Hello everyone!!

So it is 1 A.M on a Sunday (actually Monday morning) trying to write this blog, dreading that it is gonna be the start of another school week. Hopefully I can get back to the routine of not being so tired of going to school and pushing/procrastinating assignments back. I am also pretty tired right now but not enough to go to sleep, so I decided to finish this blog and blast music to keep me from sleeping.
  #mood


The reason for mentioning all of this was because the JSTOR Daily article, "Where American Public Schools Came From," reminded me that I have another week of school. =))

In all seriousness, this article explains that way before the American Revolution, free education for children was a huge need, thanks to the Protestant's wanting more people to learn how to read and write. Ideas kept spreading and sooner or later, the Puritans influenced America, at the time, to pass laws for establishing schools. Of course new taxes were made, which discouraged people and others decided to enroll their children in religion based schools. Later on, more reforms were made to switch state-controlled schools to more public schools.

I found it great that people in the past kept pushing for education or else we would not be as far in technology or advanced in some areas of life.
 

I was sort of let down when reading the JSTOR Daily article on the Netflix show "Stranger Things," mainly because I thought it would talk more about the show than a little bit of synopsis and nose bleeds. For some reason, I had my hopes up mainly because I have heard so much about this show everywhere on the internet and that it was one of those shows that you had to watch. I still have not seen it, so on the bright side, at least the article did not spoil too much other than nose bleeds and what the general plot was.

Another reason why I was let down a little was the nosebleeds. It seemed like a cliche that a person with psychic powers would get a nosebleed every time they overused it. The background on the nose bleeds were more interesting in that a 1945 article explained that nose bleeds are one of the "Five Signs of Death." A person would die within 1 to 5 years because of the nose bleeds.

I guess I will stick to actually watching the show, when sometime during the semester I actually have time.

Moving onto Op-Eds, or editorials with the writers opinion on a subject in it, the most interesting one that caught my eye first is "Criminal Rape Cases Should Not be on a Ticking Clock." The author of this Op-Ed,Gloria Allred, explains that victims of rape have a deadline of 10 years when it comes to facing their accusers in court in order for them to receive their justice and a bit of closure on their lives. She explains that this is the average of what most states put as their limitations on filing criminal cases on rape or sexual assault, unless there is DNA evidence.

What made this editorial different than other articles I have read is that Allred explains the situation like there is small chance for hope as long as the bill gets passed by California's state governor, Jerry Brown. She has a point when she mentions that not all victims report their case to authorities and I believe it takes time to talk about those issues to another person whether it be a day or even more than 10 years. They should be allowed to get their justice towards their attackers because they left an emotional scar that is very hard to recover from. It is sad that most attackers get away with it, with barely a scratch on their hand and that most common offenses, receive the most jail time or fines. Hopefully, California works towards being more strict on charging rapists and attackers in the future.

Allred also mentioned the well known case of Bill Cosby taking advantage of many women and the fact that not a lot of legal action has been done in favor of the victims. Of course there has to be some proof or everyone will be accusing each other but, the women that have been telling the truth and nothing but the truth, have not received any compensation for that traumatizing experience.


Well anyways, I've got to end it here because I need some sleep for once this week.

See you all in class!!

Lisset Perales

In the article, "Teaching Critical Genre Awareness," by Amy Devitt, explains the way genres work when writing and that most of the time, genres can constrict the writer to only use one style of writing unless the writing is part of a larger problem in society. Devitt argues that students should learn how to write genres through learning about "critical genre awareness" so that they can make generic choices. Critical genre awareness stems from rhetorical awareness, or being aware of things that hold meanings in people's lives. Rhetorical awareness allows for people to not be confined in writing typical five paragraph essays and allows for them to add more personal elements in their writing because writers would understand the context even more. Devitt uses many sources, who I assume are authors or researchers, to further explain genre awareness and how it should be taught to other students. Devitt also uses very advanced diction in order to show how knowledgeable she is about the subject and adding more credibility. She also includes a detailed chart, that contains three pedagogies as a guide to write different genres.

When I first read the title, I first though of movies because the word "genre" is usually associated with movie titles and what kind of movie it is. Most of the time it is more common to hear "genre" used in movies than it is with a style of writing.

Devitt uses the word "genre" as an umbrella term for every type of writing and only gives examples as a five paragraph essay or a three-part thesis. With these examples, she mentions that teachers can show students how to write those types of paper but they lack personality because students will only write about an argument and the not the ideologies about it.

For the most part, all I have ever learned was to write five paragraph essays, precis, and annotating the text in every essay I have written. Throughout all of this writing, I was never able to write with a personal input into the essays, unless it was just commentary to support the argument. This led to not doing a lot of creative writing, even though I have no creativity in writing whatsoever, growing up. If teachers explored different genres of writing, students would have been more well-rounded in their writing and be more knowledgeable about different types of genres in writing, rather than just the typical introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion type of essays.

Devitt does give insight about the existence of other types of writing because most of the time I do not realize there is a genre besides the "What is the argument?" essays. Also, being exposed to more genres would have allowed us to have more variety in our vocabulary because students, like myself, would be more open to other author's ideas and we would have gotten a taste of those type of diction. For example, I had no idea what a "pedagogy" was and simply it was just another word for "teachings" or the methods of a teachings but, now I know how to use that word thanks to this new type of article I have encountered.

Another argument that Devitt makes is that teachers choose their types of genres to teach students and it is not necessarily teaching, more like showing how it would look like. Teachers choose to assign five paragraph essays because it fits "California Standards," but, within those standards, they still could have chose more variety in their articles and possibly even try a different type of genre, instead of the typical five paragraph essay. As far as I remember from middle to high school, we were given packets of how to write the five paragraph essays, words for transitions and commentaries. When so many people receive those packets, it starts to feel that we are all writing the same type of paper because we were all using basically the same words.

I thought that Devitt's idea of genres fit so well with how students only writing the same types of essays  because she claims that "The spread of a genre creates shared aims and social structures" (pg 342). Since most students do not use too many different genres, unless it is like a poem, we do not really share too many aims or different social structures unless it is outside of school and on other forums, for example, social media.

Since starting college, I am kinda glad that I am being more exposed to different genres because I have not written a 5 paragraph essay in a while and usually it is more. (internally cries) Also in this RWS class, I am a bit conflicted on how I feel about writing these types of blogs, because it is so new to me, and also the different type of essays we will be writing in the future.