Blog Post 31

I. Summary

Lisa Delpit’s article, “The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse”, is all about the different types of discourse, mainly primary and secondary discourse.  This article of is mainly to disprove James Paul Gee’s theory on primary and secondary and his ideas of being involved in a discourse community.  It talks about planning on not getting in a discourse community if you are already in a DC because you will have many problems change discourses in the future.  She gives many examples of black people that did not have a primary DC that were successful in life.  She says that these people would not have had the opportunities they had if the teachers had Gee’s mind set about discourse communities. 

II. Dialectic Notebook

In this column you RESPOND to the quotes	In this column you TYPE OUT the quote
This quote relates to Gee’s article in many ways. The first discourse we learn is the most influential discourse in our lives. It always says that switching communities can be difficult.	"Gee maintains that there are primary discourse, those learned in the home, and secondary discourses, which are attached to institutions or groups one might later encounter".
This quote introduces Delpit’s main argument against Gee. Once you are in a discourse community is very hard to get into another discourse community without complicating terms with the other discourse community. The individual is born into a discourse community, and changing is a difficult thing to do.	"The status of individuals born into a particular discourse tends to be maintained because primary discourses are related to secondary discourses of similar status in our society".
Delpit gives advice to what teachers should do to students who have a different home discourse and literacy.  She says that if they are not well educated about this than they will not be successful in college.	"First, teachers must acknowledge and validate students' home language without using it to limit students' potential"
This quote is important in it demonstrates Delpits claims. She talks about a man named Clarence Cunningham was a very good football player in high school but only had a C average.  The teachers seeing his potential made him work harder on his schoolwork or else he was not allowed to play football anymore.  The teachers were his biggest influence.	“Clarence Cunningham, now a vice chancellor at the largest historically black institution in the United States, grew up in a painfully poor community in rural Illinois”
This quote really shows what teachers should do for students that come from backgrounds that are not as great as other students.  Delpit then says that teachers can discuss openly the injustices of allowing certain people to succeed based not a talent but what your last name is.  This quote was very propionate around the time college applying began.  You already who was getting what before the even applied.	“A final role that teachers can take is to acknowledge the unfair “discourse-stacking” that our society engages in.”
Delpit is wanting to fight the oppressed people and get them the an education that everyone should get.  This quote really shows that people should change so that people of a poor background can have the same opportunities as a person that is rich.	“Individuals can learn the “superficial features” of dominant discourses, as well as their more subtle aspects.”

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