Friendly Reminders regarding the remainder of the semester

1. Remember that next week we will not meet in section; instead, you all will be making your end of the year presentations on Tuesday and Thursday.
2. You are responsible for 8 blog entries and 10 fieldnotes, respectively, by the end of this semester. If you failed to contribute to earlier blog entries, please do so ASAP.
3. Your final blog entry, which will be somewhat more substantial than previous ones, will be posted Sunday, April 24th. Your response is due April 28th, by 11:59 pm.
4. Case studies are due by 11:59 PM on May 9th.

I need the groups for the reflection projects

Hello all,
   Please email me (or post to the blog) with your groups for the reflection project no later than Tuesday. Thanks in advance.

Office hours for the remainder of the semester

Hello all,
    From now until the end of the semester, I will hold office hours inside VLSB, near little Yali's on both Wednesdays, from 10:30-2:00, and Thursdays, from 11:00-12:30, respectively. If you show up and, for whatever reason, cannot locate me--please give me a call (or text) alerting me to your presence (415.786.8787). Lastly, if you'd like to me, but neither of these times work with your schedule, please email or cal me so that we set up an alternative meeting time.

For section this Thursday

Hello all,
   For section this upcoming Thursday, we will cover the readings and construct concept maps, like we've always done, albeit, sans prompts provided by yours truly. So, please read over each of the assigned readings for the week; however, because we will have assigned groups (below) you need focus on only one reading.

For Appadurai

AJISAKA, JAMIE TATSUKO

AMAKAWA, NAOMI CATHERINE
BABINA, POLINA
BONTE, ALEXANDER HARMON
BORJA, WESLEY DEAN
CLAROS, MAINOR ALBERTO

Hull & Stornaiuolo

JACOBS, KEVIN MICHAEL
KADAKIA, RIMA M
LAVOIE, ANAIS R
LEE, JEONG SEON
LIN, YVONNE SHIRLEY
MARQUEZ, JACLYN ASHLEY

Stein

MENDOZA, JENNIFER DENISE
NEVINS, JESSICA LYNN
SANDOVAL, CYNTHIA VIRGINIA
SEGURADO RODEZNO, ADRIANA MARIA
SINGH, NAVNEET KAUR

Stornaiuolo, Hull, and Nelson

WAYLAND, JEFFREY
WILLIAMS, CIARA JUANITA
WU, JOANNA SARAH
YUAN, YANG WEI WILLIAM
ZARATE, LILIANA

URGENT: Field notes

Hello all,

There are quite a few of you that are significantly behind on field notes. If you fall into this category, it would behoove you to begin making them up right away. I am not willing to be inundated with field notes over the last two to three weeks of class. Please get them in; otherwise, I will begin to dock points for field notes that are decidedly (more than one month) late.

IMPORTANT: From Adam....

Please also tell your students to bring whatever they have to work on their case studies. We may just talk about topics, but we may also do some coding.

Questions for this week: Boal; Katz; and, Newkirk

Augusto Boal, in the excerpt from The Theater of the Oppressed, while clearly invoking Freire is also making a particularly Marxist argument. Consequently, I am pasting (below) excerpts from a paper I wrote, many moons ago, on Marx's conception of commodity fetishism. These excerpts will, hopefully, give you all a better, albeit terse, handle on an (orthodox) Marxist critique of Capitalism.

         A commodity is a man-made object of utility, which in its simplest form is encountered as a use-value, i.e., it fulfills a human need. This form, however, must be changed in order for a useful thing to become a commodity. Marx gives the example of a table, a table as a table in its “tableness” is a useful article; once this very same table becomes a commodity, i.e., a product intended for an anonymous other, it is stripped of the identity that its former designation as simply a useful article, afforded it. Its usability, or use-value, is no longer important; rather, it is the ability of the table to be exchanged for something else (once it is encountered as a commodity), for some other commodity that becomes paramount.  

       This, for Marx, is the fetishism of commodities. In this transmutation, the table’s former use-value is usurped by its exchangeability in the marketplace; thus, transforming the table to an exchange-value. The table now stands as merely a value, capable, even intended to be traded, bartered, or sold, i.e., a commodity. In this transaction, the commodity-form finds its value relative to all other commodities. This transmogrification is peculiar to Marx because he asserts that, in the final instance, the only "thing" that can produce value is congealed human labor. More specifically, he argues that a commodity that requires 6 hours of congealed human labor to produce is three times more valuable than a commodity that requires only 2 hours to produce.

        Though this theory seems immanently plausible, capitalism relies on another formula altogether.

Capitalism relies on an inorganic universal equivalent: gold. For capitalists, gold becomes the expression of all abstract homogenous human labor in general, by overshadowing the real equivalent behind any monetary exchange: human labor. This usurpation by money ,as the equivalent-form, opens the door for the exploitation of wage-workers by the capitalist. Money as the universal equivalent is granted autonomy to exert its seemingly unlimited, supernatural power over the worker because of its ability, in a capitalist society, to control marketplace relations.  

       What is more, according to Marx, capitalism, primarily because of the investiture of power imbued the universal equivalent, transmogrifies the proletariat (i.e., the working class) in much the same way that it does the use-value of the aforementioned table.

          Precisely because the goal of a capitalist society is the accumulation of capital, i.e., to establish surplus-value as the source of all incomes, save wages to the wage workers; this accumulation is possibly only through the exploitation of the proletariat. Workers, unlike wealthy capitalists, are without the means to produce a commodity for sale in the market place; therefore, they must, instead, sell their ability to work as a commodity, i.e., their bodies. The ability to work/produce is purchased for an agreed upon wage by the capitalist; this commodity is called labor-power. When the agreed upon wage falls short of the value produced by,  the labor that it was used to purchase, the result is a profit which is created from surplus-value. 

(For example, a laborer is paid $5 an hour for 10 hours to create a commodity that will fetch $70 in the market, the $20 difference, in Marx's theorization, constitutes the surplus value.)

 

There will be section this Thursday.

Adam has graciously agreed to oversee section this Thursday. It will take place in our usual room, VLSB 2060, at the regular time (12:40).

IMPORTANT:Tomorrow section will begin at 1:05, instead of 12:40.

On second thought...

Hello all,
   Instead of posted question, we will cover the weekly readings in groups for section this week. We want to pay special attention to how the assigned readings conceptualize and subsequently construct case-studies. Additionally, we will talk about data analysis and coding. I am including two case studies that I have conducted, not because I am an expert, but because I can speak directly to the process that I undertook.

Weekly assignment and literacy autobiography grades

Hello all,
   I want everyone of you to enjoy every last minute of spring break, therefore, I will not post questions until tomorrow. The questions, along with discussion groups, will be posted by 1:00 pm tomorrow

As far as literacy autobiography grades are concerned, I will have them back to you along with your papers, electronically (with comments), no later than 5:00pm this Thursday.

For class tomorrow

We will use our time tomorrow much like a writers' workshop. So, please bring in what you have written thus far of your literacy auto/biography. If you want to workshop (some portion of) your paper, please bring in at least 4 copies; otherwise, you are free to spend tomorrow's section writing (in class). Additionally, I will be available for one-on-one consultations during class.

See you all tomorrow.

For section this Thursday

What to bring for Thursday:

An extraordinarily brief “prospectus”, 250 words or less,  that includes (4 copies):

• 1.      Your thesis
• 2.      Potential theoretical conceptual frame
• 3.      The literature that you plan to use/integrate

This may be in the form of an outline, or in as a more traditional (mini)prospectus.

Here’s an example of an introduction to a prospectus:

        Lev Vygotsky (1931) defines the Zone of Proximal Development (henceforth, ZPD) as the space in which a novice learner’s development can be improved through interaction with a relative expert (pp.99).This conception is consistent with my own literate awakening:  It wasn’t until my brother, who is two years my senior, decided to read with me that I was then able to begin reading at grade-level.

There is nothing particularly outstanding about this introduction; however, do take note that it is framed by a particular theory. This theoretical frame, in this case ZPD, would help to guide the rest of this paper (were it a real, as opposed to hypothetical, paper). You also want to workshop other readings that you feel are germane to your paper, i.e., readings that you plan to integrate. For example, sticking with the hypothetical paper above, I may write something like this:

        In his autobiography, Fredrick Douglass tells of his literate awakening and the effect that it had on him psychologically and even materially. His learning to read was, though it predated the concept,  also consistent with Vygotsky’s conception of ZPD. He offers the example of trading bread for literacy instruction…

more maps

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concept maps from last section.

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Group assignments & Instructions

We will continue to use the group format to respond to these questions. So, to be clear: each group member can answer any question for the reading assigned to her or his group. Also, if you do not see your name on any of the reading lists below, please email me; I am working from the two most recent attendance sheets.

This week the groups are as follows:

For the Gates, Jr. reading: 

Lead discussant: Wesley Borja

Rima

Shant

Yvonne

Alex B.

Jaquelyn

Jeff

Liliana

Adriana

For Douglass

Lead discussant: Naveet Singh

Jeong Seong

Polina

Kevin

Anias

Alex

For Laurie

Lead discussant: Joanna Wu

C.J.

Jessica

Jennifer

Mainor

Wiliam

Anu

Questions for the week: Literacy and race

Gates, Jr., Race as the Trope of the World

• Gates, Jr, argues that race is a trope, i.e., a word/concept that is used figuratively, what does he mean by this?
• Contiguously, is there a problem with the metaphor that he offers? More specifically, does Gates, Jr., by relegating race to an abstract concept, a metaphor, fail to account for the real, material effects fomented by race?
• Gates writes that  (pp.591 of the original text) many Western writers and (pseudo)scientists have  sought to reify race by arguing that it is inherently biological, i.e., on page 595 of the original reading, that it is “natural, essential, and absolute.” What, in your opinion, would prompt these writers and scientist to espouse this particular stance, and, whose interests does it serve (explain)?
• Likewise, Gates argues that there has been and continues to be an (erroneous) conflation between “race” and intelligence that permeates and pervades western thinking regarding innate ability/intelligence; who are the beneficiaries of this line of thinking?

Fredrick Douglass, Narrative life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave

• On page 53 of the original text, Douglass recounts the vicissitudes of his own literate awakening. What does his account speak to regarding the internalization of negative, oppressive reinforcement?
• What caused Douglass’ aversion to thinking? Why did it quickly become the bane of his existence?

Laurie Olson, We make each other racial...

• In your opinion, is there anything particularly glaring that Laurie missed in her analysis of and and explanation of the racialized spatialization of her target school?
• Does Laurie’s assertion that “we make each other racial”, in your opinion, exculpate people and apparatuses that support and benefit from long-standing vestiges of institutional and structural inequity?
• More specifically, in your opinion, does she simply address a symptom while eliding an authentic discussion of the root cause (the disease, if you will)?

No discussion questions this week.

Instead, in addition to mapping the readings, we also will discuss both the upcoming Literacy Autobiography (3/18) and Case study Assignments. Enjoy the rest of the long weekend.