The supplemental questions were only intended to be additional questions for last week, nothing more. However, they seemed to have caused mass confusion; so now they are gone.
(Responding to Q: 1) Hammons intended the reader to focus on the concepts (or lessons), discussed throughout the reading, as if they were transpiring in present time (not the past). For example: Hammons reflects (written in present tense) her neglected and abusive childhood; her experiences in high school and means of burning off aggression, physically and verbally, on the court; her lacking the (physical and abstract) resources to be a young champion of women's rights; or even when describing her position as a professor at Cal-- she, not once, ever reflected these topics in the past as "the past." This passive emphasis on the present tense is used as a catalyst to describe who she is and how she thinks, opposed to who she was and how she thought.
This concept of telling a whole story (who she is),in the present form, further antagonize the reader to almost feel a sense of numbing. Hammons is numb. She doesn't write with passion, excitement, sadness, regret nor salvation-- nor does she differentiate happy or sad feelings in accomplishment vs. failures (or let downs) in life. She discusses being high on drugs, her being told by a school counselor to hide her ethnicity and avoid petitioning for a scholarship since she "looks" white-- there is even a monumental moment of encouragement noted, perhaps the first time she's ever had someone believe in her, when Hammons's doctor suggests she has the potential to pursue college and be successful in life, where she, then, (dryly)explains how she went from flunking to attaining a B-average-- all without showing one ounce of emotion.
The name of the story is "Bigger than Michael Jordan," however only a small portion of the story is about M.J. Furthermore, the young boy who looks up to the ball player mainly focuses on the hurtles Jordan overcame to become a superstar. Case-in-point, Hammons focuses on the hurtles which she overcame, opposed to the person she has become. And who has she become? The actual (for the time) one person, like her doctor, who believes in the small boy in her present.
(Q4) If I was the tutor described in the Ambe piece, I would engage and instruct Jamie by using all the tools suggested in the reader (increasing self-motivation, building prior knowledge, developing knowledge of specialized vocabulary, comprehension strategies) and my own tools (instilling confidence, encouraging creative writing, providing resources for independent learning).
This reading particularly interested me, because I am about to tutor students who have been identified by classroom teachers as having reading difficulties.
I would first try to get to know Jamie’s interests, role models, and prior knowledge on topics that he’s currently reading. I will listen and be attentive to what Jamie says he wants and what the teacher says he needs. I will increase student motivation and build prior knowledge by beginning with readings materials on topics Jamie is fairly familiar with and interested in. I would instill confidence in Jamie by noting even the smallest improvements and by keeping a progress binder to show him his weekly accomplishments.
I would help Jamie develop vocabulary and comprehension skills by playing missing word games and integrating graphics and interactive vocabulary websites. I would also encourage creative writing, letting him choose some words that we learned for that day and asking him to write a story for us to read together next time I come. I will also provide him with work that he can choose to take home and do if he would like to and direct him to books and websites in the same topics as the ones we went over together. I hope providing additional resources will encourage Jamie to do some reading on his own and consider readings to be a hobby rather than a chore.
Q(2) When the author, Hull, writes about “conventional readings” and students answers being “off the mark” I believe what she is referring to is that students are trained through school to analyze material in a certain way, which is perceived to be the right way. I agree with this idea because I think often times teachers tend to ignore the socio-economic influences that a student faces and how it shapes he/she perceives, which may be different from the commonly accepted “right way.” This “mark” is set by the teacher or the academic society and is the accepted, in this case, meaning of the poem. Even when I was going through high school, English teachers would already come with a predefined meaning of the poem and when an interpretation was made outside of this meaning, a standard reply would be “Oh, okay that’s interesting, but what is another way to see this?” When one analyzes a poem, he or she probably uses past experiences and whatever knowledge he or she has of the subject to conjure up the imagery. The effect of this is that if this interpretation is “off the mark” then the student is deemed not on the “efficient” path or the path that shows that the student is developing his or her cognitive abilities.
The remedy to this “mismatch” seems to be that the teacher should have a bit of hesitancy when listening to a student’s interpretation. That is that the teacher should engage in an active conservation and understand the student’s interpretation while also offering a second approach to the poem. I agree with this because, firstly, it lets the learning process become a mutual endeavor. I think that when the teacher learns and better understands where the student is coming from, it can help the student not feel frustrated and tied down by this economic background. I think that’s when students also become more open to accepting other more conventional approaches. This is also when students slowly begin to recognize how their thoughts diverge from the “mark” and they can more comfortably begin to adjust their path back on their way to it.
Ambe proposes that the best and most effective strategies to helping those with struggles in reading are to basically to find a way to make reading seem easy. I personally agree with this philosophy. If a person is not motivated to do something then they will not do it and if a person does not understand something, they will not want to continue doing it.
If I were Jamie’s tutor in the Ambe piece, I would definitely implement the exact same strategies described. I would find a subject that interests Jamie and build on that subject to improve Jamie’s opinion on reading. The reason most people don’t like reading is because it’s boring, the subject’s not interesting to them or they don’t understand the content. In Jamie’s case, it was most likely all of those things. By giving Jamie trade books, he can find common ground with the subject matter and be genuinely interested. While he is reading these books, it will be much easier to implement the strategies Ambe listed because he will be genuinely interested in the topic and willingly participate. Once he has learned the basic strategies of reading, it will be easier for him to comprehend the 6th grade readings. He will be able to recall what he did to understand the books he read before and attack the difficult topics confidence.
In my opinion, the most effective part of the strategies proposed by Ambe is improving comprehension. Personally, I do not enjoy reading anything I cannot understand. As a motivated student, I will try to read it and understand it, but if I do not have the resources to understand the subject, it doesn’t matter. The same philosophy can be applied to Jamie. By giving him the background on the subject and guiding him through an article to comprehend what he is reading, you give him the foundations of learning.
Question # 2 In “This Wooden Shack Place”, Hull and Rose discuss a tendency for educators to approach a poem or text with a kind of selective criteria for interpretation. A students understanding or mastery of a specific text is gauged by how closely their interpretation aligns with the teacher’s criteria. An “off the mark” interpretation then, is any analysis that is different or inconsistent with what the teacher has proposed. The “mark” is set from a particular viewpoint (as are all analyses) and this view is not necessarily representative of each student’s experience. It’s unlikely that each student in a classroom has had enough similar life experiences and like upbringings that such narrowly defined readings will resonate or make equal sense to all of them. So, naturally, someone or some population of the class is excluded, their views are unrepresented and in all of this they had no control. Robert’s situation is unusual in that his alternative, “unconventional” interpretation of a poem motivates his teacher to consider what lead him to respond in such a way rather than to cast his comment aside and conclude that he’s incompetent or perceiving information inaccurately. Hull and Rose draw the conclusion that teacher’s should steer away from making assumptions about interpretation and instead, use it as a learning opportunity for further discussion. I believe it’s important, particularly in an academic setting, for us to allow for differences in experience, which will contribute towards an understanding and representation of diverse viewpoints and the opportunity to validate such views.
In “This Wooden Shack place”: The Logic of an Unconventional Reading, the authors are referring to the students’ interpretations of the readings they do in class as being slightly off the mark. “The mark” is set by the conventional and accepted understanding of that piece of literature according to those socialized in that particular genre. In the classroom, the teacher seemed to maintain this common interpretation, and so “the mark” could be seen as the answer the teacher expects from the student. If a student strayed away from the teacher’s expectation when presenting their own interpretation of the reading or when answering the teacher’s question, they were seen as “not on the mark.” The authors seem to position themselves and the student Robert on the same side. The teacher does not force Robert to revise his interpretation to the one that she expects, but rather, she slowly draws out Robert’s reasoning behind his “unconventional” reading to better understand where he is coming from. The authors seem to suggest that when the teacher's expectations and students' responses are "mismatched," teachers should engage in more hesitation when facilitating discussions and allow their students to fully expound on their ideas. I would agree with allowing students to fully express themselves one way or another, even when they don’t match up with the expected answer. However, if their responses are too outlandish and unreasonable, I would stop them and ask more clarifying questions, rather than encourage non sequitur comments, just to keep the class on track. Moreover, I don’t believe that every interpretation of a reading can be justified, for behind every piece of writing, the author had a specific intent, which would render other interpretations interesting and valuable, but not as accurate.
Question #1 I believe Jane Hammons’s article strongly depicts the hardships of being a female growing up in the most impoverished areas of the East Bay Area. What I primarily understand from these readings is the hardships of inner-city youth, trying desperately to break the conventions of poverty, violence and all of the common endangerments of life in the ghettos of society. I strongly contend that her argument of helping youth in the situations of children such as Jarod through education, as being fruitless and cumbersome. It appears to me that there is very little hope for children who are trapped amidst the system that perpetrates drugs and violence in the black community. What can a couple of volunteers possibly do to help children at an afterschool program or YMCA if they have parents who are constantly going in and out of prison, addicted to drugs or involved with gang life? It is very questionable whether or not efforts should be placed in education in order to help the unfortunate people who are repressed in these situations. The real answer I believe would be bringing these children straight out of these corrupt communities and placing them in better environments. I often wonder how I can possibly impact a child at St. Martin de Porres from just a few hours a week if he or she is going home to complete obscenity and chaos. It would be much more impactful if these children and their families were able to relocate to better communities with the help of nonprofits and government aid. Although I understand Hammons wants desperately to promote guidance and education to youth individually, the model has been acted out time and time again and still it is beyond difficult to turn around life for inner-city youth in the most unfortunate of circumstances.
Response to Q1: Jane Hammons, despite a rough upbringing and home environment, has achieved what many, given half the resources Hammons was given, wouldn’t/couldn’t accomplish. Yet somehow, reading her narrative, I feel nothing because, as David mentioned above, it’s as if Hammons feels nothing herself. I found myself casually reading over lines, with statements like “I starve myself; I lacerate my arms with razor blades” not really sinking in. It took a moment for me to realize the immensity of what the author was telling me with lines like that. Hammon’s voice is indifferent, detached and vacant, which is why lines like the one mentioned above, which would usually have jumped out at me, disappeared along with the rest of her toneless narration. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the piece, despite its moroseness.
Hammons’s numbness, to me, adds weight and texture to the narrative in that it portrays the author’s state of mind when writing this piece, and the fact that she doesn’t want to hark back to the past. She speaks casually of the physical and verbal abuse she encountered while growing up, and the abuse she put herself through, so as not to tell her story as if she’s living in the past. With that said, I believe what Hammons is trying to convey to her readers is that one must find something or someone bigger (metaphorically) than themselves to live for. For Hammons, that something is teaching passionate and driven students and that someone might have been someone like Jarod. For Jarod, that someone is Michael Jordan, a man whom Jarod looks up to literally and figuratively. He idolizes M.J. and, like Hammons did in her youth, focuses a lot of his negative energy on playing basketball and trying to live out his dream of overcoming the hurdles set in his path just like his hero did.
Without a doubt, an educator who does not take culture into account is not going to be able to effectively do his job. Reflecting Freirian theories, Morrell and Duncan-Andrade, public school English teachers, have the keenness of insight to notice that their students, largely African-American, do have the ability to analyze and critically deal with text; its imply that such learning is very much cultural. From the students’ perspective, the material is simply inaccessible. Their cultural framework gives them little or no background from which they can deal with literature that comes from a culture not their own. Their response, then, is to try and teach their students poetry through demonstrating its overlap with rap. Having observed that students have the ability to deal critically with lyrics from the hip-hop songs they listen to, the two educators saw that they could demonstrate to their students creatively that such skills are very much transferrable; students can look at and understand the seemingly inaccessible work of TS Eliot by viewing him through the lens of hip-hop artist Grand Master Flash. However, while such a method is no doubt effective in opening up initial interest in material that might otherwise be viewed as completely irrelevant, it remains to be seen that such methods are actually effective in building up higher-level analytical skills. In all honesty the analysis made by the students, while certainly qualifying as “analysis,” was not all that impressive. It may simply be that analyzing Eliot is simply much more difficult than analyzing hip-hop; white and black students alike have difficulty understanding Eliot. Morrell and Duncan-Andrade do not manage to convincingly show that such methods are effective in equipping students to execute really high-level textual analysis. Anyone can offer an interpretation, but the interpretation should be good.
Q1. As the question dictates, this reading explains various aspects that result from negative social factors including race, gender, drugs, violent behavior, economical status, and parental care. Among these factors, I center my reading on the impacts of parental cares on their child. The author allotted considerable parts of her essay explaining her parent’s drug addiction, divorcement and abandonment upon their children. Even though she doesn’t specify that she followed her parent’s reckless behavior, she implies the influence she got from her parents in many parts of her essay. For instance, she says “At age fifteen, restless and now plagued by insomnia, I, like my grandmother, my father, and my brother before me, find drugs and alcohol”.
She also gives details about family background of students whom she was in charge of at the Coronado YMCA. Both Jarod and Gavon were abandoned by their father mostly because of father’s addiction to alcohol and drugs. However, the life of Jarod and Gavon has remarkable difference. The difference maker was care and affection of someone that Jarod had but Gavon hadn’t. At the end of her essay, she recalls her students; “His aunt has persuaded Trace to let Jarod participate in Saturday basketball…More often Jarod lives with his aunt. No one sees Gavon anymore. The new Berkeley partners don’t even know his name.” From this viewpoint, I believe the author tried to show that the negative impact from the absence of parental care can be counter balanced by someone who doesn’t have to be their parent but gives them care and affection.
(Responding to Q: 1) Hammons intended the reader to focus on the concepts (or lessons), discussed throughout the reading, as if they were transpiring in present time (not the past). For example: Hammons reflects (written in present tense) her neglected and abusive childhood; her experiences in high school and means of burning off aggression, physically and verbally, on the court; her lacking the (physical and abstract) resources to be a young champion of women's rights; or even when describing her position as a professor at Cal-- she, not once, ever reflected these topics in the past as "the past." This passive emphasis on the present tense is used as a catalyst to describe who she is and how she thinks, opposed to who she was and how she thought.
ReplyDeleteThis concept of telling a whole story (who she is),in the present form, further antagonize the reader to almost feel a sense of numbing. Hammons is numb. She doesn't write with passion, excitement, sadness, regret nor salvation-- nor does she differentiate happy or sad feelings in accomplishment vs. failures (or let downs) in life. She discusses being high on drugs, her being told by a school counselor to hide her ethnicity and avoid petitioning for a scholarship since she "looks" white-- there is even a monumental moment of encouragement noted, perhaps the first time she's ever had someone believe in her, when Hammons's doctor suggests she has the potential to pursue college and be successful in life, where she, then, (dryly)explains how she went from flunking to attaining a B-average-- all without showing one ounce of emotion.
The name of the story is "Bigger than Michael Jordan," however only a small portion of the story is about M.J. Furthermore, the young boy who looks up to the ball player mainly focuses on the hurtles Jordan overcame to become a superstar. Case-in-point, Hammons focuses on the hurtles which she overcame, opposed to the person she has become. And who has she become? The actual (for the time) one person, like her doctor, who believes in the small boy in her present.
(Q4) If I was the tutor described in the Ambe piece, I would engage and instruct Jamie by using all the tools suggested in the reader (increasing self-motivation, building prior knowledge, developing knowledge of specialized vocabulary, comprehension strategies) and my own tools (instilling confidence, encouraging creative writing, providing resources for independent learning).
ReplyDeleteThis reading particularly interested me, because I am about to tutor students who have been identified by classroom teachers as having reading difficulties.
I would first try to get to know Jamie’s interests, role models, and prior knowledge on topics that he’s currently reading. I will listen and be attentive to what Jamie says he wants and what the teacher says he needs. I will increase student motivation and build prior knowledge by beginning with readings materials on topics Jamie is fairly familiar with and interested in. I would instill confidence in Jamie by noting even the smallest improvements and by keeping a progress binder to show him his weekly accomplishments.
I would help Jamie develop vocabulary and comprehension skills by playing missing word games and integrating graphics and interactive vocabulary websites. I would also encourage creative writing, letting him choose some words that we learned for that day and asking him to write a story for us to read together next time I come. I will also provide him with work that he can choose to take home and do if he would like to and direct him to books and websites in the same topics as the ones we went over together. I hope providing additional resources will encourage Jamie to do some reading on his own and consider readings to be a hobby rather than a chore.
Q(2) When the author, Hull, writes about “conventional readings” and students answers being “off the mark” I believe what she is referring to is that students are trained through school to analyze material in a certain way, which is perceived to be the right way. I agree with this idea because I think often times teachers tend to ignore the socio-economic influences that a student faces and how it shapes he/she perceives, which may be different from the commonly accepted “right way.” This “mark” is set by the teacher or the academic society and is the accepted, in this case, meaning of the poem. Even when I was going through high school, English teachers would already come with a predefined meaning of the poem and when an interpretation was made outside of this meaning, a standard reply would be “Oh, okay that’s interesting, but what is another way to see this?” When one analyzes a poem, he or she probably uses past experiences and whatever knowledge he or she has of the subject to conjure up the imagery. The effect of this is that if this interpretation is “off the mark” then the student is deemed not on the “efficient” path or the path that shows that the student is developing his or her cognitive abilities.
ReplyDeleteThe remedy to this “mismatch” seems to be that the teacher should have a bit of hesitancy when listening to a student’s interpretation. That is that the teacher should engage in an active conservation and understand the student’s interpretation while also offering a second approach to the poem. I agree with this because, firstly, it lets the learning process become a mutual endeavor. I think that when the teacher learns and better understands where the student is coming from, it can help the student not feel frustrated and tied down by this economic background. I think that’s when students also become more open to accepting other more conventional approaches. This is also when students slowly begin to recognize how their thoughts diverge from the “mark” and they can more comfortably begin to adjust their path back on their way to it.
Ambe proposes that the best and most effective strategies to helping those with struggles in reading are to basically to find a way to make reading seem easy. I personally agree with this philosophy. If a person is not motivated to do something then they will not do it and if a person does not understand something, they will not want to continue doing it.
ReplyDeleteIf I were Jamie’s tutor in the Ambe piece, I would definitely implement the exact same strategies described. I would find a subject that interests Jamie and build on that subject to improve Jamie’s opinion on reading. The reason most people don’t like reading is because it’s boring, the subject’s not interesting to them or they don’t understand the content. In Jamie’s case, it was most likely all of those things. By giving Jamie trade books, he can find common ground with the subject matter and be genuinely interested. While he is reading these books, it will be much easier to implement the strategies Ambe listed because he will be genuinely interested in the topic and willingly participate. Once he has learned the basic strategies of reading, it will be easier for him to comprehend the 6th grade readings. He will be able to recall what he did to understand the books he read before and attack the difficult topics confidence.
In my opinion, the most effective part of the strategies proposed by Ambe is improving comprehension. Personally, I do not enjoy reading anything I cannot understand. As a motivated student, I will try to read it and understand it, but if I do not have the resources to understand the subject, it doesn’t matter. The same philosophy can be applied to Jamie. By giving him the background on the subject and guiding him through an article to comprehend what he is reading, you give him the foundations of learning.
Question # 2
ReplyDeleteIn “This Wooden Shack Place”, Hull and Rose discuss a tendency for educators to approach a poem or text with a kind of selective criteria for interpretation. A students understanding or mastery of a specific text is gauged by how closely their interpretation aligns with the teacher’s criteria. An “off the mark” interpretation then, is any analysis that is different or inconsistent with what the teacher has proposed. The “mark” is set from a particular viewpoint (as are all analyses) and this view is not necessarily representative of each student’s experience. It’s unlikely that each student in a classroom has had enough similar life experiences and like upbringings that such narrowly defined readings will resonate or make equal sense to all of them. So, naturally, someone or some population of the class is excluded, their views are unrepresented and in all of this they had no control.
Robert’s situation is unusual in that his alternative, “unconventional” interpretation of a poem motivates his teacher to consider what lead him to respond in such a way rather than to cast his comment aside and conclude that he’s incompetent or perceiving information inaccurately. Hull and Rose draw the conclusion that teacher’s should steer away from making assumptions about interpretation and instead, use it as a learning opportunity for further discussion. I believe it’s important, particularly in an academic setting, for us to allow for differences in experience, which will contribute towards an understanding and representation of diverse viewpoints and the opportunity to validate such views.
In “This Wooden Shack place”: The Logic of an Unconventional Reading, the authors are referring to the students’ interpretations of the readings they do in class as being slightly off the mark. “The mark” is set by the conventional and accepted understanding of that piece of literature according to those socialized in that particular genre. In the classroom, the teacher seemed to maintain this common interpretation, and so “the mark” could be seen as the answer the teacher expects from the student. If a student strayed away from the teacher’s expectation when presenting their own interpretation of the reading or when answering the teacher’s question, they were seen as “not on the mark.” The authors seem to position themselves and the student Robert on the same side. The teacher does not force Robert to revise his interpretation to the one that she expects, but rather, she slowly draws out Robert’s reasoning behind his “unconventional” reading to better understand where he is coming from. The authors seem to suggest that when the teacher's expectations and students' responses are "mismatched," teachers should engage in more hesitation when facilitating discussions and allow their students to fully expound on their ideas. I would agree with allowing students to fully express themselves one way or another, even when they don’t match up with the expected answer. However, if their responses are too outlandish and unreasonable, I would stop them and ask more clarifying questions, rather than encourage non sequitur comments, just to keep the class on track. Moreover, I don’t believe that every interpretation of a reading can be justified, for behind every piece of writing, the author had a specific intent, which would render other interpretations interesting and valuable, but not as accurate.
ReplyDeleteQuestion #1
ReplyDeleteI believe Jane Hammons’s article strongly depicts the hardships of being a female growing up in the most impoverished areas of the East Bay Area. What I primarily understand from these readings is the hardships of inner-city youth, trying desperately to break the conventions of poverty, violence and all of the common endangerments of life in the ghettos of society. I strongly contend that her argument of helping youth in the situations of children such as Jarod through education, as being fruitless and cumbersome. It appears to me that there is very little hope for children who are trapped amidst the system that perpetrates drugs and violence in the black community. What can a couple of volunteers possibly do to help children at an afterschool program or YMCA if they have parents who are constantly going in and out of prison, addicted to drugs or involved with gang life? It is very questionable whether or not efforts should be placed in education in order to help the unfortunate people who are repressed in these situations. The real answer I believe would be bringing these children straight out of these corrupt communities and placing them in better environments. I often wonder how I can possibly impact a child at St. Martin de Porres from just a few hours a week if he or she is going home to complete obscenity and chaos. It would be much more impactful if these children and their families were able to relocate to better communities with the help of nonprofits and government aid. Although I understand Hammons wants desperately to promote guidance and education to youth individually, the model has been acted out time and time again and still it is beyond difficult to turn around life for inner-city youth in the most unfortunate of circumstances.
Response to Q1: Jane Hammons, despite a rough upbringing and home environment, has achieved what many, given half the resources Hammons was given, wouldn’t/couldn’t accomplish. Yet somehow, reading her narrative, I feel nothing because, as David mentioned above, it’s as if Hammons feels nothing herself. I found myself casually reading over lines, with statements like “I starve myself; I lacerate my arms with razor blades” not really sinking in. It took a moment for me to realize the immensity of what the author was telling me with lines like that. Hammon’s voice is indifferent, detached and vacant, which is why lines like the one mentioned above, which would usually have jumped out at me, disappeared along with the rest of her toneless narration. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the piece, despite its moroseness.
ReplyDeleteHammons’s numbness, to me, adds weight and texture to the narrative in that it portrays the author’s state of mind when writing this piece, and the fact that she doesn’t want to hark back to the past. She speaks casually of the physical and verbal abuse she encountered while growing up, and the abuse she put herself through, so as not to tell her story as if she’s living in the past. With that said, I believe what Hammons is trying to convey to her readers is that one must find something or someone bigger (metaphorically) than themselves to live for. For Hammons, that something is teaching passionate and driven students and that someone might have been someone like Jarod. For Jarod, that someone is Michael Jordan, a man whom Jarod looks up to literally and figuratively. He idolizes M.J. and, like Hammons did in her youth, focuses a lot of his negative energy on playing basketball and trying to live out his dream of overcoming the hurdles set in his path just like his hero did.
Question 6:
ReplyDeleteWithout a doubt, an educator who does not take culture into account is not going to be able to effectively do his job. Reflecting Freirian theories, Morrell and Duncan-Andrade, public school English teachers, have the keenness of insight to notice that their students, largely African-American, do have the ability to analyze and critically deal with text; its imply that such learning is very much cultural. From the students’ perspective, the material is simply inaccessible. Their cultural framework gives them little or no background from which they can deal with literature that comes from a culture not their own.
Their response, then, is to try and teach their students poetry through demonstrating its overlap with rap. Having observed that students have the ability to deal critically with lyrics from the hip-hop songs they listen to, the two educators saw that they could demonstrate to their students creatively that such skills are very much transferrable; students can look at and understand the seemingly inaccessible work of TS Eliot by viewing him through the lens of hip-hop artist Grand Master Flash.
However, while such a method is no doubt effective in opening up initial interest in material that might otherwise be viewed as completely irrelevant, it remains to be seen that such methods are actually effective in building up higher-level analytical skills. In all honesty the analysis made by the students, while certainly qualifying as “analysis,” was not all that impressive. It may simply be that analyzing Eliot is simply much more difficult than analyzing hip-hop; white and black students alike have difficulty understanding Eliot. Morrell and Duncan-Andrade do not manage to convincingly show that such methods are effective in equipping students to execute really high-level textual analysis. Anyone can offer an interpretation, but the interpretation should be good.
Q1.
ReplyDeleteAs the question dictates, this reading explains various aspects that result from negative social factors including race, gender, drugs, violent behavior, economical status, and parental care. Among these factors, I center my reading on the impacts of parental cares on their child. The author allotted considerable parts of her essay explaining her parent’s drug addiction, divorcement and abandonment upon their children. Even though she doesn’t specify that she followed her parent’s reckless behavior, she implies the influence she got from her parents in many parts of her essay. For instance, she says “At age fifteen, restless and now plagued by insomnia, I, like my grandmother, my father, and my brother before me, find drugs and alcohol”.
She also gives details about family background of students whom she was in charge of at the Coronado YMCA. Both Jarod and Gavon were abandoned by their father mostly because of father’s addiction to alcohol and drugs. However, the life of Jarod and Gavon has remarkable difference. The difference maker was care and affection of someone that Jarod had but Gavon hadn’t. At the end of her essay, she recalls her students; “His aunt has persuaded Trace to let Jarod participate in Saturday basketball…More often Jarod lives with his aunt. No one sees Gavon anymore. The new Berkeley partners don’t even know his name.” From this viewpoint, I believe the author tried to show that the negative impact from the absence of parental care can be counter balanced by someone who doesn’t have to be their parent but gives them care and affection.