Ways with Words Ethnographic Study

         In Ways with Words, Shirley Brice Heath studies the language acquisition and use of the member in two communities, Roadville and Trackton. Throughout the book, Heath continually affirms that the children of Roadville and Trackton’s different language use are a result of different cultural practices: family structures, community members’ roles, socialization, religious practices, and more. Implicit under this argument is that all children’s language use is shaped by the language patterns of their community, and as such, these cultural language usages need to be taken into consideration when teaching literacy. Literacy does not occur in a vacuum; the history, both of the individual and of the socio-cultural landscape of that individual, impacts learners at the attempt to acquire literacy.

     

         This sort of  ethnographic study is the kind of research I would interested in doing. However,   rather than looking at traditional geographic communities, I would be interested in the language of “cyber” communities. In my undergraduate study, I almost touched upon this type of research. I explored the fan-fiction communities and how they used language to create and maintain their communities. Heath’s methodology is very intriguing, and I would like to modify some of her techniques on unobtrusive study for my own research.        

Ways with Words: Chapter 5 Group Notes

*Group Notes: Everywhere there's a "{}" it means there needs to be something added or explained more. Feel free to add anywhere though.

-----  Raquel

Ways with Words, Chapter 5

            In Ways with Words, Shirley Brice Heath studies the language acquisition and use of the member in two communities, Roadville and Trackton. Throughout the book, Heath continually affirms her argument: the children of Roadville and Trackton’s different language use are a result of different cultural practices: family structures, community members’ roles, socialization, religious practices, and more. In Chapter 5, Heath maintains that storytelling is an important part of socialization in both Trackton and Roadville; however the “form, occasions, content, and functions” of language use vastly differs between the two communities and children’s language use reflects these differences. The chart on the following page demonstrates these differences in detail.

A Few Questions to Keep in Mind:

1.     What boundaries are being observed/respected when only certain groups can perform songs with the Trackton girls?

2.     Why can preschool children and adults engage in an insulting banter when later the school-age children are reprimanded for the same behavior?

3.     How can teachers utilize the language children use at home before school in the classroom?

4.     Which community does your upbringing reflect? And how did that affect your experience in school?

5.     How might the emphasis on children not questioning adults in Roadville affect them when they leave the community?

Stories in Roadville and Trackton

	Roadville	Trackton
FORM	·        Definition: ·        Formulaic Openings ·        Strict adherence to timeline, facts, and truths ·        No negative critique of characters in story ·        End with a moral/proverb ·        Storytelling is initiated by high status members of the community ·        Conversation is sex-segregated: {}	·        Definition: ·        Few formulaic openings + begins with abstractions ·        No Strict adherence to timeline, facts, or truth ·        Critique of story’s characters allowed ·        No formulaic ending-may sometimes reaffirm main character’s strengths or the story’s point. ·        Storytelling opportunities are based on competition won by the most aggressive. ·        Conversation is sex-segregated:{}
FUNCTION	·        Entertainment ·        Unifies community by testing relationships and declaring new ones ·        Is a means of expressing knowledge of social norms through use of proverbs	·        Entertainment ·        Provides platform to expound upon individual’s strength in the face of conflict. (Can sometimes be seen as a common, unifying experience-p. 166)
CONTENT	·        Factual ·        Personal experience, biblical parables/proverbs because the bible is the only written text available to the community	·        Exaggeration: truths are only the universals of human strength and persistence
CHILDREN’S ACQUISTION OF ORAL TRADITION	·        Parents read books to children and ask formulaic questions of children ·        Parents coach their children to tell a story in linear order and factually ·        Adults have a separate adult-specific speech sphere where children are not allowed in. ·        Children are not allowed to question anything	·        Parents do not read to children; children learn the importance of storytelling on their own through observation ·        Children’s acquisition of oral tradition is aided by the whole community, not exclusive to parents ·        Children are allowed to listen to adult conversations. ·        Inclusio{}

Transformative Education Online

            There are many overlapping concepts in Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Education for Critical Consciousness. One of the repeated points is the role of science and technology in the relationship between the oppressors and the oppressed. In Education for Critical Consciousness, Freire explains that communication technology, in the hands of the oppressors, is used as a means of social control, a means of effectively distributing mass communiqués to the oppressed (p.128). This manipulation, in the form of propaganda, discourages the oppressed from engaging in “education for liberation” (p. 128). Similarly, in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire reinforces the point: “More and more, the oppressors are using science and technology as unquestionably powerful instruments for their purpose: the maintenance of the oppressive order through manipulation and repression. The oppressed, as objects, as "things," have no purposes except those their oppressors prescribe for them” (p.60). However, the future prospects of science and technology are not so grim, as Freire says that they can be used to prompt positive change if they are used by and for the oppressed.

            I thought these points were very interesting, primarily because of my own personal interest in technology and how it has affected my education. In many ways, I can see the signs of mass-communicated prescriptions on my life. On the other hand, technology has played a pivotal role in two transformative learning events in my life. The first event occurred in my junior year, when I took an Early American History course with a less than enthusiastic lecturer. I could not focus on the lectures because of their meandering into personal topics and the occasional rant. Determined not to fail the class, I began to search Google.com for supplemental lectures. To my surprise and delight, I found lectures that had been recorded at other colleges and documentaries from the History Channel available for free on Youtube. It was a great turning point because it was one step closer in my journey to realizing that I could teach myself once I understood how I learned.

            The second event was my discovery of social activist blogs. Although I primarily stick to one social network called Tumblr, I’ve learned so much about a wide range of topics through it. For example, I follow an art history blog called MedievalPOC. The blog’s owner posts artwork of people of color throughout the ages in European art, but especially in the medieval period. The blog’s mission statement declares its “purpose in creating this blog is to address common misconceptions that People of Color did not exist in Europe before the Enlightenment, and to emphasize the cognitive dissonance in the way this is reflected in media produced today” (MedievalPOC, Mission Statement). In exploring this core thesis, the owner branches off into many subtopics: the importance of diverse representation in media, academic gatekeeping through monetary means and jargon,  the accepted notion of objectivity in telling history, the role oppression plays in the classroom, and many more topics. A recent post that caught my attention is the wide-spread cropping of artworks that excludes people of color (Link to post here). The post prompted me to think about how many cropped pictures I was presented with in history and art history classes, and why it was cropped in such a manner.  Blogs like MedievalPOC are wonderful springboards for self-directed transformative learning.

Example from the MedievalPOC post about cropping.