18 Feb: Who is the Fairest of Them All?

I think that if the Evil Queen had reflected on her choices, she might have seen that it wasn’t Snow’s fault that she was the fairest and not the Evil Queen. Also, y’know, not being Evil might’ve helped too.

I took notes on the Intro to Reflection:

Identify

What are your significant moments?

• Are we supposed to be writing vignettes?
• How many are we supposed to write?
• What feelings am I supposed to be recalling?

Reflect

Analyze those significant moments. Why did it happen that way?

• How will this get done?

Identify

What did you learn from this overall experience?

• How will this get done?

 

I think that the hardest part about this is finding a significant writing moment, at least one recently. I am constantly writing, and I don’t know. I can’t think of anything significant but recent.

23 Feb: When Will My Reflection Show Who I am Inside?

Let me deviate momentarily. Someone mentioned watching Mockingjay Part 1, and how she reflected on it, and I definitely did that yesterday. My roommates and I watched the first two movies, which one of us and I hadn’t seen since they came out, practically, and we reflected on the nostalgia and the differences between the books and the movies—books we hadn’t read in about four years. Reflecting on books and how I felt then and how I felt nice is really nice.

For the Facilitation Group:

I think it was definitely helpful to get some feedback from some of my classmates. I think we’re all aware that no one is perfect when it comes to writing papers, and I am a fervent believer that there is nothing that cannot be improved upon. So, it was great to hear things that were missing or topics that I should build on for my essay. I think I am definitely planning to add what both of the people who read my essays commented on, and I definitely need to since it was only about two pages and a half and I need three full pages, at least. I think I’m better at narrating and even analyzing, which are the first two steps, than I am at the third step where I have to say what I took away from the experience and how I will use that to build myself into a better writer.

Also, I have to agree with what another classmate said; I don’t think class made writing easier for me, but I do think it opened up doors to other kinds of writing, and I definitely think the writing in this class is much more easier and definitely a lot more enjoyable than traditional essay writing, for example. There is something liberating that comes from inquiry and blog posts, and though inquiry is definitely new and even a little intimidating, practice does make perfect.

My Free Writes are Pretty Short, omg.

Hahaha, I have no life. I am honestly not a part of any organization, unless the two meetings I’ve been to for the Feminist Union count (I don’t think they do). I think hearing about the restaurant was extremely interesting, especially when listening to the different kinds of lexis. I honestly had no idea what was going on, but I thought it was kind of funny to hear the phrases and words and definitely eye-opening.

I think touching on the idea of writing outside of the academic field was interesting. I mean, I was thinking about it entirely on an academic level, so I was drawing on things like my AP classes and Honors classes. Being able to talk about fiction writing was definitely fun, and it helped expose why I tend to overwrite and how that also affects my writing. But I also think that my academic writing has affected my personal writing too—like overusing grammar in personal writing, like when I try to write poetry (I got better last year, thank goodness!).

We All Exist as a Multitude of Communities

When writing, we are immediately affected by our environment—the sort of discourse communities that we are a part of shape what we write and in what form we say it. I believe that is what Harris is saying when he agrees with Bartholomae. I say “communities” because that is what Harris means when he later agrees with Barthes, as Barthes himself says, “Alongside each utterance…off-stage voices can be heard.” This means that the writing of each person does reflect their community, but the issue is that there is more than one community that the person belongs to, because a person does not leave one community to join another; instead s/he exists in several communities at once. Harris clarifies his point this way, “One is always simultaneously a part of several discourses, several communities, is always already committed to a number of conflicting beliefs and practice.”

A lot of what Harris talks about is how there are different communities. He references Hispanic writers who literally had to learn a new language to black writers who had to learn a different style of the same language to simply writers from the country-side who went to the city and realizes that a country community was different. Every classroom is its own discourse community, with its own language and ways to communicate—which means that every student speaks several, different “languages” and adapts to those individual communities to make him or herself a part of that community. What makes every person an individual is the sort of communities that person is a part of—as there is no single person who is only a part of one community. So, our individuality is a reflection of those communities, and thus, when we write, we are not writing as individuals, but our writing doesn’t just represent one community—but a multitude.

Harris also dives into speech community, a term first brought to my attention by Swales, and he (as well as Bartholomae and Barthes) also reinforces the idea that Swales gave us about a discourse community not always being academic or scholarly. Swales also says, “individuals may belong to several discourse communities,” and goes on to speak about students being a part of several communities because of academic courses; these are all points that Harris and Bartholomae discuss in the text. However, Swales does specifically mention that not all academic courses are discourse communities, but that all academic courses can become discourse communities, as opposed to Harris’ more inclusive opinion. Thus, Swales seems to have a more strict opinion on what a discourse community is as opposed to Harris, Bartholomae, and Barthes.

I found myself understanding discourse communities at a deeper level, and though I cannot say what is a discourse community and what isn’t, I do agree with the statements provided by Harris, Bartholomae, and Barthes: we all exist as a multitude of communities, as bits and pieces from here and there, and it is those mixtures of language and culture and literature that make us into who we are and how we write.

Writing is not Always the Preferred Medium

Two academic courses that I am currently enrolled in is my Introduction to Special Education and my Arts & Society LBST course. The most obvious difference in these two classes is the subject being taught—special education and art—but there is also a difference in the community of each of these classes.

My art class is a lecture class, so it actually lacks very much “community”. Communication between members is not very common, unless the two members are already acquainted or it is to comment about something specific to the class (example: “What date was on the painting on slide 3?”). The majority of us listens to the professor and diligently tries to copy down what is on the slides. We try not to interrupt him, and the few times that he asks us questions, we try to answer. There are rules set in place by the professor—don’t have any technology out, don’t sleep in class, don’t interrupt him, and to pay attention. If anyone doesn’t follow these rules, they will immediately be called out by the professor, and the punishment will come in verbal quips (example: “If you’re sleeping in this class, you should think about switching out of this class right now.” or “Do you know the answer to the question, because if you don’t, you really should be paying attention.”). There are over a hundred members. Lecture classes tend to have this sort of community, where there isn’t much of an interaction between the members once the class starts, besides the professor talking to the students. The goal of this course is to past the tests, and at least be able to view art from more than just an aesthetic point-of-view.

There are two Intro to Special Education classes that are lecture classes, but mine is not, because it is directly connected to my education majors, so everyone in that class is an education major as well. Unlike my art class, my SPED class has a more inclusive community. Communication between the members is done more often, though not as often as some other classes I’ve had. There is definitely more interaction with the teacher and the student, as opposed to just a lecture of the class. Many questions are asked throughout the class, both by professor and the students, and both the professor and the students will answer those questions. We also copy down notes in the class, but it is at a more leisure pace than in the art class. This class lacks formal rules, like the ones that my art class has, except for one of respecting others and especially respecting people with special needs. The goal of this class is to begin to think about people with special needs as not subhuman or abnormal, but simply people who need a specialized form of help—this goals are entirely about thinking in a new way about our interactions with other people.

The art class values efficiency, listening, and observation, as opposed to critical thinking and communication, while my SPED class values critical thinking and communication instead of a fast pace. Because of this, their writing practices are different. There is no deeper meaning when it comes to my art class, since the writing done in that class is simply taking notes. However, the SPED class, which also has note taking in it, also has assignments meant to explore students with special needs and their education—however, because it is based more on conversation than writing, there is less writing than in the art class in general. I think this reflects the idea that writing is not always the preferred medium of communication, and some communities will have strong writing practices with deep, critical thinking while others classes will seldom use writing or only use it as a medium to study with.

I Love Writing a lot. Alot?

I didn’t list any very specific. I mentioned that I like grammar and spelling and punctuation, and I mentioned how meticulous I am. I think the only thing I specifically noted was “alot” (that is still painful to write). I proofread immensely, for several minutes to half an hour. I’m crazy about writing well. I’ve mentioned I’m Hispanic, so my journey started in my kindergarten class, when everyone was speaking this foreign language to me, and I was trying to quickly adapt. I couldn’t read English, much less write it, and I could never imagine that within two years, I would be so good at writing that I would be put into this little thing called “Talent Development”, which is apparently like a elementary version of Honors or something. When classes began to become segregated by skill level, I was always in the highest level, especially for reading and writing. I had never been in anything lower than Honors once I entered middle school when it came to English.

And yet, when I was in middle school, like all middle schoolers tend to do, I was terrible about communicating with others with correct spelling and grammar. Making up different ways to write words was fun to me, even if I was good at it. I tended to do a mix of misspelled Spanglish, and I didn’t care until I was about fourteen, and I started to become aware of how awful and gross I felt with so many spelling errors and grammar mistakes. I can’t remember who taught me how to write properly. All of my teachers, maybe? The immense amounts of books I read especially between nine and fifteen, perhaps. When I was twelve, I realized that I wanted to be a novelist, and I think that as I further developed as a writer, maybe I was my own teacher. I taught myself to be better at writing because I wanted to. I liked writing, so of course I wanted to write well.

I don’t really have some big tale of the time I learned “a lot” was spelled “a lot”. I probably just saw it somewhere on the internet and realized and incorporated it into my writing. I mean, I never personally struggled with writing once I finally learned English (and I was too young for my writing mistakes to be traumatic). That’s probably why I don’t have anything that specifically pisses me off. I used to be the kind of person that got really annoyed and called people out on their mistakes when I was about fifteen, sixteen, but I grew out of it as I matured as a person. I am more culturally and politically aware now, so now I am even more adamant about being less judgmental towards people because I know people are in different situations, and I just don’t think it’s my place to tell them off.

 

Closing Statements: I was honestly bothered by this class a little. Some students were insinuating that not being good at writing made people lazy and ignorant. They weren’t using the words “stupid”, but they might as well have because those words carry a strong, negative connotation that lead to the word stupid. Another student mentioned that some people just aren’t good at reading or writing, and I think that’s true. Just like some people are horrible at remembering history facts and/or hate learning about it, but they are fantastic at complicated, high-level maths—there are different ways to be smart. People can be animated and well-versed in the Revolutionary War or in Calculus and not be good at writing and STILL be considered smart. I, for example, am not the best when it comes to math. I have no attention span for it and prefers history dates and writing, but I’m not stupid because I am not good at math. So, I think some of us need to consider that just because someone isn’t good at something, it doesn’t make them less of a person.

TL;DR: “Good” Writing is Undefinable

Literacy is a topic that I’ve noticed I am always talking about—and not just because I am going to be an elementary teacher, hopefully, but also because I’ve taken so many other classes that are focused on writing quickly and writing well and the importance of writing. Literacy is a huge problem in this world because there are still a lot of people who aren’t literate. What that means can often be summed up quickly as they can’t read or write. However, of course, literacy is more complicated than just that simple definition because there are different levels of literacy. My little sister is literate, as she can both read and write well, but my sister is seven, so her level is nowhere near my level; so, literacy is also determined through age. And then literacy is also defined by culture, as some people value different things. I don’t have a set definition of what literacy is. I do think students should be at a certain appropriate reading level based on their age/grade, but I also understand that things happen, and while literacy is important in this world and to me, the only I can do is try to help people and get everyone to the level where they can at least read menus and streets—the most basic level out there.

That being said, I am also kind of on the fence about “good” writing. It all depends on the age and the subject and what sort of writing it is—is it poetry or a novel or an essay or my sister’s short story? I’ve taken several AP classes, and most of those classes involved a lot of essay writing—three good essays in two hours. I am a stickler for grammar on formal assignments, even if that assignment is a poem. I text people with the best grammar possible, and I usually use punctuation unless I am only texting with one hand. Certain spelling errors “grind my gears”, like the “alot” thing (I shuddered when I forcibly misspelled that), but I understand things aren’t always taught or retained, and people make typos all the time. After all, I’ve made perhaps six hundred typos in this blog post alone, and hopefully, I caught them all before posting.

However, though I may usually be a stickler for the rules, I won’t bully strangers for doing it incorrectly because I’m Hispanic. My mother knows very little about English grammar, though she speaks well enough to carry a conversation in English. As a foreigner myself, I know the emotional turmoil that comes from feeling stupid because of reading and writing. So, while I probably won’t read a story posted online if the grammar and spelling is too egregious, I will often let things slid because I understand there are people whose first language isn’t English, and the American education system is incredibly flawed, so there are Americans who struggle with reading and writing, even with the flawed five-paragraph essay with the annoying and forced thesis statement in the introduction that Rob Jenkins mentions. The American system is hurt by the fact that there are so many different cultures and little chances for an individualistic approach to each type of person because there are just so many different people, and the traditional five-paragraph essay is just the easiest way to teach everyone in a uniform way. “Good” writing can’t be formally and universally defined, so for now, we’re stuck with the five-paragraph essay and questions on silly high school writing rules that seldom apply in the real world.

Back to my earlier point, I don’t think there is a specific kind of “good” writing. In poetry, all traditional rules are thrown out. Novelists get a bit of leeway when it comes to traditional rules. Essays are supposed to be flawless, with no spelling errors and no grammar errors and the correct POV at all absolute times and certain tone throughout the essay. “Good” writing depends on who is writing, where that person is from, what their age is, and what they intend with their writing. Daniel Handler has a whole page of with just the word “ever” in one of his novels, and that doesn’t make him an awful writer. I am overly repetitious and verbose whenever I speak and especially when I write (I apologize), and I don’t think I’m a bad writer. So, I may love grammar, but I can’t define “good” writing, and I don’t think we should have to.