WEEK 9: Adrienne Rich

1. "In teaching women, we have two choices: to lend our weight to the forces that indoctrinate women to passivity, self-depreciation, and a sense of powerlessness, in which case the issue of "taking women students seriously" is a moot one; or to consider what we have to work against, as well as with, in ourselves, in our students, in the content of the curriculum, in the structure of the institution, in the society at large." To me, this is very crucial. Rich is saying that, as women, we have to step up and become better. Today, I would say over half the teachers at high schools and universities are women. I believe they still can be relevant to today's students, although not was much as in '78.

2.  I believe the issues of race and class are actually more extreme than those of gender. Still today, people are judged by their skin color and the way they look and carry themselves rather than who they really are. I do agree with Rich, although in my opinion, race and class are placed out more vigorously. You are going to see this at any University still. Although, at UL, everyone is accepted pretty much the same. It is not like high school where you get "shunned" and you are "the weird kid" if you are not like everyone else.

Discussion #7

For Lisa D. Deplit's article "Education in a Multicultural Society: Our Future's Greatest Challenge," her purpose of writing this was to help those reading it understand what goes on in classrooms between students and teachers in a our multicultural world. Her attitude while writing this was formal and to the point. You can tell she knows very much about what she is talking about, as her background is very seasoned. The purpose of her audience is to explain the downfall with many different cultures in our world today. The attitude of her audience should be interested and wanting to know more. Their background might be not actually knowing what goes on in our world today with the multicultural society. The text is very good. She went into a lot of dept while writing the article. The tools used to make the text were her own thoughts, facts, and opinions, but also that of other quality. Tools she used to decipher the text, I would think, would be a dictionary and computer. She spent a lot of time writing this, so it was not a last minute paper. The place would most likely be in her own quiet space. Those readying this would be anyone who is interested in knowing more about our society or those who are in school and have to.

On Self Respect

1. Didion did use a lot of allusions to support and illustrate her points in her paper, BUT the ones used were not all familiar to me. Those used were not from classic films or books that normal, every day people would have watched or read. I believe that if she would have deeper explained exactly what she was trying to mean by using them in her story, it would have made a lot more sense. If someone does not fully understand something they are reading, it is not going to be all that interesting to them. Her illusions were somewhat helpful for me, just because I have seen or read a couple of the examples she gave. To other people though, who have not been introduced to the materials, it would have no positive effect.

2. When Didion made the statement about "commiting adultry," I did not quite understand what she meant by it. She does not exactly go into full detail with it, so we do not fully understand what she means by it. I think, if she would have clarified it a little more we would have had a better understanding of it. Although, she does have some very good points in the paper. Back to the "adultry" topic. No one with self respect, in my mind, would commit adultry. I do know of some people who have cheated on their spouse, and they have gone back to confess what they have done. In my opinion, when someone does do this, they not only do not have respect for themselves, but they also do not have respect for their spouse either. One example from her paper of this is "The careless, incurably dishonest Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby."

3. Her statements about self respect as a discipline are connected to the idea of building writing skills by you having to really discipline and train yourself to become a good writer. To some, writing comes naturally. Although, to others, it is very difficult and takes a good time to achieve. Your mind has to be set and clear to be able to think properly on what is "right." You cannot just put a pencil in your hand, join it to the paper and hope that your paper just starts writing yourself. Nothing in life come easy.