Deborah Mutnick “Inscribing the World: An Oral History Project in Brooklyn”

Mutnick’s article was published in College Composition and Communication in the summer of 2007 and documents “a university-school oral history project at an elementary school in Brooklyn.” I was really interested in the theory behind this particular project as well as the methods that Mutnick and her students used to collect the data. I thought what I would do for this post is to list some of my favorite quotations as well as the terminology that I found intriguing. Where possible I will try to explain the quotation or define the terms to the best of my ability.

“Places are sensuous, laden with the repetition of life. As we pass through or dwell someplace, we recreate it” (626).

What a great way to describe how we all make our mark on the places we inhabit.

“Pedagogy of the public sphere” (627).

I liked this terminology as a way to describe the ways we can learn and be taught from the everyday elements of our life.

“Competing Counterpublics” (629).

This term is attributed to Nancy Fraser…I like the idea that we are not the only people who inhabit a space, there are years and years of people who have inhabited the space we now inhabit. I think it also address the “other” not just the dominate culture or ideology, which are competing for public recognition.

“Phantom Public Sphere” (629).

I don’t have a good definition for this term, but I believe it also address the “other” in the sense that the “other” occupies a space that is not legitimized or recognized, making it a “phantom” space.

““read” built structures” (630).

Not a direct quote, but I like the idea that we “read” structures / buildings. Mutnick goes on to explain that we also “read” the history / social memory of places as well. Good stuff.

Towards the end of her article, Mutnick describes the setting and start of her oral history project. She says that she begins with the following quotation from the play Junebug/Jack:

“Everybody has a story, their own story. But it seems like it has to come to the place where people think their stories are silly and aren’t worth anything anymore. Trouble is, seems like some people are always wanting to tell our story for us. But, we got to tell it ourselves! Otherwise how we gonna know it’s us? And if we don’t listen to the stories of others, how we gonna know who they are?”

Mutnick then describes three lessons we can learn from this quote.:
1) Everybody’s story has value
2) We have to tell the stories ourselves in order to know who we are.
3) We have to listen to others’ stories in order to know them.

I think these are great mantras that could be used as pedagogical guidelines in specific composition classes.

“Call and Response” (633).

I thought the phenomenon that Mutnick described in relation to call and response was fascinating. I thought it would make an interesting study to trace this phenomenon in public settings.

Week 1 The Literacy of “Argumentative Discourse”

This week, I was most impressed with the work of Brian V. Street and Adam Lefstein. I was specifically intrigued with what they termed the different approaches and consequences of Literacy. Their discussion can be found in Unit A5, pages 34-47 of the Literacy An Advanced Resource Book. On page 34, Street comments that in order to understand the approaches and consequences of literacy we can use three categories: Literacy Acquisition, Consequences of Literacy and Literacy as Social Practice. In my dissertation I will be focusing on the Literacy practices of Mormon Missionaries and these categories seem very relevant to the work I will be doing. These categories illuminate what I see as the give and take of literacy. Literacy is approached or given in different ways dependent on the contextual situation and following the way in which literacy is practiced or approached there are consequences. In her scholarship on literacy sponsorship, Deborah Brandt echoes this idea by illustrating that sponsors can have both a positive and negative effect on their recipients. The one area that I see a little differently is the idea of literacy as a social practice. I completely agree with Street that Literacy is a social practice, however I think the social nature of literacy could be seen as an underlying motivation behind the give and take of acquisition and consequences. At any rate though I really liked Street’s way of envisioning and separating the ways in which literacy works in our culture.

Although Street gets the spotlight for my post this week, I was also very interested in the work of Martin Nystand and John Duffy. Their article, “Towards a Rhetoric of Everyday Life” showcased the scholarship of Kenneth Burke, whose name I had heard in reference before, but new relatively little about him. After reading the Duffy article I think I will need to add Burke to my comps list along with James Gee and possible James Berlin, both of whom were mentioned in Duffy’s article. If I understood Duffy’s interpretation of Burke, I want to know more about his views of literacy as a social practice.