Not All English is The Same

From George Orwell's 1984

In high school I was enrolled in AP English where we were assigned loads of reading every night which we almost never talked about. It was very difficult keeping up with the reading because it was a lot of it and it was not easy to understand. I also took AP Literature, and this class was amazing. We didn't really focus on doing essays nor big writing assignments. We read Medea, 1984, Dante's Inferno, Oedipus, Othello, Ovid, The Odyssey and many more. We critically and philosophically analyzed these texts which has helped me with all the texts that I'm currently reading.

Last semester in English 104/105 we focused on stereotypes portrayed in the media and it was very interesting because it opened my eyes to things that I did not know about the media. However, we still focused on the five-paragraph essay structure but we improved our on writing our introduction and conclusion.

When this English course started it was very confusing because it was not like all the other English classes that I've taken. We were given freedom which was a bit scary because I was used to being told what to do and what specific topic to focus. I never before did an Editorial nor blogged. So far the most difficult assignment was the Editorial for the same reason that it was the first time that I was introduced to this. After doing this, class was still confusing.

It wasn't until I read Ariely's, Martin's, Gladwell's and McCurtry's texts that I began to understand class and the purpose of it. These texts discussed different non-related topics in order to show us how they exposed invisible narratives. They showed invisible narratives being exposed as stereotypes, norms and beliefs that don't necessarily represent everyone's belief.

Source: Deviant Art
Stereotype right here !

From the readings that we have done the one that had most of my interest is Martin's "The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles". I liked this one the most because I could somehow connect to it since I do belong to the female gender. When I read this I remember being shocked because of all the stereotypes that people say just through a science textbook in something so simple as our reproductive system. Its crazy how even in science people try to make the male seem more dominant than female when in reality eggs are the ones that do mostly all the work, of course with some help of the sperm.


Furthermore, completing our Paper 2 was actually very satisfactory. For my paper I focused on the Child and Adolescent Development Program although I am not yet declared, but I do have a huge interest in this. While doing this assignment, I was provided with many articles that allowed me to focus on the text of a discourse that I was new to. The most difficult part for this paper was finding invisible narratives because they weren't stated in the paper so I had to really think outside the box. Overall, I really enjoyed completing this because we were able to explore a new field. Also, we were able to learn and expose the invisible narratives that are in our field of interest. For me, I am still very encouraged in this major.

To Learn is to "Unlearn"

Growing up, I have always had an interest in English and literature. I remember I would spend most of time just reading book after book any moment I could - I was even acknowledged for completing A Series of Unfortunate Events in the fifth grade when we dedicated about twenty minutes a day to silent reading. I loved picking up a good piece of literature and being taken into the world of the characters from the piece of writing. Back then, I had this fascination for fantasy and other Fictional genres. I cannot tell you how many times my room transformed into a war zone where soldiers were fighting off their enemies or even an enchanting forest where dragons and fairies wandered freely.

Before this class, I never took too much thought as to why English courses in the public school system are designed the way they are. I was taught the basic-skills of literature incorporated in our schooling which is reading, writing, and rithmetic. For more than a decade, I spent my days in the classrooms looking at texts written from white cismales with an occasional Ethnic writer who represented a good four pages out of the entire class textbook. I was taught to write, read, and think white because that is where the heart of the education system is. To think that white is good, white is better. This as a whole suppressed my growth as an individual and finding my identity and my voice. Because at the end of the day, I know I will never be white so I refused to conform.  

I was terrified before entering the classroom because I had envisioned an environment where English in particular, there was going to be an instructor who assigned ridiculous amounts of reading and writing endless amounts of essays on nothing. Last semester in English, was quite a struggle for me because the professor expected a lot of productivity out of her students. She was one of the professors who thought that her course was the only one her students were enrolled in. Do not get me wrong she taught me to challenge myself, but it did get overwhelming most of the time. I specifically remember this professor saying something along the lines of “Those English 214 professors are no joke, you think my class is hard just wait.”

I already had invisible narratives playing in my head way before stepping foot into this class, thinking that this class was going to be the end of me.

Keeping this class in mind, the structure of the course has benefitted me as a student by incorporating my learning style. I love collaborating with others’ ideas and seeing where we can go as a whole. I love the fact that everyone can be vocal about their opinions and beliefs, even though I may disagree with them it still calls on great discussion and dialogue. Now I would be lying to you if I were to say that this class did not offer any level of difficulty because it did and it still does. And the most challenging part about this course is “unlearning” over a decade’s worth of teaching, in a semester and starting to think outside of the eurocentric curriculum. I see it in our faces every single day. That moment of “AHHHH” when we realize that we are overthinking an assignment and going beyond what it truly asked for because we all have fallen victim to thinking the same way.

By being apart of this class has already restored the hopes of what I wish to get out of an English course and ultimately that is for me to read, write, and think for myself. It has taken English to a whole other level for me and breaks down all of the boundaries of what should be taught and how it should be taught. It has made me more socially aware of all the world that surrounds me and how all these images can play in my head all because of one word. I appreciate having an instructor who can incorporate topics such as power, privilege and systems of oppression in their work.

It is truly a blessing to actually be a part of class where the instructor plays the role of a mentor and liberator and empowers their students. Though it is not always the easiest process, it is always the most rewarding.

The Conscious of a Student while English 214

"English teachers have been teaching you how to write white." The crazy, unrealistic, sad reality that doesn't seem actually true until actually thought about. Structure, paragraphs, "write this way, not that way", the list goes on and on; this class has kicked the walls of the comfort zone down and has shown me a new perspective towards English. Coming in to this class I was expecting essay after essay, book after book, but right off the bat I realized that this was something a lot bigger than that, something that has taught me more than a book ever could.

I.N? Those 2 letters had me completely confused at one point, and even after explaining that it stood for invisible narrative it still had me lost. But after hearing examples that applied to the real word like racism, sexism, and blatant advertising it didn't take long for me to understand what it meant. It's right in front of our faces but we've been brainwashed by the media and schooling that we don't even notice it. Learning about invisible narratives and bringing them to light was so unconventional and fresh it was almost hard not to be excited about writing about them. To be able to choose an invisible narrative in society and expose it is the most interesting thing i've done thus far.

Recently we have been asked to write an essay on an invisible narrative about our personal discourse and turn it into a parody or fable. Although I will admit, it has been a bit hard and confusing at times it has taught me a lot about what I am trying to get myself involved in. First, it forces us to get involved with professors and professionals already in our chosen discourse. Second, it makes us sit down and analyze a piece of writing and determine the core components of the authors idea. Lastly, we have to take into consideration the main idea, turn it into our own and create our own story based on that.

As you can tell, this class has taught me quite a bit in such a short amount of time. Learning all about metaphors, true writing, and invisible narratives has taught me about a deeper meaning behind writing.

The Reflections of an English Survivor

So far in class, we have been working on editing our drafts for paper 2, and all I can say is the first part of the paper was the most difficult. Especially the instructions for the paper which highly made no sense whatsoever. However, the other two drafts for this paper seem to be a bit more simplistic rather than complex. For our second draft, we were to convert our disciplinary articles into either a fable like the children's fable The Tortoise and The Hare, a parody, or a rhetorical narrative. Obviously I chose to do fable instead of the other two options because of two things: 1) I  cannot make any text funny, humor is one of the most difficult genres to ever put on paper, and 2) I do not even know what a rhetorical narrative was. Thus, conversion from my article into a fable was the most easiest.

 Ever since I was in kindergarten I have read many children's books like fables, fairy tales, scary stories, mystery, and nursery rhymes. Therefore, I already have had experience and knowledge to make my second draft work. Most fables contain dialogue, a story, sometimes in third-person narrative, characters, and a moral. Yet, I also needed to use the actual article's information to make the conversion work, otherwise you get a story without its connection to the information you have to the article. However, I still did not enjoy working on this assignment as I am a student who does not enjoy the teachings of literature, english, composition, writing, and other themes in the English profession.

Subsequently, we have been learning english terms used in literature that targets people in an ideological manner. Things such as the "invisible narrative" are the assumptions and "stories" that underlie the things we write and think about. As a follow up, we learned other terms related to the invisible narratives such as ideology, stereotype, and norms (short for normalities, I think.) We were introduced to different types of examples for each of these terms like norms with one example such as women are like "mothers", therefore they should behave like "mothers." Since I started to work on the the third part of the paper, I am to find any invisible narratives that are seen in the article and then to reflect upon them.

Other than that, I would have to say that the class is good with great classmates, a teacher who teaches the material with fluency and shows responsibility, and alright work. This still does not mean that I like the class, but  it is not something that I would do again. English by far is still the toughest subject course that I have ever taken, even though I am passing this class with an A does not not change the fact that I continue to struggle in this material. As for students who love the course, I will show them respect for it. All I hope is that I can survive another semester in college without the probabilities of failing any of my courses.
             

The Affect a Word or an Image Can Have

The Affect a Word or an Image Can Have

First let me say the material we are learning in this class, I love! Although is very different from the typical BORING English classes I have been in the past, it sure has changed my way of thinking about how the world around us is in reality. I noticed that English teachers are so focused to following one specific structure to teach their students that they leave out so much information that we can come to use in our daily lives.

When I was in high school I was in an AP Spanish class and AP English class and my teachers would always have us analyze every word in the text we were assigned. I never understood why the heck they would make us do that. But they would say, “You’re going to have to do this for every text in college,” but they made us do it in such a boring way that made me dread to look at any text that had to be analyzed in college.

BUT!  It wasn’t until I began to learn aboutInvisible Narratives in this class that I finally found analyzing a text was actually pretty exciting and very interesting. I finally understood how analyzing a text could be so informative.

Looking at a text from a different lens has made me look at everything I hear and see different. I analyze EVERYTHING I tell you! Which then again I am not sure if I over think things sometimes!

  

After exploring different articles that have explore invisible narratives, I find that they are exposed via our rhetorical choices; they are simply hidden myths, bias, stereotypes that are expressed. 

When we began to learning about the topic, I felt disconnected because I didn’t really look at my reading through a deeper lens, until I read the article, The Sperm and the Egg,” by Emily Martin where I discovered an invisible narrative through a science text discussing the reproduction system! Like what the heck! It never crossed my mind the way an author could write that can have a deeper meaning just through a text.

Invisible narratives could be anywhere not just in a text, but also in ads, TV, etc. They could be anywhere! They are assumptions and stories that underlie in the things we write, think and judge in our daily lives. It maybe that sometimes were just aren’t aware that we too are creating invisible narratives!

Now, I am just more cautious of what I write or say because learning that Invisible narratives can affect others. Which brings me to a term I had never heard about HegemonicPower Structure. This is a structure that is an internalized hierarchy that privileges certain people over others and sometimes we don’t see it because it’s from within and we can come across oppressing ourselves.

I never considered that WORDS or IMAGES could be so powerful! This topic on Invisible Narrative has made me want to be more cautious of what I say or write and help others understand that what they said or write could also affect others as well as themselves.

This semester we have learned a few different things that have surprised me a little. So many things that during high school English teacher never taught us. English classes are so much different now because we get to learn new stuff, stuff that for some reason was in a way hidden from us.

Metaphors during high school we defined much more different than they are now. Now a metaphor is what you actually mean when you are talking. We hear metaphors everyday all the time because everyone speaks his or her own metaphor. You never know what the person you are talking to actually is thinking in their head. When we learned this I was really surprised because I thought that in order to talk metaphor you had to do with comparing two things that had nothing to do with each other. Know I know that I talk metaphors all the time and I am doing it right now too.

Aside from metaphors we have also learned about the different discourses we are acquiring and the ones we brought with us from before. Maybe we thought that we talked to every person in our lives in a different way but now we have learned that it is not like that. That every time we meet a person we come up with a whole new discourse. The one we will use when we are with them. For instance, we talk differently to our friends than we do to our parents; we have a different way of talking to every little group or individual in our lives. When I learned about this I was actually very surprised and couldn’t understand but after our class discussion on it I understood why. Things such as having a word that only the people in that little group know about because it doesn’t appear in dictionaries is a discourse. 

source: universityherald.com

Lastly the most recent thing we have been discussing and are also something that I had never learned or though about is invisible narratives. We were always asked to analyze writing for class but we never did it in such a deep manner as we are doing it now with the articles professors recommended. Looking deep into what the writer of this article actually means is something that we have always done, but looking for parts where maybe he doesn’t mean what he says but something completely different is something that I am just learning now. There are invisible narratives everywhere: in adds, professional writing, maybe even just as I write I am in a way creating an invisible narrative.

So many different things I have learned and have yet to learn sometimes make me feel excited because if they are as interesting as the ones I have just discussed I am definitely looking forward to that.  English classed have never been as exciting as the ones I am taking now at this point of my education. It is true that during high school you learn a lot but we should also be taught many different ways of writing and analyzing.

Your 78 cents, their dollar

Women occupy almost half of the workforce and on average, a women who holds a full-time,year-round job is paid $39,157 per year while a man who holds a full-time, year-round job is paid $50,033 per year. This amounts to a $10,876 dollar difference! Studies show that women obtain more graduate and college degrees compared to their male counterparts. However, on average, women continue to earn noticeably less than males.

Female full-time workers make only 78 cents to every dollar earned by men. This is a 22% difference! Women tend to earn less than men in almost every occupation where there is earnings data to calculate an earnings ratio between women and men.Unbelievably, some people respond to this by claiming that a few percentage difference is too small to worry about. If it’s so small, I suppose these people would happily give up a percentage of their salaries? I didn't think so.

The gender wage gap has been progressing at such a slow rate that researchers predicts that it will take up to 50 years for women to finally reach equal pay. We are in the 21st century, yet, women are paid less than men doing the same job just because they are female.

You think what I just said was bad? Well, you haven't even heard the worst part. Women of color face an even greater wage gap. African American women are paid 64 cents and Latinas, 56 cents, for every dollar paid to white males.

So what does it exactly mean for women to earn less than men? Well, these lost wages mean that families have less money to spend on goods and services. If these wage gaps were dropped, a working women in the United States would have enough money for at least 86 more weeks of food for her family, more than seven more months of mortgage and utilities payments, 12 more months of rent or 3,208 additional gallons of gas. As you can see, their lost wages could traumatically benefit families everywhere. 

Being able to overcome barriers to equal pay is not going to be easy, however, speaking up to address this problem will help reduce the wage gap. Women deserve to have equal pay for equal work and it's only up to you to help future generations receive equal pay by speaking up to raise awareness. Women are a part of your everyday life; your mother, sister, significant other and maybe grandmother. Don't you think that the most important women in your life deserve the best? They deserve to be paid equivalent to a white male in America.

Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/business/to-solve-the
-gender-wage-gap-learn-to-speak-up.html?pagewanted=all