Exploratory 3: Self-concept, Text, and Community

                               For Exploratory 3, Joel and I wanted to present how the chaos and complexity of the modern literacy network affects and is affected by the individual, and how that influences texts. Per our schema, we located “Subject”/literacy in the center, or in other words, a person whose identity exists through not only their gender, race, class, etc., but also their life experiences and the texts to which they have been exposed. This person/subject and their literacy influences and is influenced by the way in which the world has been systematically created based on sex, race, class, generation, technology, etc.—the many factors on the right of our schema which are the markers of the social world. Then there are other people who influence a particular person, as shown in the upper left of our schema. Finally, there are texts the subject reads, that have all been created through a combination of these factors—experiences the authors of the texts carry with them—that influence their work and ultimately the individuals who read them and are then affected not only by their own experiences, but the experiences put forth by the texts they read.

                               Literacy in other words, is built through a network of constant change and chaos that influences who people are. It is not simply learning to write or read for the sake of growth and enlightenment however, but Richard Ohmann’s piece truly sheds light on part of the problem being that literacy works in favor of the powerful. His emphasis being on technology’s advancement of literacy in favor of the power structure, Ohmann notes that “technology, one might say, is itself a social process, saturated with the power relations around it, continually reshaped according to some people’s intentions” (681). The social aspect of technology indeed comes into play in our schema, connected to the subject and thus influencing the subject’s outlook of the world and how they view the texts they consume. It is difficult to see on the schema that technology is playing a part not only socially, but as a determining factor of power. However, said power is usually structured in such a way that while it is noticeable, it is also made to seem a normal part of society. The technological advances that influence literacy are made to seem helpful in connecting a person such as the subject in our schema to texts, literature, and composition, but they also play a part in maintaining the chaos of society’s structure and views of class, race, sex, generational influence, and other forms of identity through which a subject/person views the world. Ohmann’s emphasis on the overpowering role of technology thus comes through in its ties to everything that makes up society, and overwhelms an individual as he or she attempts to gain a literacy that is also rich in confusion of different technologies, identities, and values.

                               The power of technology to influence literacy that Ohmann describes becomes ever more complex by changes over time, as Deborah Brandt explains. She claims that literacy requires “an engagement…with the layers of literacy’s past, present, and future” emphasizing change “in materials and tools and…social relationships” (Brandt 666), a concept—or rather what seems to be several concepts—that was also attempted in this schema. The change in time in particular is represented through an individual’s connection to “generation”. This is a major thrust of Brandt’s piece as she lays out the differences in literacy between a great-grandmother and her great-grandson based on the times in which they were raised and thus differences in the ways literacy was taught (649-50). In our schema, the individual in the center would be an individual in one point in time, influenced by what is considered literacy of the time in which he or she lives. However, connecting the subject to “generation” indicates that there still exists the influence of another time as Brandt explains. Thus, that would be another factor influencing the life experience and therefore literacy of the individual centered in the schema. All the same, it would be another factor influencing the people to which an individual is connected, as well as the texts said individual reads. The layer of time and the literacies of time thus create new layers of identity as an individual engages with the world around them and the compositions that are a part of their world.

                               Brandt did not simply emphasize differences in time, but differences due to race as well. She describes the life and literacy of an African-American male, Charles Randolph, whose literacy was influenced by religious texts which would later serve to take an active role in the Civil Rights Movement (Brandt 663-664). The experience due to racial discrimination factors in the reality that race has been treated as another marker among the world, as shown in our schema in its connection with sex, class, as well as the other markers society has constructed for its own purposes. That African-Americans such as Randolph have long been subjected to discrimination and inhumane cruelty is further elaborated upon by AnnLouise Keating, as she states that a major problem has come to be that “by thus erasing its presence, ‘whiteness’ operates as the unacknowledged standard or norm against which all so-called ‘minorities’ are measured” (905). In our schema, the subject in the center is shown to be a white person to emphasize the idea that whiteness has been society’s standard, and the standard renders a white person to thus be disconnected from the idea of race. To be disconnected emphasizes the lack of a burden for white people, a burden placed upon black people and other minorities who have dealt with having to live up to a norm that is impossible and therefore has resulted in mistreatment. Our schema emphasizes the disconnect white people have from racial discrimination through the disconnect of the particular individual in the schema from race.

                               Not only does society’s concept of race have a powerful impact on how people interact with society and the texts they compose and read, but nationality influences how one learns to read and compose a text. In Vai Ramanathan and Dwight Atkinsin’s piece, they detail the struggle of students from other countries learning to compose in the English language in the U.S., particularly if the students are from collectivist cultures. The idea however, is that there is not cause for one particular standard of composition, for “as a writer you assume different voices in different situations” (Ramanathan and Atkinson 50). This would imply that if you are a student from another country, your composition should depend on your own background, not that of the country to which you have traveled. This is visually implied in our schema through the idea of many connections, and having your own experiences that will shape how you compose or write a text.

                               Overall, we attempted to capture the web of connections this week’s readings laid out. The complications lie in one’s conceptions of self, sex, race, gender, etcetera, and interactions with a world that constructs its own standard of those various factors. This ultimately implies composition must continue to unfold in a way that opens avenues for paths of understanding among individuals, their communities, and the texts which they compose and read. 

Works Cited

Brandt, Deborah. “Accumulating Literacy: Writing and Learning to Write in the Twentieth Century.” College English, vol. 57, no. 6, 1995, 649-668.

Keating, AnnLouise. “Interrogating ‘Whiteness’: Deconstructing ‘Race’.” College English, vol. 57, no. 8, 1995, 901-918.

Ohmann, Richard. “Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capital.” College English, vol. 47, no. 7, 1985, 675-689.

Ramanathan, Vai and Dwight Atkinson. “Invividualism, Academic Writing, and ESL Writers.” Journal of Second Language Writing, vol. 8, no. 1, 1999, 45-75. 

Exploratory #3: Self-Concept, Text, and Community: A Key

By Joel Bergholtz and Cindy Stewart

·         “Subject”/Literacy: this is the subject as well as their accompanying literacy. From a social standpoint, one’s literacy cannot be removed from the individual subject’s overall worth. The subject has their own conception of themselves on the interior, but nonetheless exist out in the exterior. Thus, the subject has identity markers both within themselves (in their sphere), representing the ways these constructs are at play in the individual’s cognitive processes, and outside of themselves (outside of their sphere). They also have life experiences that exist out in the real world and thus influence their own cognitive process, so life experiences are represented both within the subject and outside of the subject.

·         Society/identity markers: on the right side of our schema are identity markers: sex, race, class, gender, and other factors society constructs in particular ways that make up the world around us. These influence the subject at the center of the schema.

·         Texts: on the left of our schema, you’ll find texts A, B, and C. Text A is a close-up of the components a text is made up of: an author’s self-concept, life experiences, texts read, and their identity markers. This is the content that influences what they write that people such as the subject do not see, but nonetheless still consume through their reading of the author’s text.

·         People: in the upper left of our schema, you’ll see people that the subject in focus is connected to. The subject influences and is influenced by these people, who are also identified by self-concept, life experiences, texts read, and the identity markers placed upon them by society. They also see the various identities that make up the world as our “subject” does, read texts that are also produced by the experience of the authors, compose texts, and are networked with other people.

OVERALL: This network is meant to show how a person is connected to a complex network of what makes up society, the texts offered, and the people within society. All people, then, engage in their own experiences which influence their composition or read of a text, and in turn influence others who carry with them their own set of life experiences and perceptions of the world. It is an infinite set of connections that complicates how texts are both produced and interpreted.