Gee mentions the common theme of discourse throughout the article. What I got from reading is that discourse is like an identity that one owns. The example given are a teacher or a factory worker. Each one of these play a crucial role within the daily lives of people. When thinking about my own discourse the first thing that comes to mind is my beginning years in school. My teachers played a crucial role in my development learning wise and they are mostly the reason I have so much knowledge today. The lunch ladies were responsible for making sure I was fed and got the proper nutrients every meal I ate. The bus driver made sure I got home and into my house safely. All of them played a prime role in my development as a young child and many other children. Gee describes this kind of environment where we all depend on one another for something and it is not uncommon. People have been doing this since the beginning of times. Men would go hunt while Women would stay home and took care of the children. They relied on each other to get through life.
Primary and Secondary discourse is a smaller theme that is presented by Gee. He mentions the conflict between them as this is something that is very common in young kids life. They are presented with multiple different view and things and they have to choose the one that they think is right or most fits them. An example of this for me was when I went to school. My mom had always told me not to fight unless it was self defense but I had a hot temper and got into trouble a lot. I started to form my own view on why I would fight and argue with other students. I usually had a good reason in my mind but my mother didn’t want me getting into altercations. Eventually as I got older I learned to be more calm and pick and choose which arguments to get into. My mother respected this and though she did not agree with my fighting she saw that I had a reason to do so as self defense which was exactly what she taught me. Another example of this is when I was playing football. My high school coaches always taught me that as a corner you should back pedal and turn once the wide receiver threatens your leverage. Once I came to UNE they showed me a shuffle technique which I hated at first but learned to adapt to and got good at.
Jordan tried to change her students view on the book the color purple because they didn’t like it and said they talked funny. She figured that by showing them it in a way they could understand it better that they would possibly like it. This is a form of discourse because the book was showing the English language in a southern dialect and then Jordan showed them it in a current dialect. The students had the option to try and read it the way it was written in which the message behind the book was more powerful but instead they chose to learn it in their own way which is not necessarily bad but in my opinion the message is as powerful.
Gee would say that by Jordan translating this “Black English” to “Standard English” is teaching her students that this is the proper way to speak and pronounce words. But in reality there is no proper way to speak and pronounce words since they were just made up by us. If we taught everyone to talk in slang terms that that would eventually become the right way to talk and then “proper” pronunciation of words would become slang instead. In my personally opinion the only reason I see for Jordan to translate the words is because her students didn’t understand the work that had been written. I remember when I was reading Huckleberry Finn there was somethings that I couldn’t understand. My teacher at the time who’s name was Mr. Fisher helped translate what Jim was saying so that way we could understand the message behind the book and what he was trying to express. What this does teach us that if you don’t understand something from one point of view try to change it or understand it from a different perspective. By doing so you can formulate your own opinion and get a better understand yourself.
