Watch the following TED talk:
"The Danger of the Single Story," by Chimamanda Adiche
You
are tasked with completing an exercise in framing, which will help you
develop analysis and synthesis. Let's say there's a family on vacation
in Washington DC. The family splits up on the first day- two older
siblings go to a pub and watch a soccer game while the rest of the
family goes to several museums. The older siblings take several photos
with other patrons at the bar and enjoy lots of talk and conversation
with several soccer fans from various countries discussing the law,
politics, ethics, and philosophy.
The younger siblings
and the parents take pictures of the family at several museums in front
of displays and outside the Washington Monument - the experience is
framed as family togetherness. Mom and Dad argue that family
togetherness is key to literacy learning, and the shared family
experience at museums underpinned good literacy learning. The older
siblings argue that their experiences in networking, making connections,
and meeting new people is key to literacy learning, which they
experienced at the pub. Notice that each side of the family is making a
claim- and these claims are not in direct opposition to one another, but
they are different frameworks that lead to specific claims.
Consider
the argument(s) presented in the Chimamanda Adiche paired with claims
presented by Brandt. How do these claims relate to one another? How do
the claims overlap? Brandt, for example, claims that opportunities for
literacy sponsorship often affect how far one may have to reach to
obtain literacy learning. Brandt uses comparison between lived
experiences of Dora Lopez and Raymond Branch as evidence supporting the
idea that literacy learning is stratified, with opportunity determined
by factors like socioeconomic standing, race, ethnicity, and gender. How
might the point Chimamanda Adiche makes about the danger of a single
story leading to over-generalizations connect with an argument Brandt is
making? How might you use Adiche's argument to frame the lived
experiences of individuals from this week's readings? How might Malcolm
X's or Sherman Alexie's lived experiences complicate, extend, or
challenge claims presented by Brandt or Adiche?
Image
this assignment as an invitation to compare claims and supporting
evidence and explore further possibilities for complicating and
challenging the claims that others make. Remember in Brandt's text, the
second section focuses on ways that competition, economic forces, and
politics can shape literate practices and the emergence of new kinds of
literate skill sets. Brandt used the example of Dwayne Lowery, who was
once a successful negotiator supporting unions against governments,
struggled when litigation came to underpin negotiations, and instead of
traditional verbal negotiations, legal briefs became the standard format
for disputes between labor and government. Lowery struggled to learn
how to write legal documents, which eventually forced him out of work.
How might some of the experiences presented in other readings, your own
experience, or experiences you have read about or seen elsewhere,
complicate, extend, or challenge Brandt's point that literacy demands
are affected by economics, politics and competition?
The
examples from the two paragraphs above are great places to start
thinking about how introducing new evidence (the experiences of others
as presented in other stories) can reshape or extend arguments. These
also give you a starting point for thinking through the ways that new
evidence might complicate, extend, alter, or challenge a framework for a
different argument. You are NOT, however, bound to using these two
claims. Brandt makes a different claim in the third part of her piece
that you might also use for this discussion.
Earning
full credit on this requires that you demonstrate some abilities to
synthesize to show that you can look critically at the structure of
claims and supporting evidence. Less credit is earned for attempts to
synthesize that are not comprehensively developed, but one can earn in
the B range for synthesis attempts that fall short. Postings that mostly
summarize content without doing synthesis will earn Cs or Ds. Depending
on the depth of the summary and the writer's ability to demonstrate
understanding of key claims, either a C or a D will be awarded. Putting
forth little effort and delivering a simple paragraph will earn a mark
of F and those who don't post will earn zeroes.
How Brandt perfectly describes the influences of race, gender, and socioeconomic standings of literacy through her examples – Logan McKinney
ReplyDeletePART 1
The correlation I see between Brandt and Chimamanda Adiche is the way in which Adiche’s life has been full of stereotypical assumptions based on cultural or wealth standings. Growing up in Nigeria, I can start to understand how she viewed her poor houseboy as being “nothing but poor”. Similarly, the way Adiche’s roommate judged her about not listening to the same music or having the knowledge to work a stove just because she came from African. She was shocked to hear of an African native that wasn’t ravaged with war or extreme poverty. The way Brandt conveys her point that literacy demands are affected by politics, competition, and economics has been proven in her given examples and in the case of Chimamanda Adiche’s life experiences. Lets take little Raymond Branch. Growing up in a well-set family and multiple possibilities for influences, Raymond, didn’t have to look far to see what would become his passion. Because of his fathers work Raymond fell in love with computers. Working on them day and night, scourging the town for parts to use were just his cup of tea. Working at University of Stanford, Raymond’s father, was able to give his son access to things ordinary kids couldn’t even dream of. Having a father have the most advanced computer systems and software at his fingertips must of made Raymond overflow with joy. It can be argued that his literate sponsor was his father, and because of that, Raymond found his passion. Conversely, Dora Lopez did not have such an easy go around. She was born into a poor family and moved out west as a child. At an early age she began to teach herself how to read and write in Spanish, something her siblings were not able to accomplish. However, things did work out for Dora. She was exposed to computers at a young age and it fostered a connection that helped guide her down the road. Because of the position she was in she had also found her passion just like Raymond.
Part 2 continued
ReplyDeleteAs you can see there is a difference between the two teenagers. We can see how Raymond’s early literacy learning has been impacted by his race, male gender, and high socioeconomic family profile. For Raymond, the university was an accessible economy of intellectual thinkers and helpful mentors that were at his disposal. Brandt refers to this as being “born at the right time and lived in the right place.” (50). We can see how the development and eventual economic worth of Raymond’s literacy skills were outmatched by the peripheral service systems Dora Lopez was forced to use.
Moreover, I believe that there are other factors at work here, in both examples. I feel as if the family connection between Raymond and his parents help nurture his passion for computers. Without permission from his parents to go explore different stores may have changed Raymond’s course. Also, what if his family did not gift him with the computer he received when he was 12 years old? This change could have caused Raymond’s passion turn into a fun hobby. The same could be said about Dora Lopez. If it weren’t for the teaching assistant job that exposed her to computers
Sponsors promoting Uniqueness While Perceiving The "One Story" - Joshua Koller
ReplyDeleteIn approaching both Brandt’s and Adichie’s pieces, we can see they both use a variety of real-life examples expressed through stories of specific people. Because of this, these examples actually serve as a nice bridge in analyzing how the “sponsors of literature” and the “one story” play into each other. Looking at Adichie’s personal account first, she mentions how the literature presented to young Nigerians is primarily from America and Europe. This literary material, used to promote skills and interest in reading for young children, serves as literary sponsor that is actually similar between Westerners and Nigerians. From here we can begin to look into how sponsors of literature can not only highlight what is actually similar between different groups rather than different, but also break the ‘one story’ at the same time. In other words, recognition of these early factors in reading breaks down sub-groups of people, and forms both a larger universal group and establishes us as individuals with unique literary paths. To see this in action, we can see how Adichie’s roommate was surprised a Nigerian had such good English, despite the fact that they had similar reading materials as children. This breaks down the ‘one story’ to show how the two of them are actually quite similar. On the other hand, Adichie also found that much of her love of reading and writing stemmed from her discovery of Nigerian literature, which more-closely tied in with her own situation. This Nigerian literature was both something that her roommate (and the vast majority of non-Nigerians) would rarely even know of, but yet it left such an impact on Adichie and her own literary works. So here, we see common ground and diversity. Something I find worth noting here is that the sponsor that makes Adichie more unique is the one she had to reach farther to access, despite living at a university. So possibly from here, we could hypothesize that our (as multi-cultural humans) paths cross where things are widely accessible, and they differ on what we reach for as individuals.
Now to bring in another example to broaden this idea, we can look at Malcolm X. His story of literacy is vastly different from Adichie or even many other Americans. He did not receive a complete education, and lacked the opportunity to access the literary works of Adichie or other Americans. This ties into Brandt’s points about economic and social class. Malcolm X grew up in the US, from where many of Adichie’s early literary encounters originated. It was not X’s place of origin that challenged his accessibility, but rather his class in this country. This led him to reach outstandingly far to achieve education, and thus his story not only separates him from the ‘one story’ of his socioeconomic class in America, but also makes his literary background remarkably unique. While Adichie and many Western children start off reading about things like weather, Malcolm X’s situation forced him to start off with the entire dictionary.
What also ties these sponsors of literature to the ‘one story’ is how one’s own uniqueness or area of expertise gained through literary sponsors may have nothing to do with someone else’s. If we take Dora Lopez from Brandt’s piece, we read that she really focused on Mexican literature, even in her Midwest setting. While this makes her unique and well-read in one area, she also probably does not know much about Nigeria. Adichie, while specializing on cultural comparisons between America and Nigeria, spoke about her ‘one story’ about Mexicans. A point can be made here of how uniqueness in sponsors actually creates distance between individuals and leads them to assume the ‘one story’, while it is possible they are overlooking similarities on a different level.
Forcing the world to listen to the other side of the story - Haydn Turner
ReplyDeleteBrandt and Chimamanda Adiche both emphasize the importance of telling more than one side of a story and that different circumstances affect the outcomes greatly. Brandt focuses on how people are presented with varying opportunities. Two people from the same town can have access to completely different scenarios and take two distinct educational paths. Chimamanda would agree with this and they would both come to the conclusion that there socioeconomic standings, social group and ethnicities all play account in how they progress with learning and the struggles associated with each group. Chimamanda talks about how the constant lack of diverse stories and novels depicting certain groups can cause stereotypes to flourish. For example in relation to Brandt's text and how women were encouraged to become administrators or secretaries. This then ties into Chimamanda's because a single story is being told and much is left out, such as the women's potential to be president or in charge. These prejudices manipulate our potentials because we believe that we should be different from said single angled stories. Furthermore the danger of only showing a single side to the story is that it creates limitations that people simply accept as true because someone of more knowledge or wealth says so (Whether they actually are or not it's just that they are perceived to of higher standing) and forces them into playing the part of spoken about roles.
When we implement the mindset of Brandt and Chimamanda to look at Malcolm X, we can quite clearly see that he is a prime example of why race and other things that are associated with identity can frame a man into one mindset. Malcolm X was imprisoned in his early years and he would have been highly influenced by his peers and other black members of his community, to think that they are not as special as the white man because they do not have natural privileges. These injustices fueled a division of inequality throughout the United States in particular. It was only after Malcolm X became imprisoned that he became to educate himself with the help of books. He started to redevelop his mindsets and question why the white man dictated what the black man did. Due to only one side of the story being constantly shared, people thought they were inferior when in fact, they never showed their cultures or the good things that they do. The educational system back in the 60’s limited the ability for sponsors to connect with the sponsored. This is because of the split educations for black and white people and although they were meant to seem equal, one was clearly inferior and one was superior. This relates to the two people living in the same town by Brandt because one had natural advantages from birth and another did not. This happened to all be caused by different economic standings and the fact that some sides of the stories were never told because of selfish often monetary gains. Who gains from helping out their own race? The race that's helping. This is what sparked Malcolm X to become a key figure during the civil rights movement and force the world to listen to their side of the story for a change.
Stratification, and Competition- Alejandro Munoz
ReplyDeleteIn Chimamanda Adiche’s presentation “The Danger of the Single Story”, she describes her life experiences as she grows up and begins to see the world differently apart from the single sided story she, and many have been told. This epiphany that she had as a young child discovering that there were more books out there, without the usual white, blue-eyed protagonist in which she was accustomed to reading about. This with many others occurrences alike throughout her life led her to the conclusion she presents in the video, which is that one cannot predetermine or overgeneralize something from only one point of view. Deborah Brandt’s “Sponsors of Literacy” is a great example of Adiche’s point, Brandt describes how literacy learning comes about in multiple ways not just one. For example, she uses three ways that literacy learning comes about: stratification, competition, and reappropriation, using interviews from multiple people including Dora Lopez, Raymond Branch, Sarah Steele, and Dwayne Lowery.
In an excerpt from Malcolm X’s autobiography, where he talks about how he learned how to read and write in prison, demonstrates both points made above by Brandt and Adiche. Malcolm X shows how coming from a low-income family and being a racial minority he had to reach farther to achieve literacy learning, and the idea that stratification is a factor in achieving literacy learning. While at the same time providing evidence, that one cannot look at a group of people and overgeneralize them. The meaning behind this is there is a stereotype that many racial minorities end up and jail, and if they get out just, they eventually go back to their old ways. Malcolm brings light to the positive side of prison, which is time to reflect, time to get an education, time of change; prison allowed Malcolm to become the intellectual that he is remembered to be.
Brandt’s point that literacy demands are affected by economics, politics, and competition. There are plenty of example that ring true not just in the personal lives of many but in major companies like Apple, Samsung, etc. Competition between these two companies, and companies has left phones like the Razor by Motorola obsolete. In turn making companies like Apple and their employees learn, and evolve to read and write better codes, to make these phones faster and more efficient than ever before.
More than One side to the story- Viviana Stewart
ReplyDeleteChimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about the fact that most people only see one side of a story. In the passage that Brandt wrote, she talks about the impact that access has on a person’s literacy life. Adichie grow up on a university campus, so all around her there were books to read. Raymond Branch had a similar experience. They both had the ability and the accessibility to both get and read books. Brandt states that sponsors can come in many different ways. When Brandt talks about Dora Lopez, a Mexican American, and Raymond Branch, a European American, that both lived in the same town. She talks about the difference between the Spanish speaking, middle-class girl and the white, high-class boy. They both grow up and lived in the same town, yet like Adichic said they each have their own story, or side, to living in the same town.
As an adult, Malcolm X was an advocate for African Americans’ rights. To white, he was an obstacle to keep things the way they were. There is more the Malcolm X’s life than just being an advocate. He taught himself how to read and write by writing the whole dictionary. A lot of people didn’t know this about him. People just focus on one side of him, not the whole person; or they focus on his race, not what him can do. Race plays a big part of what Adichie calls a single story. In her writings, Brandt describes Dora and Raymond in a way that makes people think that she is stereotyping these people. I agree with what Adichie says about a single story.
I also agree with what Adichie says about a single story. I don't believe that anyone should judge others without knowing their full story. Unfortunately, this is impractical and can never happen. Humans are wired to make quick judgments as defense mechanism.
DeleteI agree with your view on Malcolm X. Too many people are focused on a specif part of his life and fail to see the big picture of what he was truly trying to accomplish. Times have continued to change since then and I would of liked to see how someone like him would of been perceived in our current day and age.
DeleteHi Robert,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your last paragraphs point of how some people have these natural advantages in life, but we as a society need to try and overcome these. I think that with the help of big companies, they can put aside some of their monetary gains or political incentives in order to create a better world, and a better place to live in for all, not just some. I think that we should especially start with the prison system and work more on rehabilitation as punishment causes this single story that all criminals are bad, and not that some might have genuine problems that we need to address
The Miracle of Both Sides of the Story
ReplyDeleteBoth Chimamanda Adidchie and Deborah Brandt use real-life examples to demonstrate the fact that one-sided stories are not all that they seem. Adidchie uses stories from her own personal life to show that she also has been guilty of the Danger of a Single story. Deborah Brandt, also realizes the importance of more than one side of the story, as she uses three different, real-life stories to show that literature education comes from multiple ways.
Chimamanda Adidchie is a story-teller from Nigeria, she starts her story saying that she began reading at the age of 4, reading British and American childrens book. She was also an early writer, writing stories generally regarding what she was reading about. She tries to demonstrate how susceptible, mostly children, we are to what we read, see, and hear. Her story tells that, the books she read gave her a look of the outside world, but all of the same world. She was not aware that girls of her color and hair type could exist and become iconic in literature. The danger of one story is the fact that when we hear single stories, these stories give us readers the overall idea of a topic. If we hear that hockey is a dangerous sport, we will always think hockey is a dangerous sport and we'll judge those that play it. Until we hear the other end of the story, and see it for ourselves to broaden our view of things, we'll have the danger of a single story.
In the situation of Malcolm X, the points made by these two women become evident. When looking back at Malcolm X's life, we see that he was a young, low income, African American. Because of that end of of the story, that danger of the single story, people would assume that this young man, had no way of being literate. But to insist that this is all he was made of, was wrong. Yet, Malcolm X still achieved literary excellence, despite his issues or looked down up circumstances. Malcolm X represents working to change what people think of you, to prove them wrong.
A slight difference between the two is the fact that Brandt basically summarizes the fact that economic, racial, and social standings affect, directly, how good peoples sources are. Brandt generalizes the fact that because of those standings, some have a better or worse chance of becoming literature educated. Adidchie corrects and helps this issue by saying that generalizing these kinds of things are wrong, because any ones story has more than we know. And all stories are not the same.
There is never a single story about any person, place, or thing.
Aliyah,
DeleteI like the example you made about Malcolm X. I agree that the TED talk, "the danger of the single story" ties in perfectly with Malcolm X's circumstance. Different cultures are put into categories rather than representing each individual. Malcolm X was able to prove people wrong and change their image of his cultural group.
In her TED Talk, Adichie says individuals throughout her life showed prejudice against her and others because they judged them based on their nationality, ethnicity, and socio-economic class before they got a chance to know them. Brandt suggests that exposure to literature and the encouragement of the exploration of literature by important individuals in an individual’s lives, the more likely one is to engage in reading and writing.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the claims of the two authors are about different topics, the stories of the individuals in Brandt’s essay are similar to the story of Adichie. In Brandt’s essay, she claims that people with a lot of help writing and access to books have an easier time becoming readers and writers. Adichie was given opportunities to become a writer. When she was just 4 years old, she began to read, and when she was 7, she began to write. Her parents were not as poor as the people in the nearby village. This gave Adichie an opportunity to strive for excellence, more so than Fide.
I like that you sort of compared Adiche's upbringing to that of the people in Brandt's essay. She was definitely better off because she had more access to books, but just like the people that Brandt spoke about, they all ended up making the best of their situations. This just goes to show that we really are not composed of a single story.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe Effects of Power- Samantha Daleb
ReplyDeleteThe TED talk, “The Danger of the Single Story” and the book, Sponsors of Literacy discuss two different stories that indicate the same claim. Chimamanda Adichie talks about how she was raised in Nigeria and would only read books that were foreign, which made her convinced books only had foreigners in them. When she moved to America her roommate couldn’t understand why she spoke English so well and many other stereotypes regarding Africa. Throughout the TED talk she spoke strongly about the fact there are multiple stories within a culture, and society tends to only focus on what the media portrays. Her claim is that power dictates our beliefs and because of America’s cultural and economic power, she had many stories about America. Brandt’s story talks about how, “everybody’s literacy practices are operating in differential economies.” (Pg. 51) Raymond Branch and Dora Lopez were born around the same year and came from different economic backgrounds, as well as attended the same university. Raymond Branch was a European American that had access to computers at a young age. His sponsors, who were his parents, were able to give him all the tools he needed to succeed in literacy. Dora Lopez was a Mexican American who was raised much differently than Raymond. Dora spent her adolescence teaching herself how to read and write. Although Dora’s sponsors were also her parents, they had a much harder time obtaining the tools for her to succeed. The book describes her as a, “member of a culturally unsubsidized ethnic minority.” (Pg. 50) This presents a stereotype given that all ethnic minorities are at a disadvantage, when really it is determined by economic upbringing. Brandt and Adichie use different examples in their stories that demonstrate the same claim. The claim within the stories suggests power plays a major role in what society believes.
You made a good point to highlight Adichie's claim about America's global influence causing people all over the world to know more than the 'single story' about America. Seeing how much trouble Lopez had finding the types of Mexican literature in America shows that this isn't a two-way road - at least not for those who are underprivileged here. One thing that may have helped Adichie within her own country was the fact that her parents were involved with education, similarly to Branch's family. Adichie really become a valuable foil in the Lopez-Branch relationship, considering she is both a minority (in relation to America), and a bit privileged from a literary standpoint. She still had to reach a bit to find Nigerian literature while she still lived Nigeria, but it would be interesting to see how much more trouble it would have been for her to access Nigerian literature if she sooner lived in America.
DeleteWriting your own story
ReplyDeleteAfter listening to Chimamanda Adiche’s speech, I instantly noticed the connection between her concerns for the “single story” and Brandt’s illustration of how political and economic status can play a role in literacy. Brandt showed us through stories such as Dora Lopez’s, that your upbringing and access to literature can either make or break how you view reading and writing. Dora had decided, just like Chimamanda Adiche, that her life would be what she wanted it to be. Dora chose to learn how to write in spanish in order to better herself, and make her more well rounded in literacy. Just as Adiche chose to see people for more than just their stereotypical single story. Now, Adiche had better luck as far as books being more accessible to her, which supports Brandt’s claim, but she is now a huge advocate for writers everywhere. Taking this a step further, you can throw Malcolm X into the mix, and the idea still holds true. He was an outsider by many standards, and he chose to make his life better through learning the english language. By writing out the dictionary, and reading books, he was able to write his own story.
For many people, their political and economic classifications get in the way of them furthering their education, but just as Adiche stated, we are not just a “single story”. You can either choose to follow what seems like the given path or resist it and pave a new path so that you may further your literacy skills. I think these stories did a phenomenal job of illustrating that and depicting what it is really like to be an outsider and how to overcome it.
Yeah i totally agree, the parallels between the two were definitely there. Also i agree that they did a good job depicting what it was like to be an outsider and not being sponsored like others. One thing that fascinated me in Brandt's text, was the stories of overcoming despite economic hardship. For example, Dora Lopez's story of getting to college and having to work extra just to get through was very inspiring.
DeleteMaking One Story Everyone's Story
ReplyDeleteBrandt and Adiche relate when they talk about stereotypes according to race or economic status. Brandt compares Dora Lopez and Raymond Branch and how both lived in the same town at the same time, but they took different career paths because they didn’t have the same resources. Raymond Branch had the advantage of having a father, who was a professor and gave him the opportunity to be exposed to computer programming in his father’s lab. Because his parents were capable of buying him a computer, he was able to familiarize himself with computers and because of this, he became a successful writer of software and software documentation. Unlike Branch, Dora Lopez didn’t have as many resources as Branch because she came from a poor family, but that didn’t stop her from achieving what she wanted to do. Dora Lopez was able to teach herself how to read and write in Spanish, something her brother and cousins weren’t able to do. Even though Lopez had few resources like purchasing novels with her mother’s discount at the bookstore, this didn’t change the fact that she was able to not only learn how to read and write in Spanish, but also to teacher herself how to do it. Brandt made sure to include the ethnicities of Lopez and Branch so you can see the correlation to the resources available and how their lives turned out. Adiche can agree with Brandt that economic status and ethnicity can definitely have an effect to the resources available and the struggles with learning However, Adiche also warns us about this.
Because Brant compared Lopez and Branch, who both had different ethnicities, some people can imply that their lives turned out how they did because of their background. However, that is not the case. Just like how Adiche’s roommate expected her not to know how to speak English so fluently, it’s the same thing when Brandt says Lopez is Mexican American and didn’t know how to read and write. Some people might take her story and expect all Mexican Americans to be incapable of reading and writing. Adiche describes it as “one story becoming the only story and can make a person become that one thing and only that one thing”. An example of this is Malcolm X, a black prisoner who taught himself how to read and write by copying down the whole dictionary. Some people might assume that because he’s African American that he wouldn’t be capable of being literate. This is due to the fact that if a person reads one story about an illiterate African American, they might take that one story and apply it to every story. However, it shouldn’t be like this. Everyone’s life is different, even if they are of the same race. One person can be incapable of doing something, meanwhile the other person can be capable of doing that one thing and so much more. Just like how Adiche’s roommate expected her to not be able to work a stove, it’s an example of how her roommate used one story and automatically applied it to Adiche. I agree with Adiche that people’ lives shouldn’t automatically be judged just by the way someone of the same race has lived their life.
Dora Lopez and Raymond Branch were both young children and at the same time moved to the same city. Both of these individuals have very different stories about the way they learned to read and write. Lopez was a Mexican women and taught herself to read and write in Spanish, she was hard-working and learned many skills through her work and on her own. Raymond was a European American and came from a family who could afford his education. His parents wanted him to be educated so they were able to assist him in this area. His learning literacy was nothing out of the ordinary for his social class but Lopez’s was above and beyond. Both of these cases show that learning is factored by socioeconomic standing, race and more but it is possible to be an outlier in these things. Brandt and Chimananda Adiche are similar because they both discuss the assumptions people make about the way of learning based off culture. Chimananda is similar to Lopez because they both had to prove themselves.
ReplyDeleteI would like to extend Brandt’s point that literacy demands are affected by these variables. In the examples that were given in the prompt you can see that we all prefer to learn in different ways. To elaborate on economic literacy demands if a family is wealthy then they are able to give their child more resources to learn such as tutors and more. If you are a wealthy family, then you probably live in a neighbor with a good school district that is able to meet the demands you wish your child will learn in school. A family of lowcome might not be able to proved their child with all of this and therefore is at already at a lower advantage. I think competition is big too. Children are taught to compete with one another in our culture.
Leighton Wilhelm
ReplyDeleteSponsorship and its Effect on Stories
Brandt’s and Chimamanda Adiche had similar but differing claims on the acquirement of literacy. Brandt delved more into the factors that went into it and generalized the specifications needed to be sponsored for literacy, while Adiche preached directly against over generalization or only sharing the “single story”. Their claims become similar when Adiche talks about her sponsorship of literacy and how she grew up on a university campus surrounded by books and literature. Her come up was like Raymond Branch’s, a son of real estate mother and professor father. He was exposed to the latest and greatest technology and was sponsored by his parent’s wealth and social class. Likewise, Adiches house boy that lived with them when she was eight shares many similarities with Dora Lopez from Brandts text. Both were much poorer than the other and faced many difficulties because of which. While Adiche had a single story of Phillip being poor and it affecting her perception of him, Dora Lopez faced a single story of her position in society but shattered it through her hard work and determination to not fall victim to her predisposition. However, the claims by both of these people support the same thing, that resilience and not giving into the status quo leads to success.
The Same Old Thing
ReplyDeleteI found the TED talk “The Danger of the Single Story” by Chimamanda Adiche very interesting to watch. Adiche talked about how when growing up in Nigeria, she read many foreign books from America or from England. She was also always a good writer and started writing at the age of seven. All of her characters were white and her stories were the same as the stories that she would always read about. We are so vulnerable as children that we can be convinced as to what is wrong or what is right. We don’t know a lot about the world we live in as children and there is so much to discover.
In Brandt’s “Sponsors of Literacy” she states that not all literacy sponsors are altruistic. Most literacy sponsors will have had their own sponsors who inspired the way that they learn literacy. This causes them to sometimes be particularly biased by a certain style or topic of literacy that may not accommodate to all types of people. Brandt claims that certain people learn and study literacy in different ways based upon their literacy sponsors. This ties together with the claim of Adiche saying that too much focus on the “same story” will create a vulnerability in a child’s mind to only think that is how literature should be.
Too much influence on a single topic can led to repetitiveness and no uniqueness. We need more influencers who are diverse and can show people things that they haven’t seen yet, not just “the same old thing”. Our influencers and sponsors should be learning more about literature along with us.
The pieces from Brandt and Adiche address different topics at face value, but there is in fact a correlation if you look carefully at each. In Brandt’s work she talks a lot about our sponsors of literacy, the ways in which those sponsors shape our lives, as well as the way that those sponsors are shaped by the world around us like politics and economics. This connects well with the speech given by Adiche because the majority of her life, young and old acts as evidence for Brandts claims. Another connection I found between the works was how Adiche had thought of her house boy when she was young. She didn’t see him as a person of equal value, but instead shaped her own image of him from her experiences in life. Brandt’s example of Dora Lopez in her piece was the first thing I thought of when hearing Adiche’s speech. On the surface Dora is poor, and much like the house boy many would stop there and create their own image of pity of what Dora’s life is like, when in reality she was a hard working girl who set goals for herself and shoots for them. Which brings me to another point where the two speeches coincide. Only knowing one story like Adiche talks about makes us box in our ideas of people, where as in Brandt’s example of Dora, she doesn’t box her own life in to the confines of what others think a poor person can achieve in life because she doesn’t have that single story mindset.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Brandt’s view on circumstance defining one’s life aspirations due to stratification of literacy learning, I would be opposed to this claim. The idea that one’s social standing, economic standing, etc. changes literacy demands are a self-fulfilling prophecy. It feeds on the single story idea that Adiche brings up, if we just believe that people who don’t make it are victims of circumstance then we also put them into a box. Why try if you are only expected to fail, this is the mentality that Brandt’s idea creates within people. However, in the end my own personal experience is what causes me to refute the claims made by Brandt. Both of my parents grew up poor, one dropped out of high school and got a GED, and the other just finished high school, and without education, or a good socio-economic position, they were able to work their way up in the world, raise two kids with everything they could ever ask for, and help one through college so far. My own parents example refutes Brandt’s claim to the highest degree in my own opinion because had everyone generalized them in terms of their economic position neither of them should have been successful.
Do Not Judge A Book By It's Cover
ReplyDeleteChimamanda Adiche grew up in Nigeria, and she learned to read when she was about four years old. She really enjoyed reading and learned how to write when she was only seven. When Adiche started to write, she wrote about what she knew, which was what she read about. She wrote mainly about average white Americans and British people. She did not write about her culture or the people around her because that was not what she was used to. Adiche made a claim that people stereotype and have a general idea of others because of stories that they have heard in the past. As an example she talked about how her roommate was surprised that she could read and write so well, and how she had a strong knowledge of the English language, even though English is a primary language in Nigeria. Her roommate was also surprised that Adiche listened to American music, but is this her roommates fault, or is it societies fault for putting this idea in our heads? How are children, or even teenagers, supposed to know the difference when that is what they have heard their entire lives?
Brandt used many real life examples throughout her story. She claimed that literacy depends on economics and politics. Brandt states that people with a better background have an easier time learning to read and write. This may be true in some cases, but it is not the case for many. Brandt uses the examples of Raymond Branch and Dora Lopez. Branch grew up in a well off family, but Lopez was not as fortunate; however, they both found a love for computers, even though they were introduced to the concept in different ways and upbringings. I liked Brandt’s example of David Lowery, he went from doing mindless assembly work to attaining a job where reading and writing was very important. Almost all of the people he dealt with on a daily basis were attorneys, and this made him have to push himself in his reading and writing. Lowery more than likely would not have pushed himself as much as he did if he continued in his assembly work which supports Brandt’s claim, but that does not mean that he would not have the ability to. The fact that Brandt uses peoples’ race and background in her stories contradicts with what Adiche is claiming. Adiche wants to make the point that someone’s background should not matter and Brandt states that it does have an effect. Both of these claims can be perceived as true, but I believe it depends on the person. If someone has the drive to master literacy, then they will try their hardest to achieve it. Their background is not going to be an excuse for them; however, it may be more difficult to attain certain materials as Brandt states.
As for Malcolm X, the story can be perceived in different perspectives. Because he was in jail, people will stereotype and be shocked that he taught himself to write by copying and reading the entire dictionary. Moreover, this also supports Brandts theory that it is harder to learn in certain situations. Nonetheless, I do understand both of the claims that both Adiche and Brandt make, but I do think that it depends on the situation at hand.
Robert,
ReplyDeleteI agree with the point that you made that grouping individuals together by their ethnicity can in fact belittle them. I, too, believe that each individual should be viewed on a case by case basis. Like Adiche mentions, we shouldn't make one story everyone's story. I believe that everyone needs to look past where someone is from, and view them as their own person and not by their nationality.
Just Be You
ReplyDeleteBrandt and Chimamanda share multiple similarities but the one that shows the most to me is probably the way that they can tell a story from many different points of views. I admire the way Chimamanda was more than comfortable with the way different people she encountered on a daily basis viewed all Africans in a negative way and was able to reciprocate a response to them that will show just how ignorant they were being at the time in way that they could completely understand. Chimamanda used her TED talk as a platform to share just some of the stereotypes she would have to deal with on a daily basis to a large audience, in an attempt to raise awareness to the problem in which many people from other parts of the world go through. Brandt on the other hand uses examples by showing how different sponsors influence a person’s educational opportunities and as a result affect the individual’s literacy. She also uses examples from viewpoints most people wouldn’t think of government corporations in order to prove a point. In the example of Malcolm X, Brandt took a very influential figure that people have learned to either love or hate and expanded on people’s knowledge of his actual journey through life to perhaps reshape so people’s view on his legacy. Even though the two used different ways to get their message across, Chimamanda used her TED talk “The Danger of the Single Story” while Brandt used her book Sponsors of Literacy, and both were still able convey the same meaning.
Two sides to a coin- Austin Aguayo
ReplyDeleteChimamanda Adiche makes a strong point in her talk about how a single story can be dangerous. Once a person gains a perception about someone or something else, it becomes hard for that perception to be shifted. Adiche talks about how her inner perception and others perceptions of her affected her life. Brandt's writing compliments Adiche's point; rather than providing just one story about a sponsor in literacy, she includes multiple stories with a variety of ranges. For example, Lowery left his repetitive job at the assembly line and found his sponsor while reading the newspaper. Joining the union, his career took off winning cases for his fellow union mates. This is not the only success story, however, as Dora Lopez is depicted as a low class woman who clawed her way to success. Teaching herself how to read and write another language and discovering computers, she found her success in a different way than Lowery. In Adiche's speech, she talks about how her middle class family hired a "house boy" who came from a poor family. Her mother drilled into her head that the boy was poor, and so her perception of him and his family was that they were destitute and struggling. When she saw the beautiful basket that his brother created, however, the single story of the boy's poverty vanished. When Adiche went to college, her roommate thought she was some tribal African girl, only to have her thoughts changed when Adiche showed her how American she was. The claim that both of these pieces are trying to make is that there's different viewpoints to someone's character, and acknowledging only one is an injustice. This is the same for a story of success; there are plenty of different ways that people achieve their success, and accepting only one method is not the way to go. Both Brandt and Adiche present multiple stories in their claims to further strengthen their arguments, and solidly push the statement that everyone is different; you cannot judge immediately. There is always two sides to a coin!