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This video immediately made me think of Adichie’s “The Danger of a Single Story.” As a homeschooler, I’ve encountered many of these questions (most of all, the pajama question). Although at times I liked getting attention for being an anomaly, overall, I felt very judged and limited by other people’s perceptions. I remember that, as a self-defense method, I would describe myself as “weird” so as to claim a description for myself rather than having it forced on me.

So this video was great. It didn’t capture my entire experience, but what I liked about it was that this guy – Blimey Cow – questioned certain beliefs merely by repeating them back. Rather than say outright, “homeschoolers are like this,” he repeats statements that might be said about us, as a sort of mirror effect. As if to say, “hmmm, did you really mean that?”

I love this word – debunking. “Let’s unpack that” – Let’s actually question those assumptions that we’ve accepted as realities. Because in order to truly respect other people, we must eliminate finite assumptions and be more open to complexities and details.

In Access, Identity, and Education – a course taught by Jody Cohen – we read an article by Martha Minow.  This reading discussed the “Dilemma of Difference” (I couldn’t find the entire reading online, but here’s a quote: “The dilemma of difference may be posed as a choice between integration and separation, as a choice between similar treatment and special treatment, or as a choice between neutrality and accommodation”). From what I remember, Minow pointed out two problems with “difference” in the classroom: if teachers recognize that students are different, and meet their different needs differently, they run the risk of isolating some students. They might create a “different from” mentality – a separation between normal and different studdents. However, if teachers DON’T accommodate needs, some students may not get the treatment they require for learning.

I am very excited about this course and the potential for great dialogue that it has thus portrayed. We have various means of communication, which I think is important to suit the needs of different learners and for the different ways that people express themselves. At the same time, I do have my concerns about the Twitter component. What irked me the first couple of tweets I posted was that the character limit would inevitably cut me off before I had finished saying what I wanted to say. It reminds me of the multitude of literacies we have discussed and will continue discussing throughout the semester. A new (for the newbies to Twitter as myself), different type of literacy is necessary when communicating via Twitter. You are not able to talk in long drawn out thoughts, but rather it teaches you, or more so requires you, to be succinct and to find the shortest and most effective way to express your thought. I have yet to make up my mind about how I feel about this aspect of social media, but I will say that I am interested in seeing how the combination and interweaving of Twitter and Serendip will play out, where in one you post short statements or links to articles, the other requires you to expand on your thoughts and lay them out in a more thought-out manner. It might just end up being the perfect balance between these two types of thinking and expressing oneself, lending itself to a constructive class dialogue.

So far I've taken classes in a few different subject areas and have experienced a wide variety to Academic writing.  Although all types of academic writing strive to make an arguement or prove a point the styles of writing are different. College level writing involves a lot of thought.  It's a careful process because you have to manage to tie in the ideas of different authors or researchers without stealing from them.

The hardest thing, for me, about Academic writing is making sure my ideas haven't been used by someone else.  In all honesty I don't understand what the goal of academic writing is.  There have been times in some classes that I've attempted to tie together sources to showcase an idea that I (thought) I created, only to have a professor write "site this!"  I get nervous because I feel like everytime I write a paper I need to do incredible amounts of research to make sure nobody has said the exact same thing that I'm saying without me siting them.  It really reminds me of the Harper's Magazine article in that way.  I completely agree with the idea that every idea I have is technically plagiarized from someone else. 

On a slightly different note I feel like this blurred line of what we can easily site and what is almost impossible to avoid "stealing" is a central problem with a lot of the internet banning bills.  We want to avoid plagiarism yes, but where do we draw the line between "stealing" and "creating?" 

            In the article What is Literacy?, James Paul Gee addresses the functionality of different discourses. A big part of literacy, as he describes it, is understanding the different uses of primary and secondary discourses. In order to master literacy you must know how to use primary and secondary discourses at appropriate times. In this case “function” indicates that these discourses have different uses or occur in different settings.

            When bringing a program that promotes literacy to Northern Ghana, it seemed like an important thing to establish is what kind of discourses occur in the region. In The Leap to Literacy and Life Change in Northern Ghana, there was an emphasis on community building as well as literacy. They stressed that they were teaching children functional literacy, and from the overview it seemed that this was done with a focus on their local life.

There was a stress on incorporating their mother tongue, and teaching the discourse that they were exposed to during a certain family trade. This is different than just teaching children to read and write. Instead they are working to incorporate their life into the classroom. Mixing both “acquisition” (learning through exposure) and “formal learning” seems to be beneficial to students who are trying to master literacy skills.

I try to think that I am open minded, liberal and a thoughtful individual. However, I have also many times been the reproducer, the victim, the oblivious consumer and the creator of a single story. When thinking about the stories I was told and those that I repeat, I know how easy it was when I was younger to believe the words I heard and take them for fact. It was not until much later that I realized I had to learn the language and culture of questioning what I heard people say to me. I think even how people learn to believe and trust is so deeply contextualized in the many intersections of their identity that influence how they view power, authority and respect.  I think in some communities/societies questioning stories and people is a strength and a quality that gives you agency and power. However, in other communities and families cultura, age or gender can have bearing on how you communicate the ability to question.

 I know that I cling to single stories. I hold onto them tightly as if doubting them is challenging me to confront buried contradictions and hypocrisies of many of my own beliefs. I wonder what is more difficult, to create a single story or to dismantle and destroy the single story perspective?

At this point in time, I would consider scientific journal articles to be the main writing of my discipline.  In class, I brought an article that I had written last semester in which I reported results of a five week long experiment.  Whenever I write a scientific journal article, there is a very strict format that I am required to follow.  The introduction provides the reader with the general background information about the experiment at hand.  This includes, but it not limited to, the theory behind the science, the impact of the results of the experiment, previous experimental results, how the experiment described in the paper is new and innovative, and the history and uses of the materials in the experiment.  The section that follows, the results and discussion, should flow like a story and does not have to be in chronological order.  This section presents the results of the experiment so that the reader will understand how the experimenter arrived at a conclusion.  Following the results is a very brief experimental section and an even shorter conclusion.  The conclusion is meant to be one paragraph that restates the results of the experiment and the final conclusion about the experiment.  

Through the Twitter dialogue, I have formed a few questions and fields of exploration that I find especially intriguing.   Some of these thoughts I know will be added to by the readings, and I am really excited to learn and expand upon my knowledge of these areas.  Literacy, by the dictionary and commonly understood definitions, means reading and writing.  A few people tweeted questioning whether music or math had facets of literacy within them.  I completely think they do.  To me, the definition of literacy has always been broader than simply reading or writing, but I am having a hard time defining what exactly literacy can consist of.  I am especially finding it difficult to distinguish between the ideas of literacy and understanding.  Does being literate mean you understand something?  Does understanding something mean you are literate in it?

I think it is important to note that when discussing language, we often observe different dialects and accents as part of the experience of language.  I think that literacy in different disciplines is like speaking a different dialect; there is some common basis, but without the full skill set, it is hard to completely understand eachother.

Although I love the study of gender and sexuality, and believe strongly in (what I now see as one view of) feminism, I am relatively new to the whole idea.  Even as a second semester Sophomore, I am what I would call a "baby feminist." Somehow I managed to grow up without ever having a proper idea of what feminism was about, and therefore I feel that I am still woefully uneducated on the topic.  I find myself agonizing over what to write in this post, because I have very little background in feminism, and although I try my best to educate myself, I would say I am early in my academic journey.  The interesting thing about this class is that clearly there are people who have spent a long time studying this subject and who have very strong opinions about feminism, and there are people like me who feel like they are relatively new to - though not any less interested in - the field, and have fewer opinions on feminsm, if any at all.   And of course there are people who fall in between those two extremes.  

I found that our Thursday in-class group discussions were very interesting, and that the questions were a very intriguing look into our brains. I've realized that I would love to have this discussion again with classmates- not only those who were in my group or in the class, but with others as well. Initially the questions seemed relatively straight-forward, but once we were all sitting down and put thought and effort behind our answers they became signficantly more difficult. All of the questions were very broad, and required more than just a yes or no answer- even, and maybe most especially, the question "Are you a feminist?" Feminism has a complex history of not only different waves, but different circles of thought within those waves that makes it difficult to just say 'yes' or 'no'. Some branches of feminism also have a very uncomfortable history of being exclusionary towards non-white and non-cisfemale women, which adds another layer of complexity to identifying as a feminist. Listening to everyone's reasons behind saying 'yes' or 'no' was very insightful, and I feel could potentially cause someone to rethink their own explanations, and the forces in their lives that made them say 'yes' or 'no'. Attempting to create a definition for feminism, at least in that short amount of time, would have been very difficult, especially since it was so easy to spend a lot of time on the other questions.

Based on some students' comments online, I would be very interested in knowing what their definition of feminism is, or potentially their multitude of definitions.