Anzaldua

Summary

In Gloria Anzaldua's Tlilli Tlapalli: The Path of the Red and Black Ink" she tells us personal stories and shows the readers how she is a feminist. In this article, she relates her feminism and love of reading with cultural experiences. The audience of this article can be people who are interested in feminism, as well as culture and reading.

Synthesis

I can relate Anzaldua's article with Smitherman and Flynn. Smitherman's article is about dialects and different cultures. This relates to Anzaldua's article because she also talks about culture and diversity. Anzaldua can also be related to Flynn because they both talk about feminism.

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
I like this quote because I also like to use my imagination. This quote tells us a lot about the author and how he thinks.	"Sometimes I put the imagination to a more rare use." (pg. 223)
I like this quote and can relate with this quote	"Looking inside myself, and my experience, looking at my conflicts, engenders anxiety in me." (pg. 224)
I like this quote because I agree with the statement that when you write, you are creating yourself.	"When I write it feels like I am carving bone. It feels like I am creating my own face, my own heart." (pg. 224)
I also like this quote and can relate to it.	"My soul makes itself through the creative act." (pg. 224)

Thoughts

I did not really enjoy reading this article. I did not think it was very interesting and could not get into it. Although I liked some of the quotes and could relate, it did not enjoy reading it. I did enjoy the fact that she related her thoughts to her cultural experience. This was different than the other articles we have read in the past. In conclusion, this was not my favorite article to read. 

Cixous

Whiteness
Dictionary.com
the quality or state of being white.

2.

paleness.

3.

purity.

4.

a white  substance.

Urban Dictionary
 1. A white person who is highly respected in a circle of colored or mixed group of friends/people. 

Marginalized
Dictionary.com
to place in a position of marginal importance, influence, or power:

Urban Dictionary
To opress; to blackball; to malign, smear, defame, or discredit; to lower public or private opinion--or the status--of an individual or group through hateful, deceitful, or misguided speech or action.

Heterotypical
Dictionary.com
of or pertaining to the first or reductional division in meiosis.

Urban Dictionary
Derogatory term for attitudes and behaviors typical of straight people and straight culture. (Obviously a play on the world "stereotypical".) It can either refer to a gender-schematic view of the world or to conservative attitudes about sex and relationships.

Response
When looking up these terms, I found that for the most part I knew what they meant. I used both Dictionary.com and Urban Dictionary to define them. These are 2 very different websites so I got different results. When comparing my search results to my previous knowledge of the words, I found that my own definitions were similar to those of Urban Dictionary. I believe this is because Urban Dictionary is a less formal definition that relates the meaning to society. Dictionary.com often gives definitions that are very exact and formal and are not related to culture or society. 

Works Cited
"Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. <http://dictionary.reference.com/>.
"Urban Dictionary Is the Dictionary You Wrote. Define Your World." Urban Dictionary. LLC, n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. <http://www.urbandictionary.com/>.

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
I like this quote because it is powerful and has great meaning for feminism.	“The new history is coming; it’s not a dream, though it does extend beyond men’s imagination, and for good reason.” (pg. 252)
I like this quote because it shows the author’s oppinions.	“As a woman, I have been clouded over by the great shadow of the scepter and been told: idolize it, that which you cannot brandish.” (pg. 253)
I agree with this quote and like it’s meaning	“Let us not be trapped by an analysis still encumbered with the old automatisms.” (pg. 254)
This quote is important because it shows how women are stepping up in feminism.	“For once she blazes her trail in the symbolic, she cannot fail to make of it the chaosmos of the ‘personal’- in her pronouns, her nouns, and her clique of referents.” (pg. 255)
I like agree with this quote and like it’s meaning.	“Let nobody threaten you; in satisfying your desire, let not the fear of becoming the accomplice to a socially succeed the old-time fear of being ‘taken.’” (pg. 257)

Alexander

Synthesis

Jonathan Alexander's article "Transgender Rhetorics: Composing Narratives of the Gendered Body" can be synthesized with Wardle, Gee, Glenn, Pollan, and Swales. All of these article are similar because they all talk about being in a discourse community. Although they all do not specifically talk about being in a discourse community, they are all examples of specific discourse communities and tell us how they work.

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
I agree with this  quote and also agree with the questions to ask the students or instructors.	“I think these are good questions that ask students-and instructors- to trace the genealogy of gender as a disciplinary construct of power and knowledge in our society.” (pg. 196)
I agree with this quote because it is good to know the history of a women’s experience when studying feminism.	“In a great many ways, telling the story women’s experience has been at the heart of many feminist project in composition.” (pg. 196)
This quote is important because it shows how these beliefs came to be.	“Lesbians and gays ‘transgress’ this binary pairing, potentially casting the gender dichotomy upon which heterosexuality is based into disarray or at least question.” (pg. 198)
This quote is important because it emphasizes how our culture has certain norms.	“Acknowledging the presence of the transgendered is useful not only for understanding whose who are differently gendered of whose presentation or experience of gender falls outside our ‘norms’.” (pg. 200)
I like this quote because it is interesting and shows a different side of the argument and study.	“Interestingly enough, transgender and transsexual theorists such as Prosser have argued forcefully that it is in the examination of narrations of gender that we come to a fuller and richer understanding of its composition.” (pg. 211)
This quote is important because it tells us how trans theorist contribute to the study.	“Trans theorist can help us undertake this work.” (pg. 213)

Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfnvGCqdsKY&feature=related

This is a video from America's Next Top Model. The video talks about the transgender contestant and how she was accepted and the controversy around it. 

Smitherman

Before You Read

In high school, I read many books where the narrator spoke in a dialect. At first it was difficult to understand, but after reading it for a wile you pick up on the dialect and it eventually becomes easy to understand.

Summary

In Geneva Smitherman's "God Don't Never Change", she discusses how black english is taught in the classroom. One key point she discusses is dialect and how it affects how we understand the reading. We see Smitherman's points through specific examples from literature that are included in her article. The audience of this article can be both students and teachers. Students can learn how to understand and read dialect from this article, and teachers can learn about how to properly introduce and help students with dilates in books. 

Synthesis

Smitherman's article can be connected to Wardle because oh his discussion of language. Both of these articles also talk about identity and acceptance. This article can also be compared to Gee because of his discussion on conflicting discourses. Lastly, Smitherman can be compared to Swales because they both talk about discourse community. Swales also tells us how to be a member of a discourse community which can also relate back to Smitherman's article. 

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
This quote shows how the typical schoolroom only focus on what is right and wrong in grammar.	“A quick look at the tradition of schoolroom grammars and the undergirding ideology of early English grammarians reveals that the current ‘national mania for correctness’ has been around a long time.” (pg. 189)
I like this quote because I believe in what it is saying, but it also shows us how the author herself uses a dialect in her own writing.	“So Americans, lacking a fixed place in society, don’t know where they be in terms of social and personal identity.” (Pg. 190)
I like this quote because it emphasizes how teachers should change how grammar is being taught.	“Now, my advice to teachers is to overlook these matters of sheer mechanical ‘correctness’ and get on one with the educational business at hand.” (pg. 192)
I like this quote because it is very strong and says a lot about language and the culture that we live in.	“Because, you see, the plain and simple fact is that language does not exist in a vacuum but in the socio-cultural reality.” (pg. 193)

QD 7

Mastery of a dominant discourse can sometimes be a risk for disenfranchised individuals because they are afraid of being over powered and forgotten. These disenfranchised individuals do not have much power and fear a dominant discourse. 

Thoughts

I liked Smitherman's article because it was interesting to learn about dialect. Growing up, I have read many books with a dialect and sometimes could not understand them. I think this is a very important topic especially with teaching it in the classroom.