“The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse,” Lisa Delpit

IWA: 4/3/13

Summary: In her article, “The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse,” Lisa Delpit attempts to tell her audience, probably students and other scholars, that, in contrast to Gee, it is in fact possible to belong to more than one discourse community. She argues through the use of many success stories that we can keep our dominate discourse that we learn at home but throughout our lives our experiences help to mold other discourses.

Synthesis: This article obviously reminds me of every article we read recently but, to be more creative, it reminded me of Brandt’s piece from the beginning of the semester. Both used real life examples to demonstrate their argument which helped their piece seem more credible. Also the way she discussed how other discourses are formed reminded me of our literacy sponsors.

QD 1: To me I don’t think it matters whether she identifies her race or not. I also don’t think she should address it. Honestly I believe it’s better if she remains a “figment of my imagination” so to speak because it means she becomes less biased in her writing.

QD 3: I agree with Delpitt’s argument and think she argued it in a good way by using several different examples of people who became successful. Using several different examples really helps support what she’s arguing. However it does, in a way, make her seem bias. Every good argument needs to show the other side as well so if she had included other, minor examples of how people failed it would make her seem more reliable.

AE 2: I think she started off her argument in a good way by saying that she first agreed with him but upon further inspection found trouble with his argument. It proves that she really thought about the subject and that it’s okay to argue with other sources. I’m not sure if we could use this in our own work but it definitely helps to know that we don’t have to agree with everyone in our projects.

AE 4: I think there are certainly people who enter college without the proper skills. I believe some lack the responsibility to attend class and study and sometimes even the social skills to be willing to break out of their bubble and meet new people. However I do not think we should judge these people any less. Everyone develops at their own rate and are trying their best. Eventually they may catch up. I believe we should judge them based upon whether they’re actually trying to change or not and how well they accomplish this change.

Afterthoughts: I thought this article was really nice because it showed me that it’s totally okay to properly argue with another scholar in my own work. It also showed me that sometimes to appear more credible you can argue others’ works.