Monday, July 13, 2009

Reflection on "What is Literacy? by James Paul Gee" Reading

After reading the article "What is Literacy?" by James Paul Gee.   It made me open up my eyes to a new word I learned which is:

'Discourse':  "A socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or social network" 

I understand that a lot of what has been say by James Paul Gee is true and I can relate to this reading.  I believe we do as a society put labels on people for speaking a certain way or talking a certain way.  For example, sometimes when a student talks when automatically know that they are from the inner-city or have some influence of the inner city because they speak with a slang. And that can also relate to social class because people from the inner-city  that speak a certain way are from a  bad neighborhood  and tend to be poor. James Paul Gee calls this concept "Identity kit."

And another thing that he talked about that I agree with is that we change the way we talk in different social events.  If we are at the job, we speak different then we would if we were at a nightclub or school.  I agree with a lot of what has been said in this article and that in order for us to understand what is Literacy we must understand Discourse.  



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