to be a different approach to looking at dominant and primary discourses. The examples she gave is what I found to be most intriguing because the stories of the peoples’ lives and how they grew up was almost encouraging. It makes me want to do better when it comes to my writing. I think if teachers are willing to push their students to do their best work, why shouldn’t students do the same?

Make-up Blog Week 10

In their article “Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities”, Devitt et al. attempts to explain the concept of genre analysis and what genres are. Devitt explains that sometimes people need professionals to understand the many genres we as the citizens of the U.S. must complete. Most of the time, the forms we must fill out require additional help because many of the items on them are in a jargon that citizens who are unfamiliar with that area do not understand. She says this is to bring the specialist and non-specialist communities together. Bawarshi explains that a genre belongs to a particular discourse community and it is a specific type of writing that most outsiders cannot understand. The members use a particular kind of language that sets it apart from normal English speak. Reiff explains the concept of genres being “roadmaps” for people to use as guidelines while they learn to write. She explains three goals that include just simply learning a new genre that they can add to the others they have already learned, creating awareness of that genre, and using genres to understand certain situations. She believes this will make students “researchers” who are active and learning in the world around them.

I am able to make a connection to the Swales article because he also talks about the concept of a genre. In his article he only simply defined the term as writings of different types, whereas in this article it loaded much more meaning onto the term. For example, there were three different opinions on what “genre” meant. It can mean anything from something only people in a particular discourse community understand to using a genre as a learning tool. I am also able to relate this to Porter’s article about discourse communities because he explained that a discourse community has a certain language that others may not understand. This article explained that sometimes the genre of a certain group may not be comprehended by non-members.

In Bawarshi’s essay, he clarifies what the term “genre” means in other meaningful languages such as French and Latin. In French it means “sort” or “kind”, and in Latin it means “to generate”. He then goes on to explain that a genre is a “transparent lens” for classifying texts and different kinds of things but maybe we should be trying to study the things themselves. He also says that genres can generate the exchanges of language in discourse communities.

Swales defines genre simply as a particular type of writing or text that belongs to a certain discourse community. He explains that when we write, we tend to look to a familiar genre that is appropriate for the type of writing we are doing. A genre is normally easily recognized by outsiders, meaning anyone can identify what genre a piece of writing belongs to. Genres are able to change with new members or old members leaving, or even if the group just thinks it’s best to critique the genre.

These two authors both would agree that a genre is a type of writing or text that belongs to a specific group. Bawarshi went about the definition in a different way explaining it as transparent. He said maybe we should focus on studying the particular “thing” instead of just the pieces of writing, or maybe consider both. He also said that genres allow members of discourse communities to communicate easily. Swales argues that a genre can usually be identified by non-members of the group. He also does not distinguish the group as a discourse community as did Bawarshi. Swales says that non-members tend to use these different genres for themselves easily as guidance for their own writing.

In my opinion, I think Swales’ definition is most appropriate because we as students use different genres in our writing. We are familiar with the different genres and we are knowledgeable about the different types. I also think this is most appropriate because we use them as “tools” to help us with our writing skills. We learn how to write in different genres and it is not too difficult to understand. Bawarshi makes it sound like genres can only be used by the members of the discourse community because they will be the only people reading and understanding their genre.

Overall, I thought this article was quite interesting because I had no idea there were so many interpretations of genres. I never thought about the concept of a genre being so complicated and in depth but at the same time I understood it. It makes sense that a genre can be used to learn about other groups and discourse communities to enhance your own learning.