why am i in eng 101?

What is the point of English 101? In high school we attend classes of different subject matter, and are slightly exposed to the idea that not all disciplines communicate the same. We know to use slightly different words when describing aspects of literature and narrative in English class than we do describing chemical reactions in chemistry. However, at the university level the difference in language usage is even more pronounced, the ways of developing and presenting an argument are more specific, so a student must learn to communicate in different ways in different classes. As a student progresses through their major courses the goal is the communication will become easier because they are now engrained in the disciplinary discourse of their major.


The problem with this model is the lack of exposure to this type of communication prior to beginning university life. Most high school students naturally shift their discourse as they move between situations, speaking one way with parents, a different with teachers, and a different with friends. They do this code switching unconsciously. At the university level they are expected to code switch into impersonal academic discourse, communicating properly within the discipline of their choice without direct instruction. When they fail at this task, when they can’t pass their PSY 400 paper off as psychology lingo enough, the English 101 teacher is blamed. Clearly no one at the university taught that student to write. But is it really writing that’s the issue, or is the lack of understanding by the student that they need to learn the code of psychology to write a paper for PSY 400 and earn a good grade. It has become the burden of the English 101 teacher to teach the student not just academic discourse, and the way to construct a rhetorical argument at the university level, it has now also become the job of ENG 101 to teach students to be aware of code switching and how to code switch themselves into discipline specific lingo.

So . . .in the classroom setting, what’s language (what the code is presented in) have to do with anything? In the course of a normal day we use language to create an image of ourselves in specific context with specific people. We think through language, we describe through language, we create our reality through language. In the university, disciplines have created themselves and their importance through specific language. The language is then used as a test of identity. If you can’t use the language properly, you clearly aren’t a member of this group. Language and identity presentation through language is the way we test each other for authenticity. So . . .the ENG 101 classroom now not only has to teach argument presentation, academic discourse, code switching, we also have to teach the importance of code switching. These are all things we do every day in settings we have innately learned these skills, why is it so hard to do all this in the university setting?

what are we forgetting?

"learning, even in these individualistic terms, is very much a matter of being situated in a material, social, and cultural world" Gee, What videogames have to teach us, page 179

I'm very interested in online education. Today NCTE sent out an email to its members advertising a 3 part class that will teach you how to think about your assignments and make them accessible for online English instruction. I refer to this (what i consider cop out) technique as assignment translation. i just want to make my f2f assignments fit in the online classroom so i'm 21st century. I think Gee's quote above is one of my favorite's because it shows just how much we're missing when we buy into assignment translation, we're completely ignoring the context and all the situated meanings that come along with that context. some educators see the digital world as scary, new, dangerous, so translating assignments is the easy way to offer their class in the new way. they never consider how much effort it took them to figure out how to pay bills online, to talk to their friends, family and co-workers through email. all of these activities required the individual to become familiar with a particular interface and to use it a certain way with certain people to attain a certain goal. however, all of this is forgotten when we think of online education. but why?

cultural models

cultural models, according to Gee, are ways we recognize the world based on our belief systems. These systems are typically innately learned, so we’re not always aware of them. When we think of work, and we assume that a good employee should always show up on time, and work their hardest, we are speaking of a specific cultural model learned by middle and working class America. We don’t always practice this belief, but it is the idea we hold about work.


Sometimes our beliefs don’t match our actions, and we don’t recognize this mismatch. Yesterday I saw a guy getting on the bus I was on with a Che Guevara tattoo on one calf and a red communist star on the other calf. The work was well done too. About 5 minutes into the ride he begins a conversation with his companions on where they should eat dinner. He throws out quizno’s. the ridiculously corporate toasted sub shop. Now che and most versions of communism (china is attempting communism with capitalism, we’ll see how that works out) are very anti-capitalism, but here is my fellow bus driver, buying into capitalism for his dinner while he wears anti-capitalism on his skin. A slight mismatch of cultural models, but not one he’s recognizing. Like most people, these mismatches are below our notice.

These models function in a way to make daily life easier for us. Instead of processing ideas like quizno’s is a national chain, which is pro-capitalist, I’m not capitalist, I should make my food choices accordingly, most people simply make choices based on convenience and ease. It’s easy to know how to act as a student when in a classroom. The student knows to sit in the many desks facing the front, and the teacher knows to go to the front of the classroom to be the teacher. These are cultural models of classrooms. These school cultural models are also where we get into trouble. With increasing movement of classes to online where do students pick up their cultural models of how to read and behave online? I have to figure out the correct way of leaving author feedback on a fanfiction site, and I have to figure out how to write a diary post on dailykos, and I have to figure out how to talk to fellow WoW members, all of this is done by lurking. But in a classroom everyday counts, and we must have a presence to earn the grade. So how do we figure out how to act? Are student simply mashing their other cultural models into something that fits within the environment? What happens when one student’s model doesn’t fit well with another’s? Ultimately, how do we create space in an online class to allow students safe space to explore the region and figure out how to interact and how to be, so they can get the most from the class?

what's language got to do with it?

Language is never innocent. Individual words and how we put them together is deeply tied to the identity we try to portray, the culture we came from, and the culture we try to demonstrate when we use those words. Today in class discussion one student mentioned that in certain parts of the south typical dinner meals are catfish caught by the men, and hush puppies. Another student complained that waffle house doesn’t know how to make grits. Then a third student asked what a hush puppy was. As an arizonan if I say I caught a catfish and we’re eating it for dinner the table would go elsewhere for dinner, they understand that the place I would’ve caught the catfish (the canals or lakes) are not spaces where fish are really considered edible. My student not knowing what a hush puppy is demonstrated her lack of cultural knowledge of a word. Again, language is never innocent. Our knowledge of words is meaningful, and our word choice is meaningful. If we’d never talked about community use of food words my students would never have had a reason to discuss hush puppies and grits, and other students would never have had a reason to acknowledge their lack of knowledge of those words.


In word choice outside of food, but still in the face-to-face classroom I will hand out an assignment, walk through what I’ve typed up, ad libbing as I go. I’ll also ask at various points (that organically feel like stopping points when walking through an assignment sheet) if everyone understands. If there are questions, clarification is offered, and other questions may arise based on one students question. Then the assignment will continue. As the students work through the steps of the paper writing process, my physical presence in answering questions the class before an assignment is due allows me and the student to negotiate the meaning until we reach a point where both teacher and student feel we are discussing the same thing with the same understanding so the ‘correct’ assignment will be turned in. this language negotiation happens f2f but what happens when we put composition classes in online spaces. Instead of receiving ad lib’d assignments, students simply download the assignment sheet, and are given the opportunity to contact the teacher if further clarification is needed. Instead of the teacher opening up the space for meaning negotiation, the student must do the work by showing up for a teacher’s office hours (whether virtual or f2f) or by composing an email. Either way the work load is shifted to the student. The student must put in work, and effort to negotiate the meaning of the classroom language, the teacher is no longer present to help start that negotiation, that discussion. Can we move this negotiation to online space? Can we virtually ad lib so students have the opportunity to negotiate the meaning? If we can, how do we move this?

We can also debate the usefulness of this meaning negotiation. Maybe students would be better off not being able to negotiate, but by simply writing the assignment. In a f2f classroom with 20 students, if 2 of them do not show up on the day the assignment is handed out, but they attend every class after then until the paper is due, will they have the same grasp on the assignment as the 18 students who were present?

directing learning

In many first-person shooters games, the environment of the game is structured to help guide the player through the maze of the level. In cases where the scenery opens up (like open street fighting in Left 4 Dead) the direction the bad guys are coming from is often an indicator to the player which direction they should be moving. For those who don’t play, it’s usually toward the bad guys. In the game demo’d in class tonight, Army of 2, the unfinished warehouse walls directed the player toward the path they should take to get through the level. There were extra walled in rooms that allowed the player to explore, potentially picking up amo, weapons and money, but the basic path to navigate the level was provided in the scenery. In this way, many first-person shooter games are designed to allow the player freedom to move within the world, while clearly directing their play and path. However, unless GPS is activated, the player simply ‘reads’ the environment for clues on navigation, having previous experience in first person shooters is often helpful for reading the scenery quicker. So a player who prefers this type game becomes more familiar with the scenery and builds literacy skills that help them read the environment to navigate their way through the levels.


In this way games are directing the learning of a player. Specifically, first person shooter games are signaling to players where to go, and providing clues in the scenery as to the correct path. However, most players read these clues without being conscious of their learning of and use of a specific literacy skill within a specific game genre. As educators we look at learning within in videogames for ways to help us direct classroom learning. How do we create a learning environment where the path from day 1 of school to the last day of school is directed to the students without them realizing the pushes they receive along the way? How does the scenery of a classroom encourage exploration, and reward correct exploration behavior, while still creating the necessary literacy skills to keep the student on the correct path without them even realizing they are learning how to be while learning ?

motivation

Some researchers look at narrative in videogames the way they look at narrative in TV shows and movies, as plot devices that function to tell the watcher a story. The problem is videogames are interactive, a player rarely simply watches the action happen, they see bits of a story so they can get to a part where they make the action happen. In some newer games narrative has become a more complex part of the introduction and includes short videos full of plot introducing the character and characters to the player. In many ways these introductory videos function to motivate the players. They provide enough interaction and enough background information to draw the player in, to make them want to complete the game. The story functions to motivate players by building identification with the character they are playing as. They are given just enough story to be intrigued (granted not all games are good at this).


So, if plot videos in videogames function to build motivation to keep players playing by creating identification with the characters, how else does identification develop? In various web communities members become recognized members through various literacy practices unique to the environment. They work toward being recognized as a member, they build literacy to gain identification. In these situations does identification function as the motivating factor for putting in the work to build literacy skills? Is identification with the character of a videogame the motivating factor keeping players playing and the videos just the tool of delivering identification?

learning to read

we used to have a very traditional view of reading.  words were printed on a page, we learned phonics to sound out words, site recognition to understand words, we were tested on our comprehension of paragraphs, but reading was relegated to the world of print.  black ink on white pages in bound books.  that was reading.  this type of reading was high tech.  the creation of the guttenburg press introduced the world, civilization, culture to reading.  cultures learned to read the bible. stories once orally recorded in tiny villages now became available to large cities.  men and women in large metropolises like new york read the stories of hunters and gatherers crossing the dessert with limited food and oil.  they were taught to read the words on the page, they were taught to value the words on the page for the message being conveyed.  but how does a desert context of hunters and gatherers apply to a business man or woman, a homemaker, a secretary, a school teacher . . . in a metropolis. the context of the story no longer mattered, or could be imagined based on other printed words.  we learned to read again.  instead of just reading words on a page we learned to cross-reference, to ignore some context and pay attention to other context.  our local stories became important to global markets and our reality of reading changed, but our idea of reading stayed the same.  we continued to see reading as understanding the words on the printed page.  then along came computers.  no longer reading printed text, computers and videogames allow us to read words on a screen, words in a virtual world, words in various sizes, colors, words in various languages mixing.  to understand how the words functioned, to make sense of them reading had to become something more than just understanding words on a page, it had to become understanding words in a situation, and how they were being used in that situation.  so for many (especially elementary education) reading is still understanding printed words on a white paper.  for others reading is making meaning in a context, and reading is no longer just words.  why did it take the invention and widespread use of the internet for us to realize reading has never been just decoding black letters on a white page?