The character Severous Snape delivers a power message to the title character when he asserts, “Your defenses… must be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo”. While I may not agree with Snape on everything, I do think this bit of Dumbledore-quality wisdom could not only benefit Harry but also how we think about our ideas on literacies. Such a construct could reflect the Barton and Hamilton’s literacy along with those of Gee and Luke. This definition involves much more than words or images on paper. And it is not one boxed in preset packages that can be delivered by textbook companies. These literacies are continually changing and evolving and integrally connected to the context, people, language, and spaces in which they exist, at least for that moment.
In this blog entry, I will work to address the questions the questions Colin posed on the text Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community by Davis Barton and Mary Hamilton while also narrating certain connections, applying certain concepts to examples found in pop culture, and expanding on some of the themes present in the text.
Literacy
In many ways, my ideas on literacies are ecological (4). Literacy is a social practice involving context, audience, language, power, and action. Therefore, rather than defining it in a skill-based manner, it is more important to thinking critically about and work to develop adaptable tools – strategies, questions, schemas, modes/mediums, previous experiences and knowledge… we can use to approach and navigate various situations, inside and outside of the classroom, in order determine priorities, and respond according. This way of discussing literacies requires us to be aware – present and mindful – of ourselves, others, and the space(s) we are inhabit.
Two habits of mind that can contribute to literacies ask us to be open/flexible and curious/critical. In action, these habit may involve active listening and/or skillful observation. The question why? could also be a nice way to start. When we ask this kind of question, it may be enticing to determine the answer(s), put that knowledge in a box, label it, and pull it out when needed but never change its space or content. When everything is in its place and fixed in our minds, we feel more comfortable and in control. Pulling out old ideas and articulating them is easy and requires little energy. Those ideas stay the same, and we stay the same. No clean up is required!
But the world is not that neat and clean, and neither are we. We interact, connect with, and affect the objects, spaces, and people we encounter, intentionally or not, changing ourselves and them. We are the sum of our experiences, but so are they.
What could these literacies look like?
This afternoon, I have the privilege to be presenting at the International Writing Center Association 2014 Conference along with Dr. Will Banks, Thomas Passwater, and Erin Herrmann (in spirit). Our session is titled “’Don’t Just Say Yes; Say, Yes ... And’: Literacy Improvisation for Reframing Consultant Professional Development in the Writing Center” and in it, we are forming an argument that writing and consulting involve space, objects, and people along with embodied practices like imagination, improvisation, and enactment. Our argument goes something like this.
The overarching rule of improvisation calls for “accepting all offers,” which can empower writers, and consultants, to trust one another’s intelligence and imagination and to collaboratively construct meaning (Fishman et al., 2005). These strategies and principles support a type of embodied literacy practice we call literacy improvisation. The focus on presence and togetherness/collaboration feels essential to us as writers who are, like the writers we work with, often pulled in various and conflicting directions.
Literacy improvisation is an approach to literacy as a social practice. In this presentation we are using the frame of queer theory and structuring it around dramatic improv. Literacy improvisation activities provide opportunities for consultants to construct and embody various approaches to composition, consultations, and collaboration while considering the (dis)connections among language, power, and actions.
Tina Fey’s Four Rules of Improv (Bossypants, 2011)
1.) Agree,
2.) Don’t just say yes. Say yes and,
3.) Make statements, and
4.) There are no mistakes … Only opportunities.
We extract from these rules four possible consultant actions – respect, contribute, create, and adapt – all grounded in a key value of improve: to be physically and mentally present in the moment.
This concept is significant because consultants and writers (along with everyone else) already participate in improvisation everyday: writing is riffing; consulting is riffing. On the symbolic stage of the writing center, actors work together within the flexible structure of consultations in the absence of a script or previously determined scenario to build knowledge and make meaning together.
Literacy improvisation is one way we can explore and expand on these literacies. But, of course, there are other ways of meaning making.
Hogwarts’s Literacies
Who wouldn’t want to go to Hogwarts? Yes, you would get to walk the same halls as Harry, Hermione, Luna, and Neville (I think the last two are especially underrated characters), and going to school at Hogwarts would be a transformational experience! Magic aside, let’s consider Hogwarts’s ecological approach through the pedagogical practices, student experiences, and wizard literacies described in Harry Potter.
Emerged in the wizarding culture, its students are surrounded by magic folk 24/7. This approach is not just an education; it is a process of enculturation. Students eat, go to class, play games, go to the library, occasionally visit Hogsmeade, laze about, fight he who must not be named… with other wizards. Student’s interact socially and academically with each other along with those who have already mastered (the big D) Discourse. As masters of this Discouse, several of the instructors at Hogwarts fall into two categories of character and pedagogy: good or bad.
Good teachers (extend student experience by getting them involved in hands on, interactive, contextualized activities in which the teacher (usually) provide scaffolding to support and language to discuss their learning experience. Specific examples of these experiences may include Professor Sprout having the Gryffindors and Slytherin in the greenhouse re-potting the Mandrakes in their second-year herbology class.
Bad teachers rely heavily on text books and theoretical or hypothetical situations along with, at times, the Ministry of Magic’s politically-restricted, curriculum. They remain in the classroom and include no practical application, critical thinking, or production. I am thinking about Umbridge’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Students stayed in their seats, listened, read from a single textbook, and were safely out of the danger of learning or thinking about anything.
Overall, [spoiler alert] Hogwarts’s utilizes an ecological approach to learning and literacy is successful. The students are motivated to learn in many of the classes and beyond. They even create their own literacy community and practices in Dumbledore’s Army when they feel their teachers are failing them.
As I confessed earlier, and you may have already noticed above, many of my “ruling passions” involve pop culture in one way or another. If I am not using the lyrics from a Bright Eyes song to make meaning of course readings, then I am referencing a movie scene or character from television to make sense of the world around me.
Recently, my attempt at making meaning in this course and the topic of the IWCA presentation mentioned above came from a song from the band Vampire Weekend. Their third and most recent album was released in 2013, and it remained on (re)play in my car for at least half of a year. The song "Step" was one of my favorites. While listening to a NPR podcast with two band members, I stumbled upon the song's genealogy, and the idea of writing is riffing became real to me. I will explain how below.
In this blog entry, I will work to address the questions the questions Colin posed on the text Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community by Davis Barton and Mary Hamilton while also narrating certain connections, applying certain concepts to examples found in pop culture, and expanding on some of the themes present in the text.
Literacy
In many ways, my ideas on literacies are ecological (4). Literacy is a social practice involving context, audience, language, power, and action. Therefore, rather than defining it in a skill-based manner, it is more important to thinking critically about and work to develop adaptable tools – strategies, questions, schemas, modes/mediums, previous experiences and knowledge… we can use to approach and navigate various situations, inside and outside of the classroom, in order determine priorities, and respond according. This way of discussing literacies requires us to be aware – present and mindful – of ourselves, others, and the space(s) we are inhabit.
Two habits of mind that can contribute to literacies ask us to be open/flexible and curious/critical. In action, these habit may involve active listening and/or skillful observation. The question why? could also be a nice way to start. When we ask this kind of question, it may be enticing to determine the answer(s), put that knowledge in a box, label it, and pull it out when needed but never change its space or content. When everything is in its place and fixed in our minds, we feel more comfortable and in control. Pulling out old ideas and articulating them is easy and requires little energy. Those ideas stay the same, and we stay the same. No clean up is required!
But the world is not that neat and clean, and neither are we. We interact, connect with, and affect the objects, spaces, and people we encounter, intentionally or not, changing ourselves and them. We are the sum of our experiences, but so are they.
What could these literacies look like?
This afternoon, I have the privilege to be presenting at the International Writing Center Association 2014 Conference along with Dr. Will Banks, Thomas Passwater, and Erin Herrmann (in spirit). Our session is titled “’Don’t Just Say Yes; Say, Yes ... And’: Literacy Improvisation for Reframing Consultant Professional Development in the Writing Center” and in it, we are forming an argument that writing and consulting involve space, objects, and people along with embodied practices like imagination, improvisation, and enactment. Our argument goes something like this.
The overarching rule of improvisation calls for “accepting all offers,” which can empower writers, and consultants, to trust one another’s intelligence and imagination and to collaboratively construct meaning (Fishman et al., 2005). These strategies and principles support a type of embodied literacy practice we call literacy improvisation. The focus on presence and togetherness/collaboration feels essential to us as writers who are, like the writers we work with, often pulled in various and conflicting directions.
Literacy improvisation is an approach to literacy as a social practice. In this presentation we are using the frame of queer theory and structuring it around dramatic improv. Literacy improvisation activities provide opportunities for consultants to construct and embody various approaches to composition, consultations, and collaboration while considering the (dis)connections among language, power, and actions.
Tina Fey’s Four Rules of Improv (Bossypants, 2011)
1.) Agree,
2.) Don’t just say yes. Say yes and,
3.) Make statements, and
4.) There are no mistakes … Only opportunities.
We extract from these rules four possible consultant actions – respect, contribute, create, and adapt – all grounded in a key value of improve: to be physically and mentally present in the moment.
This concept is significant because consultants and writers (along with everyone else) already participate in improvisation everyday: writing is riffing; consulting is riffing. On the symbolic stage of the writing center, actors work together within the flexible structure of consultations in the absence of a script or previously determined scenario to build knowledge and make meaning together.
Literacy improvisation is one way we can explore and expand on these literacies. But, of course, there are other ways of meaning making.
Hogwarts’s Literacies
Who wouldn’t want to go to Hogwarts? Yes, you would get to walk the same halls as Harry, Hermione, Luna, and Neville (I think the last two are especially underrated characters), and going to school at Hogwarts would be a transformational experience! Magic aside, let’s consider Hogwarts’s ecological approach through the pedagogical practices, student experiences, and wizard literacies described in Harry Potter.
Emerged in the wizarding culture, its students are surrounded by magic folk 24/7. This approach is not just an education; it is a process of enculturation. Students eat, go to class, play games, go to the library, occasionally visit Hogsmeade, laze about, fight he who must not be named… with other wizards. Student’s interact socially and academically with each other along with those who have already mastered (the big D) Discourse. As masters of this Discouse, several of the instructors at Hogwarts fall into two categories of character and pedagogy: good or bad.
Good teachers (extend student experience by getting them involved in hands on, interactive, contextualized activities in which the teacher (usually) provide scaffolding to support and language to discuss their learning experience. Specific examples of these experiences may include Professor Sprout having the Gryffindors and Slytherin in the greenhouse re-potting the Mandrakes in their second-year herbology class.
Bad teachers rely heavily on text books and theoretical or hypothetical situations along with, at times, the Ministry of Magic’s politically-restricted, curriculum. They remain in the classroom and include no practical application, critical thinking, or production. I am thinking about Umbridge’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Students stayed in their seats, listened, read from a single textbook, and were safely out of the danger of learning or thinking about anything.
Overall, [spoiler alert] Hogwarts’s utilizes an ecological approach to learning and literacy is successful. The students are motivated to learn in many of the classes and beyond. They even create their own literacy community and practices in Dumbledore’s Army when they feel their teachers are failing them.
As I confessed earlier, and you may have already noticed above, many of my “ruling passions” involve pop culture in one way or another. If I am not using the lyrics from a Bright Eyes song to make meaning of course readings, then I am referencing a movie scene or character from television to make sense of the world around me.
Recently, my attempt at making meaning in this course and the topic of the IWCA presentation mentioned above came from a song from the band Vampire Weekend. Their third and most recent album was released in 2013, and it remained on (re)play in my car for at least half of a year. The song "Step" was one of my favorites. While listening to a NPR podcast with two band members, I stumbled upon the song's genealogy, and the idea of writing is riffing became real to me. I will explain how below.
Vampire Weekend "Step"
While it is an original song, "Step" (above) it becomes very clear that Vampire Weekend is riffing off of another group. The song's origins are traced back to a Bay Area rap group, Souls of Mischief's song "Step to My Girl" (below), which includes the appropriate lyrics in their song: "I have the right to riff". And although there are differences, I am following our author's lead by focusing on what they have in common.
While it is an original song, "Step" (above) it becomes very clear that Vampire Weekend is riffing off of another group. The song's origins are traced back to a Bay Area rap group, Souls of Mischief's song "Step to My Girl" (below), which includes the appropriate lyrics in their song: "I have the right to riff". And although there are differences, I am following our author's lead by focusing on what they have in common.
Souls of Mischief "Step to My Girl"
Although the connections in melody and certain lyrics is immediately evident, the songs convey completely different messages: Vampire Weekend seems to be riffing off the women (girl) described in Souls of Mischief's song, making and developing her character (identity) into one who does not need a man to protect her. To add another layer to these songs, it turns out the sample in Souls of Mischief's song that becomes the chorus in Vampire Weekend's ("Every time I see you in the world/You always step to my girl) did not originate in either bad; it is a sample from the rapper YZ.
This connection allows me to see how literacies are living artifacts, present in different contexts, affecting others as it was also affected. Existing in a paradox in which we are the product and creators, subjects and agents. We all play off of each other, intuitionally or not. We are not just products of our culture, not just respondents to the situation, but also and critically appropriators of cultural artifacts that we produce, simultaneously liberating and limiting. In the context of these bands, the literacy artifacts (songs) work to both preserve and change identities/subjectivities of the songs, bands, listeners… and beyond.
The yes… and of improv can also function as a way to complicate dichotomies like the ones included in Barton and Hamilton’s book as avoids an either/or mindset and encourages us to use space, language, and people to work together, adding on each other’s ideas and actions.
Dichotomies
Another relevant writing center dichotomy directly relates back the ideas of literacies discussed above. While they are not discussed in my initial ideas of literacies, Gee’s primary and secondary discourses provide the grounding from which we can explore how there is no binary of right/wrong when it comes to discourses and literacies. We all have dialects and ways of speaking that are not part of dominate discourses but are appropriate in certain contexts. In other words, there is no right or wrong way to communicate. There are just different ways in different contexts.
One example of this idea comes from Jay Z. As I have mentioned before, I think he is rhetorically savvy, and his conversation with Oprah about the use of the n- word was evidence of it.
Although the connections in melody and certain lyrics is immediately evident, the songs convey completely different messages: Vampire Weekend seems to be riffing off the women (girl) described in Souls of Mischief's song, making and developing her character (identity) into one who does not need a man to protect her. To add another layer to these songs, it turns out the sample in Souls of Mischief's song that becomes the chorus in Vampire Weekend's ("Every time I see you in the world/You always step to my girl) did not originate in either bad; it is a sample from the rapper YZ.
This connection allows me to see how literacies are living artifacts, present in different contexts, affecting others as it was also affected. Existing in a paradox in which we are the product and creators, subjects and agents. We all play off of each other, intuitionally or not. We are not just products of our culture, not just respondents to the situation, but also and critically appropriators of cultural artifacts that we produce, simultaneously liberating and limiting. In the context of these bands, the literacy artifacts (songs) work to both preserve and change identities/subjectivities of the songs, bands, listeners… and beyond.
The yes… and of improv can also function as a way to complicate dichotomies like the ones included in Barton and Hamilton’s book as avoids an either/or mindset and encourages us to use space, language, and people to work together, adding on each other’s ideas and actions.
Dichotomies
Another relevant writing center dichotomy directly relates back the ideas of literacies discussed above. While they are not discussed in my initial ideas of literacies, Gee’s primary and secondary discourses provide the grounding from which we can explore how there is no binary of right/wrong when it comes to discourses and literacies. We all have dialects and ways of speaking that are not part of dominate discourses but are appropriate in certain contexts. In other words, there is no right or wrong way to communicate. There are just different ways in different contexts.
One example of this idea comes from Jay Z. As I have mentioned before, I think he is rhetorically savvy, and his conversation with Oprah about the use of the n- word was evidence of it.
In his discussion with Oprah, Jay Z stands his ground and conveys the same message that he has discussed before, but he does it in a different way. He thought about his audience, and defended his position in a way that would be clear and meaningful to them. If he had spoken to this audience like they were friends of his from Marcy Projects or like they were a group of overtly racist people, they probably would have stopped listening. His tone, pace, and language along with his embodied literacies (his clothing, posture, body language) worked to construct an ethos and literacy that was appropriate for this situation. It is one that I would say aligns with the dominant discourse of our culture, but his primary audience in this context, including Oprah, was (probably) also part of that culture at that moment.
This same idea can and should be applied in academic writing. Again, going back to my ideas on literacies, if we work with writers/communicators the strategies and kinds of questions they can ask themselves or others in order to determine the context and their situation, then we are not only preparing them for writing inside and outside of the academy but also avoiding the good/bad, right/wring binaries that can be so problematic. They are problematic because if you tell a writer that their primary discourse, or home discourse, is “wrong”, then you are also telling them that their family, friends, community, and (possibly) culture are “wrong”. That is a kind of insult that could tragically hinder a writer’s development and a student’s learning.
Harry Potter, Vampire Weekend, and Oprah. Oh my!
I have expanded on and gone beyond some of the ideas of literacy presented in Local Literacies, but I think we would be negligent if we did not. This book was published in 1998, when Clinton was still in office, Titanic was the #1 movie, the Spice Girls were still a thing, 7th Heaven was still on network television, and James Gee had just started talking about new literacies. Of course, technology plays multiple and significant roles in our lives now, making our world seem smaller and increasing the rate of change. As active, literate agents, we must respond to these changes and, in turn, adjust our ways of thinking and talking about them, and be flexible but critical members of our local and global communities.
This same idea can and should be applied in academic writing. Again, going back to my ideas on literacies, if we work with writers/communicators the strategies and kinds of questions they can ask themselves or others in order to determine the context and their situation, then we are not only preparing them for writing inside and outside of the academy but also avoiding the good/bad, right/wring binaries that can be so problematic. They are problematic because if you tell a writer that their primary discourse, or home discourse, is “wrong”, then you are also telling them that their family, friends, community, and (possibly) culture are “wrong”. That is a kind of insult that could tragically hinder a writer’s development and a student’s learning.
Harry Potter, Vampire Weekend, and Oprah. Oh my!
I have expanded on and gone beyond some of the ideas of literacy presented in Local Literacies, but I think we would be negligent if we did not. This book was published in 1998, when Clinton was still in office, Titanic was the #1 movie, the Spice Girls were still a thing, 7th Heaven was still on network television, and James Gee had just started talking about new literacies. Of course, technology plays multiple and significant roles in our lives now, making our world seem smaller and increasing the rate of change. As active, literate agents, we must respond to these changes and, in turn, adjust our ways of thinking and talking about them, and be flexible but critical members of our local and global communities.