Alexander

Synthesis
Alexander focuses mainly on learning about and defending the LGBTQ community, just like Malinowitz, which was another author who brought up the issues of being gay and using this in writing. Flynn is another author that is easily relatable because Flynn focused on whether or not males and females composed differently. In Alexander's article the main focus was whether or not males and females are different and the transgender community and how this all affects their writing.

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
Even though women do hold some of these positions, men have always been more dominant in the world. It isn’t a thing that can be argued because it is true, there are tons of more civilization that value men more than they do women. Does this mean that every single one of these places is homophobic? Of course not. Its almost like pulling out the race card every five minutes, the minute that someone announces that they are not heterosexual, everything has to do with being homophobic.	“In the opening pages of ‘Gender of Writing,’ published in 1989, David Bleich discusses homophobic responses among students, and he links such responses to the privilege that men in general have in our society: ‘All authoritative social roles are held by men – in politics, medicine, law, religion, science, art, and, of course, the academy. It should come as no surprise that the style of thought developed by these men in the name of all people should correspond with the structure of social relations that sustains their social privileges.” (197)
People write about what they know. Obviously who you are is going to play a major role because your voice is in everything that you write. When it comes to school situations, those that are gay may be more shy when it comes to drawing attention to themselves in class because there is that fear that people may know more than they are willing to share.	“Put another way, our students’ identities, informed of prevailing, politicized, and personal definitions of gender and sexuality, can have a significant impact on their participation in class, their sense of themselves as learners and knowledge producers, and, by extension, their engagement with writing as a mode of exploration, communication, invention, and discovery.” (198)
“Natural” and “normal” comes from being part of the majority. I do think it is important to understand the struggles faced by gays, lesbians, trans genders (and everything in between) however, with all minorities comes challenges the majority does not understand.	“Acknowledging the presence of the transgendered is useful not only for understanding those who are differently gendered or whose presentation or experience of gender falls outside our ‘norms’:’but also for helping us interrogate the constructs of gender that we often take for granted as ‘natural’ or ‘normal.’ (200)
By identifying the differences, it does help show the many stereotypes, but then again there are reasons why these are present. I know more men that like football than don’t. I can’t tell you one female that is one hundred percent confident in herself. The stereotypes brought up in the book of football and insecurity are true. They are simply generalizations that help target more people than not.	“For instance, we can help students question behavioral and attitudinal differences between men and women, which may clearly exist, as arising not from a biological imperative but from sociocultural experiences of sexism and privilege.” (201)
There is a reason that this is the case. Women are insecure because there is always expected so much from them. Also, try and find a guy who does not like to feel like a hero sometimes and feel like he is strong.	“.. deploy some of the more simplistic yet pervasive gender stereotypes in our culture – feminine insecurity and masculine idiocy.” (205) from one of the pages that we did not have to read**
While reading this I was thinking the same thing. All this is going to do is highlight the differences, I really do not see how this is going to high light the transgender community.	“I am not sure that our narratives of gender swapping and transition were necessarily helping liberate participants from gender norms, even though I believe they offered us opportunities to explore useful insights.” (212)

My Thoughts
I found this article to not really serve any true purpose. Transgender communities are something that many people do not understand, and after reading this article I still do not have any better of an understanding of them. I feel that Alexander was trying more to be defensive of the LGBTQ community and try and find differences between the genders and focus a lot on the stereotypes of the members. I put a lot of my thoughts into my responses to the quotes because it is easier to focus in on the sections of the article rather than trying to say how I feel about the article as a whole because there were certain things that I could agree with and then of course there were things that I could not.

Delpit

Before Reading
Generalizations help when it comes to trying to reach more people in the audience. By making generalizations, more people can be involved in the reading and make connections so that they are more interested in the reading. When I write with generalizations its more to involve people in large numbers, and to talk about a certain group and giving them certain characteristics that most people are going to be able to identify with.

Summary
The article deals with discourse communities and brings into play the issue of African-Americans. A lot of the article points out how Gee's explanation was not very friendly when it came to the African-American community. It showed that there prejudice points that just tore down and made it impossible for the African-American discourse community to seem successful.

Synthesis
A lot of the article that Delpit wrote brought into play the works of Gee. With all discourse communities, there is almost a discourse community in itself of the authors that use this as one of their primary topics when it comes to writing. With authors like Wardle and Swales, they bring up major points that have been studied by other authors (Swales with the six characteristics).

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
This is a good argument. It brings up a good example and shows how there are examples that in the class room there have been discourse communities started and have helped change the lives of students.	“The stories of two successful African-American men also challenge the belief that literate discourses cannot be acquired in classroom settings, and highlight the significance of teachers in transforming student’s futures.” (183)
I also found this troubling when I was reading Gee’s article. It made it seem like it would be impossible when it came to joining another community.	“The second aspect of Gee’s work that I find troubling suggests that an individual who is born into one discourse with one set of values may experience major conflicts when attempting to acquire another discourse with another set of values.” (182)
White I do not understand from this quote is that it is saying that just being part of the African-American discourse community means that you are not successful? This quote really confused me.	“Despite the difficulty entailed in the process, almost any African-American or other disenfranchised individual who has become ‘successful’ has done so by acquiring a discourse other than the one into which he or she was born.” (184)
I see where he is coming from when he said this. If anyone agrees that educating poor and black children is not a good idea, there is seriously something wrong with them.	“The point is that some of the aspects of his work can be disturbing for the African-American reader, and reinforcing for those who choose – wrongly, but for the ‘right’ reasons – not to educate poor and black children.” (188)

My thoughts
I found this article to be interesting. To hear one author criticize and bring down the ideals of another author was fun to read. I liked hearing the other thoughts of another author. Delpit was clearly passionate and fully believed in what he wrote about and how she did not agree with Gee had to say.

Flynn

Getting Ready to Read

In high school, I had an even number of male and female teachers and there were obvious differences when it came to how the students were treated. I think that when the male teachers were more involved and around did extra things along with the school, they would favor the male students. When it came to the women teachers, there was obvious favoritism for the female students, especially because a lot of the time the female students would behave in the class room a lot more than the male students did. I think that one cannot generalize whether or not female and male teachers favor a certain sex more; instead, I think it more relies on the personality of the teacher.

Summary

Flynn's article focuses mostly on the importance of women and how their composition's differ from that of males. The question majorly focused on throughout the article is, "Do males and female's compose differently?" Flynn writes her article in a way to inform women of their places in writing and also in a way that men will not feel a direct connection but be able to identify that a relationship is being formed between the females reading the article. Also, Flynn looks into the writings of students and focuses on what the writings are about. She claims that women tend to write based on the bond and relationship that they have with their mothers, while males are more focused on not sounding feminine and instead making sure that they have a masculine voice instead.

Synthesis

Flynns article was easy to relate to several of the other authors that have been discussed in class so far. The first of the authors being Wysocki, because both discussed the importance of women. Another author that put a primary focus on women was Bernhardt. Both Bernhardt and Flynn focused on the study of women from other students. Finally, the last author that I connected back to Flynn was Malcolm X. Malcolm X made a big point of the African American's not having a voice which was the case with the women in Flynn's article (at least not as big of a voice as they should).

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
What I got out of this quote was that the construction of the sentences was just as important as what the sentences were saying.	“Powerfully present in the work of composition researchers and theorists is the ideal of a committed teacher concerned about the growth and maturity of her students who provides feedback on ungraded drafts, reads journals, and attempts to tease out meaning from the seeming incoherence of student language.” (156)
I feel like this goes without saying. When you see boys and girls playing at a young age, it is apparent that they are going to play in different ways. There is a dominance of males over women, it is how its always been and I am okay with this fact. There are reasons this is the case.	“Feminist research theory emphasize that males and females differ in their developmental processes and in their interactions with others. They emphasize, as well, that these differences are a result of an imbalance in the social order, of the dominance of men over women.” (157)
Though men have a sort of dominance in life, I don’t think that this should be judged against women. I feel that in the work place, it is not fair that men are paid more than a woman with the same job is.	“Men become the standard against which woman are judged.” (157)
I feel that when a girl has a good relationship with her mother than there are better chances that she will be on a “better” path in life, I never did think to put this into perspective with writing however.	“Girls’ identification processes, then, are more continuously embedded in and mediated by their ongoing relationship with their mother.” (158)

QD3

In the past, it is no secret that women were treated poorly. What women have to say has never been as important as what men do. In the past, the thoughts of very intelligent women have not been given a chance just because of their gender. A lot of the struggle has been making women equal to men. Instead, minorities have been made a topic and an importance. Though women are not a minority, in certain jobs and certain places in the world, they are because of the different customs.

My Thoughts

I found the article to be interesting. I like seeing the thoughts of authors on something that I do not know a lot about. I do not necessarily find the topic to be very interesting however. I feel that there are so many differences between males and females so there are going to be obvious differences in how they compose. Women find importance in certain areas in life than males do. There is no right or wrong; yet, I feel that how this article was written it was almost calling out males. I know most of it were informative but I still feel that there was a bit of prejudice in the article.

Villanueva

Before Reading Activity
Superficial characteristics are things that everyone bases their opinions about others at first. When you see someone, you determine whether or not they look friendly by their facial expression. You look at their clothes to see if their style matches yours. People are constantly looking for companions, which is why judging is something that we all do not matter what. To say that we should not judge does not make sense, because it is part of human nature to judge. Allowing the judgements to get in the way of giving someone a chance is a whole other story. Sadly, the same thing is going to happen with skin color as well.

Summary
The article is the coming together of many past works dealing with different people with different backgrounds (ethnicity wise) and how there have been obstacles involved. The author uses her past works of poems and short stories to portray the importance of diversity and understanding that not everyone is the same. The audience intended for this reading is anyone wiling to listen and understand the authors views (it is not directly aimed at adults or children).

Synthesis
Villanueva's article was entitled Memoria is a Friend Of Ours: On the Discourses of Color. Just in the title we are able to start making connections because it is speaking of discourse communities. There are several other others that talk about discourse communities, Wardle was a key connection however, because he discussed different memories, which is what the main part of Villanueva's article. Another connection can be made because with Heilker and Yergeau because it spoke of the struggles of autism and how it was hard for people to accept them, just like it is hard still to this day for full acceptance of people of color.

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
I understand this because I see how hard it is to learn something and not fully understand what it is to belong. When I learned Spanish and went to Spain, it was very hard to understand how to make it seem like I was one of the people that lived there.	“Does it all, only to realize that assimilation just can’t happen. Yet he can’t really be Puerto Rican. So maybe he goes to Puerto Rico to find out who he might have been and what he is tied to. I don’t have it all worked out.” (169)
It is something so strong that it can almost dictate certain peoples lives because of the past.	“Memoria calls and pushes us forward. Memoria is a friend of ours. We must invite her into our classrooms and into our scholarship.” (170)
I like how this is the exception of the rule. Everyone tries their best with what they have and it is all we can all do.	“And in [so doing] the story suggests how we are – all of us – subject to the systemic. This is the personal made public and the public made personalized, not for self-glory not to point fingers, but to suggest how, maybe, to make the exception the rule. (xviii)” (170)
I agree with this because it hard to do so. Memory is so much more than that.	“Memory simply cannot be adequately portrayed in the conventional discourse of the academy.” (172)
Academics go beyond reason and judgment so it is hard to keep the discourse community on just this level.	“Academic discourse tries, after all, to reach the Aristotelian ideal of being completely logocentric, though it cannot be freed of the ethical appeal to authority.” (172)
I feel like this is the case with everyone in life.	“I’m trying to figure this out, somehow: who I am, from where, playing out the mixes within.” (176)

AE3

My Thoughts
I found this article to be semi hard to read. The stories were easy to follow along with, the poems were a different story however. Thinking of people of color as a discourse community became easier with the personal ties of the author. I liked how it all dealt with past memories because it made it easier to read and made me want to read more.