Agenda: Week 3

Week 3: Writing about Discourse Communities

Class Info

• Dates: Thursday, 2/9-Wednesday, 2/15
• Meeting Info: 10:00-11:15am in room N618

Objectives

• To apply what we understand about discourse communities to the course readings and to write our own narratives that identify and consider the concepts of discourse communities and code switching in our experiences.

Actions

• Complete any unfinished work from Week 1 and Week 2, including introducing yourself on our OpenLab site.

For Thursday 2/9

Reading

• “Dedicatory Letter” to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft.
• Read about our semester-long crowdsourced Glossary effort

Writing

• Annotate as you read our course’s texts.
• Choose a word and contribute to our Glossary, following the instructions about what to include and how to post.

In Class, Thursday, 2/9

• Why is Wollstonecraft writing this letter? What is the issue she identifies? Explain why she sees the issue as a problem.
  • not writing this for any personal gain, not selfish
  • wants Talleyrand to think about women and national education
  • supporting women and their education will add to our progress, morality, all these good things that make things better if you support our endeavors
  • sales pitch: this is win-win
  • natural ideas, inevitable that those who wrote the constitution will agree with them
  • “firm tone” passionate about women’s rights, how can you not believe tin women’s rights
  • appeals to their higher intelligence, not antagonize
  • important words: virtue
  • French knowledge is sinister, the women think any virtue is prudish, there’s a strong desire for the sensual/sexual
  • men need to respect modesty if they want women to be modest
  • attitude of women is a response to how men treat them.
  • women will stop knowledge if she isn’t given the education to be man’s companion
  • contradiction: if men view woman as having little virtue or sense, then
• Describe one of Wollstonecraft’s writing strategies that gets your attention. Quote from the letter and explain what she is doing and why it caught your attention.
• What DCs do we recognize in this text? in the others that we’ve read this week?

For Tuesday 2/14

Reading

• Video: “I am Someone’s Daughter too” by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (A.O.C).
• Autobiography excerpt: “Who You Callin’ a ‘B%*h?’” by Queen Latifah
• Podcast/Interview: “On Passing” (both audio and written transcript available)
• Novel: Passing by Nella Larsen (Part One: Encounter)

Writing

• Annotate as you read our course’s texts.
• Choose a word and contribute to our Glossary, following the instructions about what to include and how to post.
• Participate in the Discussion about words that are part of your discourse community

In Class, Tuesday, 2/14

• What discourse communities do you find in the texts for today?
• “I am someone’s daughter”
  • politicians–do they think they’re invincible, untouchable, can say anything?
  • generalization about men–politicians represent the people so they should be careful about that
  • is she talking about toxic masculinity?
  • she’s talking about decent men, then about Rep Yoho and others like him–people who use language abusively
  • calling attention to her age, gender, working-class background
  • Yoho’s abusive language wouldn’t be appropriate in a bar or on the streets of NYC, let alone in Congress–different discourse communities, but they all shouldn’t tolerate that kind of abusive language.
• Queen Latifah’s “Who You Callin’ A ‘B%*h?'”
  • What words does Queen Latifah bring attention to in this essay?
  • How does she suggest people use these words, or any names that people may be called?
• what language is specific to these discourse communities–or used in a specific way?
• Brainstorming for Project 1
• Begin discussing Passing