Reading Things That Are Hard to Read + Authenticity (45 min)

Take out your journals so I can give you credit for this week’s journal entry.

Follow these steps while re-visiting and re-reading “What is authenticity?” by Theo Van Leeuwen (what you read and annotated for homework):

• If you have an app on your phone or your computer to time yourself, set the timer to 5 minutes and read the entire article. You can do that, right? In 5 minutes? Go do that.
• Okay, try this next. Read the abstract (is there one? What is an abstract? Find out!). Read the headings (are there any?). Read the beginning of each section (are there sections?). Read the first sentences of the paragraphs. What does this paper seem to be about? Write that down as annotations in Perusall at a place where you feel it most represents what the article is arguing.
• Annotate any words that are familiar but you don’t understand how the author is using them.
• Annotate any unfamiliar words.
• Find the part where you felt you followed the argument of the author most clearly. Annotate it to mark it.
• Find the part where you felt the most lost. Create an annotation why you felt so lost.

Before we discuss authenticity in relation to this article we read, let’s try some role playing and ACTING!

Okay, I need three volunteers. Let’s find a topic first. What is a fun thing to talk about that two of you know a lot about? The third volunteer should know very little about this topic.

Okay, the first volunteer has to go outside. You’re going to come back in 2 minutes. We will come get you when we are ready.

The other two volunteers, have a conversation about this topic. Where do we start?

Okay let’s bring the other person back in. Join their conversation and note how you feel and if you struggle to understand.

Let’s debrief. What did that feel like? How did you try to understand the conversation?

So what does this have to do with writing in academic contexts? Let’s think about what Kenneth Burke calls the parlor:

“Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally’s assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress” (The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action, Kenneth Burke, 1941).

How were these experiences (the conversation with the three classmates, Burke’s parlor) similar to or different from reading we did for homework today?

Authenticity

So, what is it? What is authenticity? Or, rather, what are all of the possible meanings of authenticity that Van Leeuwen mentions? Use specific quotes from Van Leeuwen to help you think through your answer here. Take a moment to again review the article and be ready with at least one specific quote to support what you want to contribute. Here, we are going to vomit. We are gong to vomit out as many things as possible. Just get it out. You’ll feel better afterward. I will do the clean up in the list below:

• Originality is not questioned
• what makes someone who they are, essence
• some systematic way to determine origin/genuine nature
• faithful reconstruction
• life goal that is not altered
• reflection of core beliefs
• spontaneous speech
• judgments of performance, up to observer
• style of the artist
• same topic, different questions and different perspectives or “selves”
• It’s subjective

I want us to watch this video:

Is it “we” instead of “I” anyway?

Who is “I”? All the cells, the brain changes, the bacteria, the viruses, the connections (and disconnections) with other people (and animals) who influence us, and so on. Is there an “I” we can easily identify and isolate?

What does it mean to be authentic? Who are you anyway? What else, besides microbes, might make us think about authenticity beyond the traditional ways we think about it?

Why are we doing this? Why are we asking all of these questions?

Workshopping a Half Draft (45 min)

Let’s use your writing to keep the conversation going.

Read this draft and tell me who this person is and how they are channeled through a clock. Underline moments where you feel like you get a sense of that. Underline moments, too, where you feel like you could get more of a sense of that.

Also: mark moments that you liked, that were engaging, any ideas you have for other possible directions that the writer could go in, etc.

Ground rules:

We start with what is working well and what we admire.

We are specific.

All comments about moving the draft toward revision have to start from framework of what the author is already doing well in the draft.

Let’s talk about it!

Next Time

-You will submit your full literacy narrative draft onto Brightspace as a .doc or .pdf file. It must be AT LEAST 1,000 words and you must follow the instructions in the prompt. I’ll put up the assignment soon. Probably later today.

-Make sure you are ready to share a draft with others in your peer review group. I would recommend bringing printed copies so you can get right to work. If you don’t do that, it will take time to email each other copies or share another way. Remember: there are peer review letters due by the end of class, which is part of your grade so you want to get moving quickly!

-No journal entry next week since we have no class on Oct 2.