Monday, October 20, 2008

Gee & Delpit

Delpit has a few terms that differ from what Gee has defined them to be. One example is acquisition. Gee defines it as some information that is given rather than being learned by a student on their own. Delpit states that acquisition is an adaptation of values and discourses that a student already has. Another word that seems to contradict Gee is that of cheating. Gee seems to want to give students’ answers and Delpit thinks students should figure some things on their own. Gee seems to think that students come with information into the classroom and that everything else is learned to given to them there. Delpit thinks that “cheating” or showing the students how to work a system or giving them all of the information in not very conducive to learning in the classroom.
Delpit’s essay seems to take Gee’s ideas and terminology and change them to fit their ideas on how a classroom might work well. As far as where I stand on their issues, I think that both authors have good points here and there and together they make a good strong argument to what a successful classroom is. They also mirror together what a good relationship between students and teachers can be. These arguments are relevant to use as English teachers because it shows that not all students coming into a classroom are going to be at the same level. They are all going to have different home, dominant, or secondary discourses (terms depend on the author). As teachers we need to acknowledge this and find ways to help all students in our classroom no matter what previous and current discourses they may have encountered.
I would like to further look into the concept of “cheating”. I get the main idea but I would like to see examples.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You make a good point about how important their arguements are for English teachers. I like what you said about realizing that students come into the classroom at different levels and that teachers should recognize that. I always knew that was true but I never realized that discourse communities could affect that as well. I always thought it was test scores and stuff. Anyways you say a lot of good things about how important their arguements were that are definitely agreeable.

Whit said...

You analysis of the differences between gee and delpit's usage of terms was solid and well based. Well done.