1.) Gee defines Discourses (capital D) as “saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing, believing combinations” (6). Why is this “combination” important for Gee? Gee offers a couple examples. Offer your own example of a Discourse in your response, making sure to be specific about the linkages you see between the elements of the combination in your example.
– This combination is important for Gee because it explains how people learn and continue learning through acclimating themselves to the standards of the world. Furthermore, he goes on to explain that we learn this combination through social interaction. A good example of a discourse, is learning how to act when losing or winning a game you really like or are good at. Through social interactions we learn how to properly act when losing or winning a game, this kind of social interaction is also where we get expressions like “don’t be a sore loser”, or “display good sportsmanship”. By doing this we teach children at a young age that it is okay to lose once and awhile, because losing can often make you better. Furthermore, the lessons we are taught through winning are things like not rubbing it in others faces but also acknowledging the hard work you put into winning that game that made it all worthwhile.
2.) Jordan and her students translated a passage in The Color Purple from Black English to what she calls Standard English. Look carefully at that section of the text and consider Gee’s concept of Discourse. Imagine how Gee would explain what is going on in Jordan’s class. In your response, be sure to quote both Gee and Jordan.
– In Jordan’s article when her class translates select paragraphs from the book The Color Purple, a lot of her students were perturbed by the fact that the way we speak is not the way we write. Further, in the article Jordan explains, “most of the students had never before seen a written facsimile of the way they talk”, she later goes on to say that, “alternatively, this fact began to baffle or else bemuse and then infuriate my students”. This instance in Jordan’s article corresponds to Gee’s concept of discourse because when he explains to us what a discourse is, he says that it is how we learn how to communicate with others through speaking, writing, body language, etc. However, Jordan’s students very clearly demonstrated that there is more or less a boundary between the way we speak and the way we write. All of which is taught to us through social interactions with others.
3.) Gee writes that we have both a primary Discourse and multiple secondary Discourses. He also notes that a person’s Discourses can have ”tension or conflict” between them. Identify two of your Discourses that have this kind of tension. Explain where the tension is and how it manifests in life situations. Be sure to quote Gee in your response and be specific about the Discourses and tensions.
– In Jordan’s article she says that there are different dialects through the English language, especially through that of “white English” and “black English”. Moreover, she goes on the explain that, in the US, even though there isn’t a definitive use of what would be considered standardized English, we gravitate towards using “white English” as our standard. This ultimately can cause some tension and of conflict between these two discourses, as pointed out by Gee. For instance, when we all conform to one standard language and or way of doing/being, we take away individuality and uniqueness found in different ethnicities, or as Jordan states, “Black English is not exactly a linguistic buffalo, but we should understand its status as an endangered species, as a perishing, irreplaceable system of community intelligence, or we should expect its extinction, and, along with that, the extinguishing of much that constitutes our own proud, and singular, identity”. By disregarding the use of other forms of the English language, such as “black English”, we undermine the importance of other ethnicities and their history.
