Class Six
Class Conversation about papers drafts: (10-20 mins)
Questions about individual papers can be asked either after class or in my office hours, but not during class itself.
So, part of writing papers in college means paying attention to the written prompt and the professor’s commentary. We can’t be writing towards our own summarized view of what we think the assignment “is.” If we don’t know, we need to ask.
Consequently, and this is normal for first-year students, many of you did not follow the prompt correctly, even though you wrote interesting papers.
Let’s revisit the assignment. I’m going to highlight the sections that were generally troublesome for the class as a whole.
EH 123 Cultural Analysis/Cultural Story
For the first paper in Composition and Rhetoric 1, you will be required to write a cultural analysis/cultural story on your own cultural group. You should begin by applying the cultural categories (kinship, materials, values, social structure, sustenance, and subsistence) that you learned in class and saw exemplified in Ancient Futures.
The main idea with this paper is that you are able to see how the discrete parts of your own culture make a coherent whole.
You will be composing a paper that illustrates your understanding of culture and cultural categories and demonstrates that understanding by composing your own cultural story based on lived experience or experiences.
The assignment is as follows:
Think of an SPECIFIC SHORT TERM EVENT that can provide your readers with an example of how your culture works and how your culture has contributed in important ways to the person you are.
Begin by applying the cultural categories to your cultural individually. Next, connect them to a real experience that you have had and write the story of that experience. [i am actually going to give some leeway here: you can being with the categories, or you can begin with the story]
While it is important that you demonstrate an understanding of the cultural categories as they relate to your culture, your final paper does not necessarily have to cover each category.
Here are some questions to help you begin:
- How has technology changed/affected your culture? Can you write a true story that illustrates this?
- What material possessions are important in your culture? How/why are they important? How do they help your culture “work”? Can you write a true story that illustrates this?
- How is the term “family” defined in your culture? What role does family play in your culture? Is there a true story that illustrates this?
- What is important for you to survive in your culture? Can you write a true story that illustrates this?
Your completed paper must be between 3 and 5 pages in length and tell a cultural story that reflects a real experience that illustrates an understanding of one or more cultural categories (or a combination). Similarly, there must be clear evidence that you understand the basic notion of culture, how culture is composed of discrete parts and how those parts affect real life experiences.
Your paper should not be a mere cultural report and it should you should attempt to withhold all judgments, both positive and negative, as much as possible.
Format: Your paper will need to be typed and double-spaced. You will need to use a reasonable font size (12) and a reasonable font style (Times New Roman).
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Many of you did not pick a specific short term event. You picked either an event that took place over the course of a week or weeks, or you picked a “generic event,” such as a general description of a family ritual, like Christmas. This is not what we are looking for.
Many of you are not thinking “short term” as you select your event. As I mentioned in class, short term means ONE DAY.
Before you will receive a grade on this paper, you must refocus it so that it deals in a significant way with a specific short term event. It will take more than one paragraph to do this. Explore the event from several different points of consideration, and make sure to use lots of good specific details. Remember the importance of specificity! The event makes sense to you because you lived it. The reader did not. The reader has NO IDEA what you are talking about until you go into good detail about it.
For Tuesday of next week, you will be required to re-write and resubmit your paper.
Other issues:
You are, of course, responsible for the sentence and paragraph issues we addressed last time, and a failure to follow these basic rules will result in another no grade. I will not reconsider another paper that receives a NO GRADE mark on the next draft. The grade will become and automatic F.
What did the best papers do?
1.5 pages going into specific detail about the specific event.
1.5 pages explaining how the event can be related to ONE OR TWO specific cultural categories.
Ended with a good conclusion that reminded the reader of the important points made in the document.
So let’s open our journals:
For the next 20 mins, you are to journal on one of two possible topics:
1) If you do not yet have a specific SHORT TERM event, you are to spend the next 20 minutes identifying that event. And describing it in specific detail – use good sensory details.
2) If you do have a good short term event, I want you to focus on how you might further connect it to two cultural categories. Go into good detail about how the category can help someone understand the significance of the event. Also, look for ways to withhold judgmental language in your writing.
Class Discussion:
What is the specific event you are going to focus on in your revision? Why? (10 mins)
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We are going to shift over now to our reading for today, which brought us up to page 130.
What are we saying?
I want to point towards Sarah, Kerstin, and James’ posts as good examples of a readable format for us to follow from now on. Notice that they have good spaces between the paragraphs, which makes them easier to read. It is also much easier to see how the ideas all connect in these papers. This does not mean the other papers are wrong, only that it is easier to read these three posts, and that’s positive.
Interesting comments:
Before modernization, the social structure of the Ladakh people was very different that what it is now. Teenage boys had no problem showing affection towards their grandmothers, and the entire community was extremely tight knit. It was this way because the entire community acted as one entity because they all relied on one another. They were self-sufficient, unashamed race with almost no ties to the outside world, needing only to trade for salt and metals.
Some Ladakh children have become so distant from their parents and grandparents, that they even speak a different language. The bond between the young and the old that was once so tight and close, has been broken. There is now a large gap that has come between not only the young and the old, but male and the female and the rich and the poor.
Almost every cultural category has taken on a new role. The Ladakh people never used to consider money as a way to obtain food, property and clothing. Now, it is a competition of who can have the most. They are no longer using trading as their system, rupees have taken over. People have been growing apart due to the constant bragging about who has more of the new technology. The book explains how whenever something needed to be fixed, the entire community would pitch in and help. This system is long gone.
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Okay, let’s take the next 10 mins or so to f review our annotations, and in our journals I want you to put down the most important details you came across in your reading. After you note a detail, explain not only why it is important, but also whether or not you think it is a logical observation.
Homework:
Revise Paper One for submission in class on Tuesday.
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Theresa Dunbar
9-16-09
Rhetoric and Composition
In the beginning of the reading, she is talking about how money has affected the economy and the Ladakh culture. The Ladakh have become more dependent on money. They have to pay people to work on the land. The people that now work on the land are strangers. It used to be that friends worked together and had a good time. Now everyone is so worried about money, that their culture had drastically changed.
The author also mentions that the only thing they had to trade was salt, everything else they could grow and be self sufficient. There are more and more tourist coming into the country and spending a lot of money. This increases the need for the Ladakh people to speak English. They Ladakh people have to work harder now that tourist are coming into the country. They don’t just have to grow crops for themselves, but for people coming into the country.
She then talks about how technology has affected the Ladakh people. There is a diesel-powered mill that is polluting the air and taking the nutritional value out of the grain. There never was any pollution before because they did everything themselves. It seemed to benefit them more to work with animals instead of machines. Technology is making the living situations worse.
The author also talks about how the education in the world isolates children and they leave school not being able to use their own resources. The only religious schooling the children get is when they go to a monastery. The way the Ladakh taught their children is very different then Western culture does. They teach their children sowing and how to grow a crop. They also learn how to provide for themselves. They learn this in a different way than the Western culture does. They learn how to make their own cloths and how to build their own houses. The Western culture learns how to use computers and how to get a good job. The Ladakh culture is slowly changing though to be more like the Western culture.
Ever since the novel began I have appreciated all of the values that are so prized to the Ladahki people. They are so caught up in their own culture that it seems almost untouchable to other cultures in the west. They have their own way of living and it has had an enormous effect on the people that they have become. Everyone is happy, never angry, and they all act as one big happy family. Their food sources, and trade system are very important to them because they are unlike any other. Above all, their respect for one and other is remarkable because no one is ever treated badly, or unfairly, but treated as if they were family.
After I read the last section, my respect and feelings toward the Ladahk culture have changed dramatically. They are all of a sudden letting the western culture take over their own. They used to work every field for crops themselves, and for no money. It was simply to grow all of the crops that they needed just for them and everyone did it. Now that this has happened, they now are paying people to work their land with money. Not only are they paying these people, but they are strangers. Before, everyone knew everyone, and now there are people in their society that they do not even know and are not close with at all.
Now that there are more and more tourists coming to see their country, it is costing the Ladahk more money to supply all of them with crops. Along with making them have to harvest more crops, it is also demanding them to speak English. Having to harvest more crops is making the Ladahk people unable to use their own efforts, now they are using machinery. These machines are made with diesel fuel and is creating pollution in there are, which they never had before.
With all of these changes that are occuring, it seems as though the Ladahki people have forgotten about the many things about their culture that made it their own. They are losing the most precious parts of their culture because they are now conforming to something that is so different. Compromising values and kinships and social structure is never worth what they are giving in to.