Breakfast 3

Breakfast 2

Breakfast!

ENGLISH BREAKFAST!

I want to inform you that we are having The English Breakfast next Wednesday. So we have to bring the ingredients.
Here is the list, so you have to choose which one you are taking to contribute to the breakfast (make sure you bring enough for everyone, we're 15):
Chocolate drink ...............LEIDY
Milk...........................JOHN JAIRO
Orange juice...................LUISA
Pancakes.......................IVETH
Eggs (1 panal).................???????
Coffee.........................???????
Bacon..........................???????
Sausages or hot dogs...........???????
Bread..........................???????
Fruits(melon,apple,mango,etc)..???????

Am I missing any important ingredient?? You can bring it!

LITERACY: OTHER WAY TO LOOK AT IT

“Human rights are "rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled".[1] Proponents of the concept usually assert that everyone is endowed with certain entitlements merely by reason of being human.[
The right to education
Main article: Right to education
Article 13 of the Covenant recognizes the right of everyone to education. This is to be directed towards "the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity",[14] and enable all persons to participate effectively in society. Education is seen both as a human right and as "an indispensable means of realizing other human rights", and so this is one of the longest and most important articles of the Covenant.[45]
Public participation is a political principle or practice, and may also be recognized as a right (right to public participation). The terms public participation may be used interchangeably with the concept or practice of stakeholder engagement and/or popular participation” HUMAN RIGHT WATCH...

LITERACY, understood as a social practice, is not only a way of participation but also a right.

THANKS A LOT

I JUST WANT TO THANK MABEL AND YVETH TO HAVE OUR BOOK PRINTED...

YOU GIRLS DID SUCH A GREAT JOB!

Late...

Since some of our classmates sent their texts toooo late, I was not able to have it printed for today as I was supposed to. So, I already have the copies but the "book" is going to be ready on Monday. I hope it is not too late! We owe teacher Sol an apology for being late!
There are some of you guys that have not paid yet, and I'm still waiting for the money, please!. You can reach me at office 2016 in our building, I'll be there until 7:00 pm today and tomorrow until 5pm.

Thanks!

About the so-called: "BOOK"...

We have not received all of the texts you were suppose to send Mabel this weekend in order to organize them and to be able to print the "book" these Tuesday so it can be ready for Thursday!! Remember that we have to pay more or less $10.000 pesos each book, so please make sure you guys bring the money on Tuesday and hand it to Mabel or Me. It is just a little more effort we need, it is almost finished, let's make it!! Please guys send your texts and bring the money ASAP!!!
Thanks,

Iveth

Hi!!! I want to propose "a quasi" another title:

Navigating in Academic Writing

A collection of different students' works

And the following pictures according to the title…

What do you think? A, B, or C... Or any …

for the cover visit this page:

http://pryat.com/signs/books/dummies/cover.asp?pic=pointing&allow=&text=3&text2=6&text3=5&title=1&tag=2&book=4

THE TITLE/THE IMAGE FOR THE COVER

I've been thinking about the title and I liked the one John Alex proposed in the classroom("ACADEMIC WRITING FOR/BY DUMMIES"), and after we voted it as a definitive title for the book I heard many of you guys complaining about it, however I did not hear any proposal at all. If you guys do not like the title we decided, you should just give an idea about what would you like it to be. However, we do not have much time to think for a long period of time, so if there is not any other idea, we'll keep that title.

For those who did not like it, because of the word DUMMIES, I have news for you:
according to wikipedia (not the most reliable source but is basic and simple) For Dummies is an extensive series of instructional / reference books which are intended to present non-intimidating guides for readers new to the various topics covered. Despite the title, their publisher has taken great pains to emphasize that the For Dummies books are not literally for dummies. The subtitle for every book is, "A Reference for the Rest of Us!". To date, over 1,700 For Dummies titles have been published. The series has been a worldwide success with editions in numerous other languages.
The books are an example of a media franchise, consistently sporting a distinctive cover — usually yellow and black with a triangular-headed cartoon figure known as the "Dummies Man", and an informal, blackboard-style logo. The icons and much of the design was originally done by University Graphics, a Palo Alto design firm.[citation needed] Prose is simple and direct; bold icons, such as a piece of string tied around an index finger, are placed in the margin to indicate particularly important passages.
Almost all Dummies books are organized around sections called "parts", which are groups of related chapters. Parts are almost always preceded by a Rich Tennant comic that refers to some part of the subject under discussion. Sometimes the same Tennant drawing reappears in another Dummies book with a new caption.

Looking forward to hearing for your ideas about it!!!

December 1st 2010

Dear students,
As some of you have complained about not having finished your texts, you can use this class time to refine your work and review your classmates' projects so that the compilation is ready by Friday.
I have posted the link to a tutorial about book binding. Hope it will be useful.

THE UGLY DOOR

I want to share something I found on the web...

"It is extremely important to understand how important the title of your article or book is. Your title is the door to your article. If you have an old , ugly and rusty door few people will come up through it.

Now, how you build a good title? Think why people would want to read your article: could help them somehow? Would they get information from it? Would they learn something? Reading your article would improve their quality of life somehow? These are questions that you should ask yourself in order to start building a POWERFUL title"

Moreover the title has to be faithful to the content and to the proces through which the content was built. Having " academic writing for dummis or whatever it is" as the title of our book is not fair nor faithful to our process. Accordingly I propose "I READ THEN I WRITE students authorial voices" as our beautiful DOOR.


Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/article-marketing-articles/understanding-the-importance-of-a-title-1665773.html#ixzz16s0qvEAO
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

A reflection of what happend and what's happening in our world

American Indian, Chief Seattle letter

American Indian, Chief Seattle, wrote to President Franklin Pierce in 1854. . How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man. The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is a part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man--all belong to the same family. So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children. So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghastly reflection in the clear water of the lake tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father. The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother. We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves and his children's birthright is forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert. I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand. There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect's wings. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleansed by rain or scented with the pine cone. The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath: the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white men, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.

So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept I will make one condition. The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers. I am savage and I do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important that the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive. What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected. You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see. One thing we know, which the white man may one day discover---our God is the same God. You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot. He is the God of man and his compassion is equal for the red man and the white. The earth is precious to him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt upon its Creator. The Whites, too, shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. But in your perishing, you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man. That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted out by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.

Book binding

These tutorials might be useful for your task:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUD0iKBkCVo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO-KYuC85sk&NR=1

Thinking about criticism...

Analizing the discussion we were having last class about peer review, I think that one of the reasons we have not been actively peer-reviewing other's texts is because we are too afraid to offend our classmates with any bad comment. To criticize, from my point of view, is really difficult; you have to take into account people's feelings and the way you are going to critique them without hurting or discouraging them. Considering this, you have to be a critical reader and part psychologist at the same time, being the latter is a harder work for most of us.

According to wikipipedia, -it might not be the best source- "Criticism is the judgement of the merits and faults of the work or actions of one individual by another (the critic). To criticise does not necessarily imply to find fault, but the word is often taken to mean the simple expression of prejudice or disapproval". I actually like this definition because it shows the two perspectives of the issue, which means that criticize is not only giving validation to somebody else's work, but also recognizing the weakness of it.

In this sense, I agree with those who think that saying always good things is going to help; it might be encouraging for people if they hear: "I'm really impressed by your text!", or "You did a great job!", or "Keep working like this, never change!", -or whatever other praising phrases we make up-. But at the same time, I strongly believe that pointing out the good things is not going to help at all to improve the bad or weak ones. For me, pointing out the faults, not only the merits, would be more productive to the improvement of our writing process or, more general, our learning process.

The problem I've faced by thinking this way, is that I focus too much my attention in the things that I don't like -even recognizing the good things- and I say what I really think about it without taking the psychologist position, being sometimes too honest and hard on them. With this strategy, I've found that people do not want to be told any unpleasant or disapproval comment and some of them take it as a personal attack. One of two things is happening: we are so reluctant to critique that we don't even know how to manage judgements or we don't know how to effectively address a critique to somebody. Either way, that's why most people -at least I do- prefer not to comment anything.

The hardest work for me , then, is to think about what people's feelings are; if they are too sensitive for my extreme -some would say brutal- honesty, or if they are just looking for a good comment, or even if they're going to hate me for not approving or agreeing with them. However, I don't consider feelings that much, on the contrary I do believe that the most productive critiques are those that hurt the most, because adults do not need to be cheered all the time.

This is only a reflection about why we should be more critical with the others if we really want to help them/us, it might be difficult to say some things or to accept some comments, but as long as we learn how to criticize and how to use the critiques to improve ourselves we are going to take the word "criticism" in a more possitive sense and we are going to be able to enjoy its advantages. I'm open to any kind of critique, so please do not hesitate to comment what do you think about it.

[sic]

Sic – generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, (sic) – when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates that the passage is just as it appears from its original source. The usual purpose is to inform readers that any errors or apparent errors in the copied material are not from transcription – i.e. that they are reproduced exactly from the original writer or printer. Bracketed sics have also been used in humorous comments and for ridicule, typically by drawing attention to the original writer's mistakes.

quiz literacies

some questions to think about

Why does “practice” signal a shift away from fetishizing culture, language, literacy and other social phenomena?

Think of a situation to illustrate what a literacy event is. Analyze how social identities are displayed in that situation.

Compare/Contrast the two definitions of discourse you find in the article. In which aspects are they similar? In which aspects are they different?

Discuss and exemplify the two meanings the expression “Being educated” has in the Brazilian context.

Do you consider that literacy shaming is a form of symbolic violence in Colombia? Establish a relation between the case of Brazil and our case.

Do you consider that minority groups are discriminated or ridiculed at the Universidad del Valle, Cali because of their patterns of speech and their degree of literacy? Explain your answer.

In the adult literacy education program reported in the article, there were students who didn't stop viewing themselves as social inferiors. What cultural artifacts could help them reach their goal of literacy equality?

Information about Barbara Schneider
Taken from http://drdc.uchicago.edu/about/bios/schneider.html

Barbara Schneider is currently a professor of sociology and human development at the University of Chicago and will join the faculty at Michigan State University as the John A. Hannah Chair in the College of Education in the fall of 2005. She currently directs the Data Research and Development Center, and co-directs the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents, Children, and Work.

Interested in the lives of adolescents and their families and schools, Schneider has written widely on these topics. Her most recent publications include: The Ambitious Generation: America 's Teenagers, Motivated but Directionless, co-authored with David Stevenson, Yale University Press; Becoming Adult: How Teenagers Prepare for the World of Work, co-authored with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Basic Books; and Trust in Schools, A Core Resource for Improvement, co-authored with Anthony Bryk, Russell Sage Foundation. She and Linda Waite have recently completed a book based on findings from the Sloan 500 Family Study exploring the lives of working families entitled Being Together, Working Apart: Dual-Career Families and the Work-Life Balance, Cambridge University Press. Schneider is currently conducting a new random assignment project, TEACH Research, that is designed to improve adolescents' transition to post secondary education.

Schneider serves on a number of advisory boards including the AERA Grants Board. Recently, she was selected by the American Sociological Association as the new editor of Sociology of Education.

My PWP

STILL FRAGMENTS

Some time ago I was asking myself how members of the Congress make for knowing what the people’s needs are, whether they are not exactly ordinary people; I mean, most of the population in Colombia are poor and these special citizens have all the opportunities for a life style with privileges. So, how can they understand what people live without their same opportunities? That is to say, Congress members usually are in the capital city, frequenting the best and more expensive places, with big cars and fine clothes; I guess their children go to elite schools and private universities, very often abroad. That is all ok considering that anyone has the right to live it up, but if you are working for the country and you know that poverty exists in every region, that there are kids begging on the streets, unemployed women head of family, homeless persons walking around, peasants without land to work and so on… thus where are these people’s rights left? They also wish to live it up, or at least have a modest life, with an assured meal three times a day, an assured school for their children, an assured job for going on and an assured medical assistance. How do members of the Congress help to those situations earning what they earn, moving around their privileged social circle and living the same comfortable experiences day after day?

Answer: They do not help enough. Just like everyone, I said “it’s not fair” and I kept on my way.
I know many people have thought something like this once in a while, but we also know deep inside ourselves that one alone cannot change the system, so we don't even try. We prefer not to expect anything from the Congress, politicians or the law, for the better.
However, there are moments, occasions in which some persons decide to agree on their need of acting and do not allow to die the opposition, the resistance to injustice and the voice of people who live and suffer but it is not heard. Or sometimes this voice can be heard, for instance during elections, when politicians are in small towns asking for votes, but after the results of those elections promises seem to be forgotten and you think: if they are who got the tools to change the life style of those people who vote for them why nothing gets better?
...


Last Friday, October 8 was the opening of The Congress of the Peoples in Bogotá; the idea was to create a mandate made by the people from the masses in which the community would legislate, would order the territory, the economy and the way to govern themselves.
…

The Congress was organized by axes, distributed in seven working tables according to the major concerns of the people, these were:

- Land, territory and sovereignty.
- Economy for living and against the dislodging.
- Nation building for a good living.
- Culture, diversity and shared ethics.
- Life, justice […] politics.
- Rights violation and unfulfilled agreements.
- People’s integration and globalization of fights.

Most of the crowd were indigenous communities, especially from the Colombian southwest, as we know, indigenous in Cauca are one of the best organized movements in the country; you could realize that they were strong promoters of the event.

Next to the indigenous communities there were afro communities, peasants, students, “mototaxistas”, LGBT community and people concerned with the event, as well as journalists following the sessions. But these journalists belonged to a sort of independent press, maybe to ONGs, because there was no presence of Caracol or RCN at all.

All the axes were based in severe problems which concern for people’s well-being and the idea was to find a solution together; changes will not be done immediately but at least persons must begin to look for them. The plan was to identify first how the region had contributed to the axis, then what to do in the face of those current troubles and finally how do the people can organize themselves.

Many situations emerged in common in the different axes. That is, every concept was connected to each other: the act of living implies to deal with justice, culture, territory, rights, and so on. In consequence, a variety of similar problems were mentioned on several occasions, such as the recuperation and release of the earth and its natural resources because of the importance in both the native conception of earth as a Mother and the need for preserving the means in existence for sustainability.

This was perhaps the strongest point remarked during the Congress: territory. “Land is neither for buying nor for sale, land is for liberating it and defending it”. That is the speech which constantly sounded around; indigenous people, peasants and population from rural areas have been the victims of forced displacing, by reason of armed movements or multinational companies, the first ones for drug trafficking and the second ones for exploitation of the environment. They reject both. These people feel forgotten and isolated because the government knows this but does not offer a fair solution, we can see that. There are hundreds of people on the streets begging for surviving. Citizens do not differentiate among drug addicts, wanderers or displaced persons, and that happens especially in the capital city, where the law provides them with a basic supply and lodging into cheap hostels, endowed with mats which are 1 centimeter thick.

.....

Rap News!! Wow!!

http://www.youtube.com/user/thejuicemedia

And this guy makes some excellent raps about the news!!

I know this is not literature based, but he does however use the power of words and is really clever in his concise mix of content and rhyme... enjoy! The Al Gore climate change rap is my favourite!!

Listening practice ahoy!!

LIAR LIAR!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQFwxw57NBI

Hey everyone! Sorry I havent corrected anything recently on the blog!

Ill see you all in class tomorrow morning!

Here is a short new music video describing some of the problems we are having in England with

our stupid conservative led coallition government! Good tune too!!

About Writing

It is believed that writing destroys the ability to memorize and weakness thoughts. Those who use it tend to forget as they related on an exterior mechanism in order to remember. I think the process of writing is to your mind as exercise is to your body; for we all, as human beings, it is very normal that each year we lose our memory, according to this we need to use those "external mechanisms" that help us to do different things; for instance, writing makes us think and this practice allows us to remember our thoughts, feelings, actions and life.

By the other hand, Writing establishes context-free language and autonomous discourse that cannot be doubted or directly questioned because the written discourse is separated from its author. Obviously you as a reader can question what do you read, in spite this the written discourse it is not separated from the author because it shows what the author thinks, feels, etc, most of the time in a clearer way, understandable for every body. For example when I write I think I am transmitting my feelings and thoughts, I want to share that and I want the reader get my point. For me a text is like the curriculum vitae of the author.

Nowadays, writing is the means through which speech can be transmitted and preserved. This statement is accepted by many as an absolute truth, however writing is not the only way to transmit and preserve the speech; the cultures with oral traditions deny this fact, because for many years they have kept their stories and their history through this practice.

According to that, it is normal that writing must be understood as technology and therefore, as artificial. This thought comes to our mind because of our oral tradition and all the elements use for writing, for many years we just needed our mouth and mind to tell stories and communicate between each other, now I dare to say that writing is technology and artificial because from many years until now we see new things, tools, machines, elements, etc, use for writing.

Dear students,
the following are some tasks I would like you to develop before we meet on Friday:

Google Lesley Bartlett and Dorothy Holland, authors of the article we are reading:
Theorizing the space of literacy practices.

Look for information to extend the definition of "Literacy shaming"

I also need everyone to send the last version of your PWPs to inglesiks@gmail.com

Finally, I recommend you to look for info about the movie we are watching: Happy go Lucky.

See you on Friday!

AWAKENING

Hey you guys... this is a personal -a really one- experiment -I'd like to call it like that... I hope you all enjoy this short story... It was a hard, itchy and tough work... I never thought that writing and re-writing was that hard... but finally this is my product and, of course you can let me know your opinions... bye guys....


Awakening
By Rogelio Herrera Marin

Carol Stanford is an outstanding college student; she is twenty three and has never been in love. She is well known for her curly hair, easygoing personality and beautiful gray-blue eyes. Not as attractive as she would like, and as clever as to be number one in her class; she clearly has a point, and beauty matters don't puzzle her mind.

The moment I met her, she took my breath away. She looked so fragile, so tender, her childish face and mumbling movements hypnotized me, as an elder magician in ancient times. But this is Carol’s story. My feelings have never been known, and they will remain so.

“14th August 2008. A cold morning, yellow and brown covers the whole landscape; a sense of lifeless is all over around. I miss my family. Not in the mood to go to classes” Carol wrote in her diary. She woke up early, washed her hair and took a bath. She brushed her teeth and went out of her room. No breakfast, only a cup of coffee. No-one saw her going out. Brenda, her roommate wasn’t there; she spent the night out, probably with her new boyfriend.

Carol walked for ten minutes, got to the train station, bought her ticket and waited for her train. Express line number thirteen. Two minutes later a loudspeaker announced that her train was delayed. She didn’t mind it. After a few seconds she realized that she was the only person in that wagon. She took a look her watch, six thirty in the morning. She felt overwhelmed. Carol was the kind of person that never showed her emotions, not even to herself. Then, two guys and an old lady walked down the stairs, and she sort of felt a relief.

Waiting in that place, she looked herself as a “regular” person, which made Carol feel sad. She flashbacked her childhood, a non-special – kind of tragic- one; her working mother was usually too busy to catch up with the upbringing of a kid. An alcoholic father and a, fourteen-year-old, drug-addict brother made her run away from home when she was sixteen. She moved in with an aunt, her mother little’s sister, who lived with her husband and a son, in a middle-class neighborhood in New Jersey. Her aunt knew very closely Carol’s situation, so she didn’t have a problem to welcome her niece home.

Six forty five a train passed by and made her came back to that moment. The old lady took that train. While passing near Carol, she smiled at her exactly like a grandmother would to her grandchild, with certain love and care that no-one else could. Carol felt a warm feeling in her chest, and smiled back to the old lady. She never met her grandmother. Her mother told her that she was too little to remind her; she died of a stroke when she was eighty five. Carol was three. Her father told her that his mother died when he was eleven.

At this moment, it was almost seven; she looked at her watch again and played a little with its bottoms. The place was now crowded with people and it was difficult to breath; Carol hadn’t realized when all those people arrived. Just five more minutes, and her train should be here, she started to feel impatient.

She closed her eyes and watched herself some years in the future, sitting on a comfortable chair, drinking a nice cup of coffee in the company of her beloved. No problems at all. She smiled at her two children – a boy and a girl – who played with their dog, a golden retriever, a gift for Christmas. Carol, saw a beautiful household, full of joy and love.

-“Excuse me,” a man touched her arm and woke her up abruptly from her dream. -“What time is it?” the man asked Carol pointing at her watch. - “It's five past seven”. She answered. The man thanked her and continued his way. Carol felt upset about that scene. She just hated being asked by strangers.

Carol thought about Brenda – her roommate – she was so open-minded and so calm that almost nothing could disturb her; she would have loved to see her this morning. Carol laughed. Her mobile rang, it was an unknown number. She answered; wrong number.

The loudspeaker announced the arrival of Carol’s train. She wondered if she would be on time to Mrs. Bearing’s class. It was seven and ten, the train takes forty five minutes to get to the nearest station, from that point on, Carol must walk for ten minutes to get to the campus, but the class starts at eight o’clock. While she was thinking about that, the train stopped. The doors opened, some people went out and Carol finally gets in.

Nine minutes later, Carol feels confused, her mouth was dry and her sight blurry, her entire world went upside down. She fainted in the train. People ran to help her but it was too late. Carol was unconscious, no breathing at all.

A beeping sound starts to fill the air, beep, beep, beep… that is the sound Carol listens to, darkness becomelightness, clarity and brightness. Carol wakes up; her alarm was ringing all over her room. It is August the 14th 2008, five thirty in the morning. “A cold morning, yellow and brown covers the whole landscape; a sense of lifeless is all over around. I miss my family. Not in the mood to go to classes” Carol writes in her diary.

Reflections on writing: the four statements

According to the statements given in class, writing is the means through which speech can be transmitted and preserved. I consider really accurate this assertion, for human beings writing is a necessity in order to preserve knowledge even though speech can also transmit what people have in their minds. Knowledge through speech would remain alive as long as the society keep strong the oral tradition as a fundamental practice to access knowledge, transmit cultural values and social organization. However, speech can not record every single detail of the complexities of new social and economic organizations. In this place appears writing, to serve as a means for the constant development of societies.
Since the practice of writing uses different kind of tools, it can be understood as a technology, but in my view is not artificial. I do believe writing is a technology in the sense that its beginnings were quite primitive, from pictures to scripts, and finally we have improved it. Writing is a technology because it has helped us to access knowledge, to share thoughts with other people, to develop new tools, to expand ideologies. Therefore, writing is not artificial just because of authentic origins, the development of writing was not planned to imitate nature but to improve social relationships. It is natural the need of humans to socialize, then writing is natural because of its social function for human beings.
Although some people believe writing destroys the ability to memorize and weakens thought and those who use it tend to forget as they rely on an exterior mechanism in order to remember, I personally disagree with this statement because writing demands complex processes of the brain in which the writer increases consciousness that allows him to internalize a complete view of the subject matter in a meaningfully way. For this simple reason, memorize words is worthless when what is being memorized does not have any significance for the writer.
Writing establishes a context- free language as opposed to the context-linked language in orality. When a writer is building a text he/she needs to establish the purpose of the text and consider the audience for it in order to explain in a comprehensive way what his/her thoughts are. Because of this, the reader could not question directly or interact with the writer, in this situation the reader must start using the complex functions of thought and develop new strategies to understand what the text says. This mutuality sets up the real importance of these two practices for society; it encourages people to think about the other, to use many mental processes in which the brain strengthens.

Some Reflections on Writing

1. I disagree with the firs statement because writing discourse is inscribed in a social context, but also in a “personal context”. The “personal context” is that in which we can include: the author’s reasons, that means that the author discourse is generated by her/his ideology, reflections, believes, thought and knowledge about the world, her/his society and the discipline in which the writing discourse is linked. Thus the text also is influenced by a social context, and also it develops a role within the society.
In this way I think that writing discourse can't be separated from its author, and that writing needs the context. And of course I think that a writing discourse can be doubted or questioned.
2. I don’t think writing discourse destroys the ability to memorize, or that it weakens thought because writing is an exercise in which we have to put in action some of our previous knowledge and other mental skills that are strengthened or improved through writing.
3. Writing could be understood as a technology, and therefore as artificial in the sense of writing was created by human as other technologies. And according to Walter J. Ong “by contrast with natural, oral speech, writing is completely artificial. There is no way to write ‘naturally’. (Walter Ong: 1982).
4. I agree with the fourth statement, because through writing we can preserve and transmit our speech. However writing isn’t the only way to do it, because for instance oral tradition also does that. The advantage of printed word is that it tends to preserve the author’s speech without modifications for ages.

Hey u all guys... I really miss u a lot... I've been reading all that u all have posted and I've found it excellent, they are beatifully written. However there is something that makes me feel worried about it... Remember that the idea is to create an interactive community where people can express their feelings and thoughts, in this process it is necessary to "hear" what other people thinks about our writing itsellf... So please "interact"... (I know I'm not part of this group on an academics sense, and I'm sorry if I hurt some feelings but I carry u all in my heart and I think this blog is an outstanding opportunity in order to develop our skills, accuracy and fluency at writting besides, it's an excellent tool to get to know who we really are - jajaja sound funny isn't it... but it's true.)

That's it... love u all...

"timequake"

One wakes up knowing
that one has dreamed about that time
when love was the pure and perfect silence
between two very attentive hearts,
when sadness existed just for writing letters,
when everything, even the most little detail of the days,
was filled with the other's magic.
One wakes up to find again
this sensation that comes as in those mortuary sunsets,
this hard and heavy sensation like fake pride,
this sensation that means and that says
that the chaotic uncertainty of keeping on journeying the days
and the tireless labor of love
will be joined forever
-or at least for the time being.