Homework for September 11th: Task 1 “Connecting Gee to Cuddy”
Gee’s two theorems (9-11) are controversial. Put each theorem in your own words. Why do you think they are controversial?
Theorem 1: The only way to completely join a discourse is to be able to communicate within the discourse fluently.
Theorem 2: Primary discourses serve little help in trying to facilitate more secondary discourses. They are self-centered and lend very little to other discourses.
These two theorems are controversial because in terms of language. The same words we would say in one context might be similar to the words that we use in another. Discourses are the words that are said strung together with values and beliefs and actions. The same values you have in your primary Discourse of your family will most likely not have a lot to do with your dominant Discourse used later in life. The controversy comes in to play when the definition of a Discourses and all the subcategories tries to be redefined by other people.
“‘Mushfake,’ resistance, and meta-knowledge: this seems to me like a good combination for successful students and successful social change” (Gee 13). To make sense of Gee, we must understand these three elements or concepts. What are they? Support your response with text.
Mushfake: Partial knowledge combined with stereotypes to temporarily fit in. “Mushfake Discourse means partial acquisition coupled with Meta-knowledge and strategies to “make-do” “.
Resistance: When combined with Mushfake and Metaknowledge, it creates a successful student that is capable of successfully changing their social atmosphere.
Meta-knowledge: General knowledge about culture and how the world works and the basics of the foundation of each Discourse. “Classroom instruction (in language, composition, study skills, writing, critical thinking, content-based literacy, or whatever) can lead to metaknowledge.”
Identify at least one way that Cuddy’s ideas might offer tools that Gee recommends. Quote from both texts and to explain the relationships you see.
Gee makes a statement about how Discourses cannot be overtly taught but the school system contradicts this statement because the middle-class school district wants the Discourses to be taught in school so the students are more socially successful in the future. “The University wants teachers to overtly teach and wants students to demonstrate mastery”(12). While a Discourse cannot be taught by a teacher per say, they can push the student to broaden their social Discourses. Cuddy did this to one of her students who was shy in the classroom. Cuddy told her student “‘you’re going to make yourself powerful’”. And her student did go and make a powerful statement and came back to Cuddy months later and the student wasn’t just displaying these powerful stances, she had become powerful and had made her mark in the classroom.
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