by Mike Rose
These are notes I took while reading
Key Ideas
Deficit Theories- Basic Writers were lacking something
Initiation Theories- Basic Writers are Trying to Join a New Community and Learn a New Discourse
-African American literacy in the past was explicitly political. The fact that it was illegal proves it.
-Basic Writing should be seen as acts that negotiate the situations that students of color face in majority dominated institutions.
-He is arguing in favor of pluralistic standards, standards which empower, rather than gatekeep.
-He talks about students from oppositional cultures, those that define themselves as against majority culture. (I personally think religious students are from oppositional cultures.)
-"clash of cultural styles" as a possible cause of poor performance
- The clash of cultural styles theory in an educational context suggests that "misunderstandings" among well-meaning teachers and students cause poor performance in schools.
-It is hard to explain why some minority cultures thrive academically under this theory.
-It seems that the way cultures view school has a big impact, perhaps more than features of linguistic use.
Showing posts with label My notes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My notes. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Reading Students
In our profession, it is safe to assume that many of us are better as reading texts than we are at reading people. The job of non-directive tutoring, however, requires exactly that. A tutor must be alert for signs of anxiety, frustration, surprise, and happiness in clients, yet I believe few of us are taught exactly what these emotions look like.
The reason for this is simple: diversity. In a tutoring environment populated by students of different races, it seems
Are there universal patterns in nonverbal communication?
What are they?
Is it possible to use these patterns to read students?
Is reading students ethical?
Do tutors already do this, consciously or unconsciously?
Does reading students offer potential benefits to tutors?
Can tutors read students accurately without training?
Can tutors be trained to read students accurately? What kind of training might help?
What happens when a tutor is trying to read someone from another culture?
The reason for this is simple: diversity. In a tutoring environment populated by students of different races, it seems
Are there universal patterns in nonverbal communication?
What are they?
Is it possible to use these patterns to read students?
Is reading students ethical?
Do tutors already do this, consciously or unconsciously?
Does reading students offer potential benefits to tutors?
Can tutors read students accurately without training?
Can tutors be trained to read students accurately? What kind of training might help?
What happens when a tutor is trying to read someone from another culture?
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Revisiting "the idea of a writing center"
Revisiting "the idea of a writing center"
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
maxims and metaphors megalist
"We learn nothing from diversity, not even the simple fact that we are all the same."
"I am the king of invisible things, but don't ask me for help moving, unless you are Aaron Kerley."
"A sentence has to say something in order to be complete. You do not have to understand each word." -Example "I did it"
"Do you want to understand ethos? Have a beautiful woman tell a joke to a group of single men. Then have a balding forty year old guy tell the same joke."
"Ask, don't tell."
"One session, one skill. Any more is overkill."- heard at a writing conference ECWCCA in Purdue
"We are here to help students become better writers, not to help them produce better writing." - Stephen North
(BULLSHIT! We are here to give students what they need, the skills that will help them succeed, not what they want, not what we want.)
"If language had existed for only 24 hours, writing would have been invented at 11:08 pm."- John McWhorter, From Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue."
According to our best estimates, spoken language started 100-200 thousand years ago. The best current evidence places writing at around 6000 years ago. That means speech existed for at least 94000 years and we accomplished almost nothing. In 6000 years of writing we went from spear fights to space flight."
"I can tell you what you need to do, but if I do, I cannot tell you how to do it. If you tell me what you want to do, I can tell you how others have done that."
"Linguistic diversity is as natural as biological and cultural diversity."
"Writing has always been the primary means of righting wrongs."
"You don't need me to teach you how to read. You need my help to teach you how to read between the lines."
Our job is to teach students the intelligence in their mistakes, and the shortcomings of their successes. The beginning of this is accepting the students current level of ability without judgment.
Postmodernism is to classroom teaching what quantum physics is to Newtonian physics.
(Classroom study of texts and their "meanings" are all that most people ever need. But, if you want to know the REAL deal, it is much much weirder than all of that. The copenhagen interpretation)
Heisenbergs Uncertainty principle of meaning.- You can never know the meaning of a text. The more you care about finding the MEANING. The more effort you put into finding the MEANING, the less trustworthy your interpretations become.
Vision- When we read, we are like horses with blinders on. Working with texts in dialogue with others is what takes the blinders off.
When we read, we are like a man with rose colored glasses on, who doesn't realize what color his glasses are. (since there is no gap in his rosy vision)
We don't learn much from diversity, not even the fact that we are all the same.
Think of professional baseball that has been around for a hundred years. Every year, the teams know that there will be only one winner of the world series. The game is fair. Everyone knows it. It has always been that way. But imagine instead that not everyone knew it. Imagine that almost every team thought that four separate teams could win the world series, and no one told them otherwise. Imagine instead that the idea of "four winners" was talked about in political speeches, that it was a common topic on news broadcasts. Would that be fair?
And what if there once was a competition where more than one person could succeed? Would it be fair to change that competition to a winner take all without some kind of announcement? How long would it take before we figured it out? Would it be right to keep claiming we could all be winners? Would it be right to keep on rose colored glasses in a gray world?
It takes a truly special person to realize that he/she is average.
The world is too strange to judge by experience. Noone has met an average man. Noone has had an average day. Nothing that happens to us is typical. It is specific and there is a serious difference.
Value equals price plus utility. However, the human mind can't measure utility worth a damn. On some days I feel bad about that.
A person can explain everything and understand nothing.
To a fool, a wise man doesn't make any sense. If someone doesn't make any sense, CONSIDER THAT POSSIBILITY.
I think it is a safe assumption that many of us became good with words because we are bad with people. Writing well humbles our pen and teaches us manners. What humbles us in conversation? Who among us seeks to learn from those who struggle at what we love best?
If you can find those learners, you have found your teachers.
Innocence isn't the absence of experience. Innocence is the absence of second thought.
This world is a kindness contest, and we all are in third place.
The only time we immediately like something new is when it is not new. (We can't tell the difference between "bad" and "not at all what we expect.")
Real answers not easy Answers
"Subjects are understood; objects are manipulated." - (I think it is a K Wilber quote).
Every new development is good news, bad news.
If you try very hard, you can understand. No matter what you do, you can't control whether you are understood.
The only time I can be myself is when I'm by myself. I suspect that is true for you too.
A Facebook update can be an inspiration, not a citation. (There are simple reasons for this...)
Worry and Alarm Clocks
Worry is meant to wake you up, and a nice metaphor for worry is an alarm clock. It is unpleasant but helpful. It is wise to choose when it goes off but it should probably go off at least a few times every week.
Abstract and Concrete language- A variety is important. It is like a roller coaster. You have to have the hills for it to be a thrill. (Sometimes fast changes are a powerful tool. Slow climbs are nice, but not riveting)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't use your judgment, use your brain. Your instincts, your judgment, are inherited and local. Your brain is earned. Enough said.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Every rule created to solve an injustice, also creates one. (However, not all rules are created to solve an injustice, and not all injustices are of the same size, the same duration, and the same intensity.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Any good class needs to have deleted scenes and a directors commentary.
-----------------------------------
(Hunter Motts) Stupid is a feeling, a feeling of shame that causes people to avoid their mistakes. Stupid is not a fact. Stupid is a feeling.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Uncertainty is to smart thinking what sore arms are to huge biceps.
Confusion and frustration are to thinking what muscle fatigue is to bodybuilding.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
An argument is like a boxing match decided by points. No one feels like he/she lost.
Consider the presidential debates.
----------------------------------------------------
If you cannot standardize the students or standardize the teachers, why can you/could you.should you standardize the curriculum?
------------------------------------
What does the word "bizarre" mean? What does "expensive" mean? What does tasty mean?
One answer might be to say "look in the dictionary."
A better answer might be to say "look at who used the word and ask that person about their life."
The best answer is long and boring, so I won't print it here.
------------------------------------------------------------
Easy to read is easy to believe. Easy to read might be easy to remember, but easy to read might be easy to forget. (Are you telling the reader what he/she already knows? Then it will be easy to forget.)
----------------------------------------------------
Attention is a flashlight. You can move it fast, but it can never point too places at once. If you wish to push me, I'll admit that different people have flashlights with different power bulbs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A book is a mirror. When a monkey looks in, a philosopher never looks back. - a paraphrase of something I saw in Robert Anton Wilson
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A good piece of writing is something clear, true, and new.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The best way to teach is in a simple set of three: demonstration, explanation, application
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The most difficult reading task of all is reading directions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talent is practice in disguise
---------------------------------------------
Reading without a purpose is like driving without a destination
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I think, I feel, I believe, I no longer take what you have to say seriously.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ideas are like children. Almost everyone loves their own, whether they deserve it or not.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes being nice is being mean. Sometimes the most helpful thing is not to help.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The only thing that immediately tastes great to everyone is junk food. Tastes have to develop.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We can see our work or ourselves clearly with our own eyes. To check out my bald spot, I need a mirror. To check out the quality of my writing, I need an audience.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
About plagiarism
No idea is an orphan, but none of them can produce a birth certificate
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is harder to believe in probability than it is to believe in a political party
-----------------------------------
.
In a world of 6 billion people, 6000 people have an a million to one coincidence happen every single day.
That makes it hard to believe in randomness.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I've got a bag full of surprises that would make Santa jealous.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm an English teacher and an American person. I have a leather belt that I made with a Leatherman. The first time I talked to a therapist, he said "this is going to be fun."
--------------------------------------------------------
a typical human is not average
not in height
not in weight
not in hair
not in charm
not in anything
average is not typical
average is a black swan
average is a unicorn
average is a hooker with a heart of gold
average is an imaginary friend.
---------------------------
You can either choose to find the beauty in life
or you can expect life
to convince you that it is beautiful
(And before I say what's next,
I need to admit something.
I am dumb.
I am gold medal dumb.
I am Guinness Book of World Records Dumb)
However...
Noone is dumb enough
to argue
that one of those choices
isn't a whole hell of a lot
better than the other.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mankind isn't created
and mankind isn't designed
and mankind hasn't randomly lucked into an evolutionary world
to have things that work forever
Mankind is not made up of those who have never suffered a disaster
or those who gave up
Mankind is made up of survivors.
Mankind is made up of rebuilders
But
Mankind would never have survived without the experimenters.
the kind of men who create disasters,
the lovable fuckups
who aren't afraid of anything
except giving up on their own ideas
even
if those ideas kill them
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is no such thing as a reliable narrator. [This is the reason I like to title things, the sales pitch. It is good to remind students of this.]
The best argument is a good story.
Critical Reading, Careful Reading, Casual Reading- 3 types that we all should master
Critical and Casual Reading-- It's like decaf or regular.
TMI is a phrase that normally means "details about a gross topic." It should also mean "less details please."
Subjective Maps vs Objective Maps
Arthurs-- My best friend John Weiman's first manager job
Cock N Bull-- Where My Double Works
Most people don't know how to persuade with words, so they persuade with a fist (either shaking it or using it).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sad news is that it is smart to edit and proofread everything, but it is no way to live.
There is nothing morally wrong with roulette and something aesthetically beautiful about it. The problem is that it ain't smart. Everyone can tell that you will lose more often than you win if you live your life like a roulette game, throwing rough drafts out into the atmosphere, thinking not a thing for the audience.
in the typing... the word "lose" was replaced by "love". Is it a freudian slip?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To fight temptation, control the situation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What we measure is what gets better.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conversation is like ping pong. Unless you are Tom Hanks, a second person should be participating.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am the king of invisible things, but don't ask me for help moving, unless you are Aaron Kerley."
"A sentence has to say something in order to be complete. You do not have to understand each word." -Example "I did it"
"Do you want to understand ethos? Have a beautiful woman tell a joke to a group of single men. Then have a balding forty year old guy tell the same joke."
"Ask, don't tell."
"One session, one skill. Any more is overkill."- heard at a writing conference ECWCCA in Purdue
"We are here to help students become better writers, not to help them produce better writing." - Stephen North
(BULLSHIT! We are here to give students what they need, the skills that will help them succeed, not what they want, not what we want.)
"If language had existed for only 24 hours, writing would have been invented at 11:08 pm."- John McWhorter, From Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue."
According to our best estimates, spoken language started 100-200 thousand years ago. The best current evidence places writing at around 6000 years ago. That means speech existed for at least 94000 years and we accomplished almost nothing. In 6000 years of writing we went from spear fights to space flight."
"I can tell you what you need to do, but if I do, I cannot tell you how to do it. If you tell me what you want to do, I can tell you how others have done that."
"Linguistic diversity is as natural as biological and cultural diversity."
"Writing has always been the primary means of righting wrongs."
"You don't need me to teach you how to read. You need my help to teach you how to read between the lines."
Our job is to teach students the intelligence in their mistakes, and the shortcomings of their successes. The beginning of this is accepting the students current level of ability without judgment.
Postmodernism is to classroom teaching what quantum physics is to Newtonian physics.
(Classroom study of texts and their "meanings" are all that most people ever need. But, if you want to know the REAL deal, it is much much weirder than all of that. The copenhagen interpretation)
Heisenbergs Uncertainty principle of meaning.- You can never know the meaning of a text. The more you care about finding the MEANING. The more effort you put into finding the MEANING, the less trustworthy your interpretations become.
Vision- When we read, we are like horses with blinders on. Working with texts in dialogue with others is what takes the blinders off.
When we read, we are like a man with rose colored glasses on, who doesn't realize what color his glasses are. (since there is no gap in his rosy vision)
We don't learn much from diversity, not even the fact that we are all the same.
Think of professional baseball that has been around for a hundred years. Every year, the teams know that there will be only one winner of the world series. The game is fair. Everyone knows it. It has always been that way. But imagine instead that not everyone knew it. Imagine that almost every team thought that four separate teams could win the world series, and no one told them otherwise. Imagine instead that the idea of "four winners" was talked about in political speeches, that it was a common topic on news broadcasts. Would that be fair?
And what if there once was a competition where more than one person could succeed? Would it be fair to change that competition to a winner take all without some kind of announcement? How long would it take before we figured it out? Would it be right to keep claiming we could all be winners? Would it be right to keep on rose colored glasses in a gray world?
It takes a truly special person to realize that he/she is average.
The world is too strange to judge by experience. Noone has met an average man. Noone has had an average day. Nothing that happens to us is typical. It is specific and there is a serious difference.
Value equals price plus utility. However, the human mind can't measure utility worth a damn. On some days I feel bad about that.
A person can explain everything and understand nothing.
To a fool, a wise man doesn't make any sense. If someone doesn't make any sense, CONSIDER THAT POSSIBILITY.
I think it is a safe assumption that many of us became good with words because we are bad with people. Writing well humbles our pen and teaches us manners. What humbles us in conversation? Who among us seeks to learn from those who struggle at what we love best?
If you can find those learners, you have found your teachers.
Innocence isn't the absence of experience. Innocence is the absence of second thought.
This world is a kindness contest, and we all are in third place.
The only time we immediately like something new is when it is not new. (We can't tell the difference between "bad" and "not at all what we expect.")
Real answers not easy Answers
"Subjects are understood; objects are manipulated." - (I think it is a K Wilber quote).
Every new development is good news, bad news.
If you try very hard, you can understand. No matter what you do, you can't control whether you are understood.
The only time I can be myself is when I'm by myself. I suspect that is true for you too.
A Facebook update can be an inspiration, not a citation. (There are simple reasons for this...)
Worry and Alarm Clocks
Worry is meant to wake you up, and a nice metaphor for worry is an alarm clock. It is unpleasant but helpful. It is wise to choose when it goes off but it should probably go off at least a few times every week.
Abstract and Concrete language- A variety is important. It is like a roller coaster. You have to have the hills for it to be a thrill. (Sometimes fast changes are a powerful tool. Slow climbs are nice, but not riveting)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't use your judgment, use your brain. Your instincts, your judgment, are inherited and local. Your brain is earned. Enough said.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Every rule created to solve an injustice, also creates one. (However, not all rules are created to solve an injustice, and not all injustices are of the same size, the same duration, and the same intensity.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Any good class needs to have deleted scenes and a directors commentary.
-----------------------------------
(Hunter Motts) Stupid is a feeling, a feeling of shame that causes people to avoid their mistakes. Stupid is not a fact. Stupid is a feeling.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Uncertainty is to smart thinking what sore arms are to huge biceps.
Confusion and frustration are to thinking what muscle fatigue is to bodybuilding.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
An argument is like a boxing match decided by points. No one feels like he/she lost.
Consider the presidential debates.
----------------------------------------------------
If you cannot standardize the students or standardize the teachers, why can you/could you.should you standardize the curriculum?
------------------------------------
What does the word "bizarre" mean? What does "expensive" mean? What does tasty mean?
One answer might be to say "look in the dictionary."
A better answer might be to say "look at who used the word and ask that person about their life."
The best answer is long and boring, so I won't print it here.
------------------------------------------------------------
Easy to read is easy to believe. Easy to read might be easy to remember, but easy to read might be easy to forget. (Are you telling the reader what he/she already knows? Then it will be easy to forget.)
----------------------------------------------------
Attention is a flashlight. You can move it fast, but it can never point too places at once. If you wish to push me, I'll admit that different people have flashlights with different power bulbs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A book is a mirror. When a monkey looks in, a philosopher never looks back. - a paraphrase of something I saw in Robert Anton Wilson
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A good piece of writing is something clear, true, and new.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The best way to teach is in a simple set of three: demonstration, explanation, application
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The most difficult reading task of all is reading directions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talent is practice in disguise
---------------------------------------------
Reading without a purpose is like driving without a destination
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I think, I feel, I believe, I no longer take what you have to say seriously.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ideas are like children. Almost everyone loves their own, whether they deserve it or not.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes being nice is being mean. Sometimes the most helpful thing is not to help.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The only thing that immediately tastes great to everyone is junk food. Tastes have to develop.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We can see our work or ourselves clearly with our own eyes. To check out my bald spot, I need a mirror. To check out the quality of my writing, I need an audience.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
About plagiarism
No idea is an orphan, but none of them can produce a birth certificate
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is harder to believe in probability than it is to believe in a political party
-----------------------------------
.
In a world of 6 billion people, 6000 people have an a million to one coincidence happen every single day.
That makes it hard to believe in randomness.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I've got a bag full of surprises that would make Santa jealous.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm an English teacher and an American person. I have a leather belt that I made with a Leatherman. The first time I talked to a therapist, he said "this is going to be fun."
--------------------------------------------------------
a typical human is not average
not in height
not in weight
not in hair
not in charm
not in anything
average is not typical
average is a black swan
average is a unicorn
average is a hooker with a heart of gold
average is an imaginary friend.
---------------------------
You can either choose to find the beauty in life
or you can expect life
to convince you that it is beautiful
(And before I say what's next,
I need to admit something.
I am dumb.
I am gold medal dumb.
I am Guinness Book of World Records Dumb)
However...
Noone is dumb enough
to argue
that one of those choices
isn't a whole hell of a lot
better than the other.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mankind isn't created
and mankind isn't designed
and mankind hasn't randomly lucked into an evolutionary world
to have things that work forever
Mankind is not made up of those who have never suffered a disaster
or those who gave up
Mankind is made up of survivors.
Mankind is made up of rebuilders
But
Mankind would never have survived without the experimenters.
the kind of men who create disasters,
the lovable fuckups
who aren't afraid of anything
except giving up on their own ideas
even
if those ideas kill them
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is no such thing as a reliable narrator. [This is the reason I like to title things, the sales pitch. It is good to remind students of this.]
The best argument is a good story.
Critical Reading, Careful Reading, Casual Reading- 3 types that we all should master
Critical and Casual Reading-- It's like decaf or regular.
TMI is a phrase that normally means "details about a gross topic." It should also mean "less details please."
Subjective Maps vs Objective Maps
Arthurs-- My best friend John Weiman's first manager job
Cock N Bull-- Where My Double Works
Most people don't know how to persuade with words, so they persuade with a fist (either shaking it or using it).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sad news is that it is smart to edit and proofread everything, but it is no way to live.
There is nothing morally wrong with roulette and something aesthetically beautiful about it. The problem is that it ain't smart. Everyone can tell that you will lose more often than you win if you live your life like a roulette game, throwing rough drafts out into the atmosphere, thinking not a thing for the audience.
in the typing... the word "lose" was replaced by "love". Is it a freudian slip?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To fight temptation, control the situation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What we measure is what gets better.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conversation is like ping pong. Unless you are Tom Hanks, a second person should be participating.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)