"Learning to Read Biology" by Christina Haas (Precis 3)

Why do colleges require students to take various courses that seem unrelated to their major? Why does it always feel like students must jump through unnecessary hoops to acquire a degree? Christina Haas’ investigation shows that different college courses benefit students by exposing them to multitudes of discourse training that cohesively develop college level rhetoric. Her longitudinal, in-depth research focusing on Eliza beginning at her freshmen year explains the gradual changes that ultimately suggest these unnecessary hoops are actual useful if not necessary for acquiring academic discourse.

In Eliza’s freshmen year, Haas discovers that Eliza’s reading of science courses is geared exclusively on preparing for tests. In English courses however, she read perceiving the text as a “source of information to extract and more of a place in which someone says something” (363). According to Haas, most incoming freshmen perceive text as autonomous—that is the belief “that academic texts [are] discrete, highly explicit, even “timeless” entities functioning without contextual support from author, reader, or culture” (589). There is no connection made between the author to the book, at times students will explain the ideas from their reading saying “the book says” rather than the “author says” (363). In her sophomore year her reading changed only in that she was aware of more points of view. She continued to see written works as autonomous texts and performed very well that year. Her reading improved significantly when she began a work study job growing protein mutants in a lab. She developed sophisticated reading techniques “skimming, reading selectively, moving back and forth through texts, reading for different purposes at different times” (366). Also, she had noticed that articles written from a particular time period were of no use to her for current scientific developments. In other words, she has identified a relationship between text and the time it was produced. By her senior year she gained greater awareness of the intertextual nature of discourse, she was able to draw connections that enhanced her understanding of the subject.

Most importantly, the changes in Eliza’s academic discourse reveal that she began to “see her own role as not simply learning the facts but of negotiating meaning” (371). Haas suspects the changes may have been influenced by the different kinds of texts that required different strategies, goals, and views of discourse (372). There are other variables in Eliza’s collegiate experience to suggest her rhetorical development was not a result of the courses required of her to take. It is undeniable however, certain tasks in English courses provided her opportunities to practice interpreting meaning. Rather than simply understanding what authors are saying, by her senior year was focused on extracting meaning and significance from text. The ability to apply different strategies and techniques to any task and see connections can certainly improve a student’s critical thinking skills—which is useful for any career.

MLA Citation

Haas, Christina. “Learning to Read Biology: One Student’s Rhetorical Development in College.”

Literacy a Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Ellen Cushman, Eugene R. Kintgen, Barry M. Kroll, Mike Rose. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. 358-375.

Lisa Delpit: The Politics of Teaching Literature Discourse. Literacy: A Critical Source Book. Cushman, Ellen. et al. New York: Bedford/St Martins, 2001



Lisa Delpit seems to agree with most of Gee’s theories. However, his notion of "people who have not been born into dominant discourses will find it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to acquire such a discourse...if you’re not already in, don’t expect go get in" (Delpit P546) is troublesome for her. This theory proves unethical because it permanently sets the present discourse of people within that realm throughout life. It sets a stage of impossibility and powerlessness to enhance change into a better lead life. Unlike Gee, Delpit believes this as quite the opposite. For Delpit, while she does feel that discourses may contain opposing values, there are people who overcome these obstacles. There is no door that separates discourses but there is a key to opening and obtaining others.

Delpit uses the examples of students that went beyond and excelled into other discourses through their teachers’ determinism to make them succeed, "They held visions for us that we could not imagine for ourselves...The world is tough out there and you have to be tougher" (Delpit P 549). More importantly, these teachers were not of elite, high power and dominant discourses and yet, they enabled these students to climb into another more dominant world (discourse). She makes the point that these teachers put in extra support to shape these students’ learning. Thus, illustrating that by bringing in different ideas and concepts that contribute to other races and cultures can , in fact, have a positive impact. As Delpit demonstrates with these teachers and their students, nothing is impossible. It is through the participants effort that shape and put forth the ultimate success of acquiring a more dominant discourse.

"Inventing the University" by David Bartholomae (Precis 2)

David Bartholomae offers a useful perspective on the challenge of students to write academic essays. Perhaps essay writing is challenging because they must invent the university. He says that the student “has to learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community” (511). Furthermore, students must comfortably “find some compromise between idiosyncrasy, a personal history, and the requirements of convention, [and] the history of a discipline” to excel in at the university.

Using several high school student essays, he explores the ways in which the student attempts to invent the university. Generally, he discovers students must dare to speak scholarly in order to answer the imagined expectations of college professors. He is looking for the students ability to reference “commonplaces” which according to him are “controlling ideas of our composition” or “a culturally or instititutionally authorized concept or statement that carries with it its own necessary elaboration” (512). For example, a student describing a clay model attempts to use the terminology he presumes is suitable for his topic and for his readers to demonstrate his knowledgability of clay models. Problems arise when the student is caught in a tug-o-war between satisfying what he presumes his audience to know and the degree of authority he may assert as he explains his ideas. As Bartholomae says, the students must “try on a variety of voices and interpretive schemes” depending on the task at hand. Students must apply the discourse of a literary critic for one task and on another day the discourse of psychologist in another. How can we expect students to try on different discourses as if they were trying on different outfits for various occasions and expect them to find a strong original voice?

Perhaps, we can devise creative assignment tasks that condition the student to remain consciously aware of their audience. For example, we can ask the students to explain baseball to a Martian or explain the monomyth to a third grader. These creative tasks force the writer to tailor their discourse appropriately for their audience (515). The writer must employ an “imagination in which they consider themselves within the privileged discourse, on that already includes and excludes groups of readers, they must be either equal to or more powerful than those they would address” in order to “transform political and social relationships between basic writing students and their teachers” (516). Although creative assignments offer opportunity for students to improve their writing, it is impossible to eliminate the intimidation a student feels knowing their teachers are the experts on the subject. Bartholomae explains that “students have to assume privilege without having any” in order to speak effectively (516).

There seems to be magic scholarly code and somehow students must live and breathe this code to translate their ideas into acceptable university discourse. They must do this while simultaneous monitoring syntactical construction. According to Barholomae, it is a mistake to classify a writer’s level by number of syntactical errors. It is possible “students who can write reasonably correct narratives may fall to pieces when faced with more unfamiliar assignments” (522). What then can students do acquire this magic scholarly code?

Perhaps imitation is necessary like training wheels. In order to gain familiarity with scholarly discourse, imitation is possibly necessary for the unskilled or basic writer. In the struggle between establishing an authoritive voice and satisfying syntactical standards, Bartholomae seems to prefer papers with a stronger sense of voice than the syntactically coherent essays.

Precis #2: Gee and the Nature of Discourse

Gee, James Paul. "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics." Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Ellen Cushman, Eugene Kintgen, Barry Kroll, and Mike Rose. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. 525-544.

“We all have many Discourses,” claims Gee in his article, “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics (526). This statement is decidedly true. I myself have a myriad of Discourses if you consider the breadth of what Gee considers to be Discourses. For example, I am a student of literature, I am an American, I am a woman, etc. With the idea that what we claim ourselves to be, what our immediate identity is at the moment, how are we to categorize and explain these many Discourses in a sensible way. Gee has presented to us his explanation and example of exactly how to do this.

Initially Gee explains the basics of a Discourse: “A Discourse is a sort of “identity kit” which comes complete with the appropriate costumes and instructions on how to act, and often write” (526). With this individualism between Discourses firmly cemented into our minds Gee must now delve further into defining each Discourse or, discourse. First we are broken down to decipher the differences between primary and secondary Discourses. The primary describes an initial learned Discourse that branches from the family and extends to our later interactions with anyone we become intimate later in life with. The secondary Discourse can be described as one we acquire once we have branched from our families, once we enter churches, schools, or community groups (527).

Then we must decipher between dominant and non-dominant discourses, which Gee considers to be secondary Discourses. These dominant/non-dominant discourses are concentrated on the acquisition of goods. While the dominant is used to acquire necessary and social goods, such as money and status, the non-dominant focuses on finding comfort and protection in a single social network (528).

By focusing on and defining the different levels of discourses, Gee can continue to explain the purpose of discourses in language and literacy. For without the Discourses that everyone contains the process of explaining literacy is unable to be done. We must first fully understand our own Discourses and others to explain there interaction with each other, in order to define literacy.

Auto 5: Discourse Shifts & Level of Verbal Formality

After observing shifts in my own verbal discourse over the past few days I have come to the conclusion that my verbal level of discourse can be put on a scale from one to five. One stand at the most informal setting and five is the highest level of spoken formality. I find that at the most informal level is my discourse and speech that I share with my boyfriend. It is open to anything and a little silly at times, which is why I scored it as the most informal. I believe that the fact that we live together also creates this heightened level of informality. My mother on the other hand, whom I am very close to, but no longer live with, can be scaled at a two. It was difficult to determine the placement of my mother, because I feel that generally my mother and my boyfriend should be on the same level: somewhere in between 1 and 2. I have noticed though that my voice actually deepens from my oral discourse with my boyfriend to my mother, and even more so as formality increases in the scale. I think this is because my speech is becoming more direct and concrete, and my points are being made more clearly as the formality increases.

On level three I find my friends. These are my friends outside of college; the ones I have known for years or simply never discuss scholastics with. Even on this level though, I find a discourse difference between each friend, which may also comment of the education level of the individual I am speaking with. My closest and longest friend of 13 years, Vanessa, seems almost to be at a 3.3 level. While Vanessa and I are close we find little to talk about outside of daily life due to the fact that after High School I went straight to college, and she chose to work and eventually start her own family. Another friend of mine named Kyle seems to be at a 3.6 (I have only known him for roughly 5 years). He also has not attended college, but is an avid reader and is constantly interested in learning. Due to this I relate to him on a closer level intellectually than with Vanessa. My last close friend is Derek, whom I have only known for about 2 years. I would probably rate my discourse with him at a 3.9. His own discourse is what elevates my own, I believe. Derek is a very proficient speaker, and his speech is extremely honest and blunt. This is something that I consider a quality, for I am blunt myself. It is interesting to note that Derek has also attended some college in his life, which is more than either of my other close friends. Do I intend my oral discourse to be determined by a level of education? Of course not, for both my boyfriend and mother have higher levels of education than any of my friends. Apparently though, when it comes to my friends (who I do not live with), there is an obvious subconscious level of change where I determine my level of informality and formality based on education.

Level four I reserve for my fellow peers in school and if I was currently working, probably my co-workers. With these people I find myself needing to meet there level of discourse, and for that reason I level them fairly high for I feel I need to be more formal in order to do so. At the highest level of formality (5) in my oral discourse I categorize my speech with professors, bosses, and individuals at a school in which I am observing at. As I stated before my voice deepens and becomes clearer with the elevation of formality and at level five I am very clear and concise. I find it interesting to note that my discourse lies on the most basic level of hierarchy: family, friends, peers, and professionals; but that also (with the exception of family) I subconsciously classify my discourse based on the assumed level of education with the person I am speaking with.

Response to Brandt

Dear Chewy Coyote,

Your precis on Brandt was very informative. When I initially heard her term of "sponsor"I thought the essay would explore the motivations that push people toward literacy. I was surprised to learn that there is more to sponsorship. It can open doors and also closed doors. Her essay talked about the need for people in the workforce to gain literacy.

Negotiation; Autobio 6

The variables that seem to most influence my shifts in discourse include the person I am negotiating with and the sensitivity of the topic. Negotiations I have mostly occur orally and if it is written it is in the form of email, instant messaging, texting, or leaving comments on facebook.com.

Towards my younger sister and my mother, members of my family whom I most closed to, I express my feelings or complaints first regarding the subject and then proceed to work out a plan. Even if the negotiation is as trivial as the order in which we hit the stores in the mall we still consider anyone’s preferences but mother has the final say. In matters between my siblings, no matter how we feel against a decision, we usually listen to the eldest sibling’s decision. Formalities are not necessary within the family, but I feel obliged to keep some formality when I negotiate with my father. At times I don’t think I want to even try negotiating with him in fact I don’t think “negotiate” is the right word. My mother and I have this tactic where we make him believe he came up with the plan originally but we had laid some foundation for the result we intended. That tactic is usually involves exhausting every and any logical and reasonable argument before resorting to pathos.

In negotiations with cohorts and peers, I find that is best to begin saying something to the extent of “If it’s alright with you” because it seems to be the best way to get started with group projects. I never like to assume the leadership role unless I feel there is a pressing need for it. Having many experiences with class group work, I find it very annoying when someone suddenly becomes the “boss” when there was no instruction to assign one. Some people are happy to follow a good leader and some people would rather do the group assignment individually as much as possible.

In all cases where negotiations are made I always try to keep in mind ways to approach people with maximum respect. Even if it’s a child or someone much younger than me, people are more likely to abide with the stipulations of the negotiation if they feel respected. I try to make an effort to consider the perspectives and feelings of those involved as much as possible.