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.