I am sunshine girl,
shines brightly through the clouds,
creates energy, and helps others grow.
But I am sunshine girl,
burns others who have prolonged exposure,
clouds vision, and will eventually wipe out existence.
human versus camera: taking different pictures
You know what's odd?
When we try to capture a perfect moment,
so we can look back on that picture and recall those emotions,
it's nearly impossible.
Even our eyes and cameras often take "different pictures."
Take this picture for example:
When we try to capture a perfect moment,
so we can look back on that picture and recall those emotions,
it's nearly impossible.
Even our eyes and cameras often take "different pictures."
Take this picture for example:
I took this picture tonight because the sky was ethereal and breathtaking to me:
Moon hidden beneath the sky,
Cerulean and navy,
But smoked out by the angel's cigarettes
Feathered trees below, fluffed like a disgruntled hen
This is what I saw as I looked up toward the sky.
But this might be what you see in this picture:
Stupid iPhone camera,
Doesn't take pictures at night well;
I can vaguely see the smoky clouds,
But it's SO pixel-y!
We are always taking pictures. But rarely do they reflect what was happening at that moment, whether it's because we are told to smile even when we don't feel like smiling but this is what we are trained to do, or the camera gives us red-eye, or the picture makes us look better or worse than we do in "real life" (whatever that is), or because the happiness is subsiding as we are taking the picture. The camera alters what we see, and even though it's a device that attempts to help us remember, it also rewrites what we remember.
Nonetheless, I will try to remember the sky tonight and how I was almost feeling at peace, which hasn't happened in a long time.
Yes, my class researched memes for an assignment.
Whenever I teach academic writing, I am always conscious of different types of English--whether it is academic, "informal," or other dialects of English. The students I teach come from different backgrounds linguistically. This summer I have some students who speak 3+ languages, and there are some students who only know English. There are also some students who are well-versed in academic language, and others who never had the opportunity to learn these skills. Keeping this in mind, I decided to discuss a pretty common dialect of English that most students are familiar with: internet linguistics.
For that day, we read Tia Baherl's "Your Ability to Can Even: A Defense of Internet Linguistics" for our discussion. Baherl explains that the interesting part of internet linguistics is "when the new grammatical structures and phrases express something that conventional language simply cannot." The example the author uses, the phrase "I can't even," is a phrase that has a much deeper and lengthy meaning (see the article for how the author translates the phrase) compared to the short phrase. Internet language, Baherl argues, requires "participation and imagination."
My students were receptive to the idea of internet linguistics (even when I challenged them), and they drew two important conclusions in our discussion. One was that internet linguistics and technological literacy should be taught early on in school. One student explained how she didn't know what "T" meant (according to what this student said and I've read in Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South, it means "gossip" or even "truth") and she used Urban Dictionary to help her understand. Another student pointed out that internet linguistics is just as important as learning academic English today because of how much the U.S. in general uses the internet. Building on that point, one student proposed a course in middle or high school that focuses on this type of English. Overall, students agreed that knowing how to navigate and use internet linguistics would be useful to their personal and professional lives. The second conclusion we drew diverged slightly from internet linguistics. Naturally, our class discussed social media websites, where much of internet linguistics is created and disseminated, but we also analyzed social media websites and how they have changed. For instance, my students and I talked how Facebook was incredibly popular when it first debuted, and now, as my sister says, "It's normally for old people." Our class agreed with but also examined my sister's statement, and we came up with an idea as to why this might be true: Facebook is now commercialized. It creates ads just for you. If your feed is anything like mine, it's full of posts about working from home with companies like It Works and the like. These posts typically attempt to get others to buy products and/or to join that company. Perhaps the commercialization drives younger people away, we thought. But then again, maybe not. More popular social media with younger people, such as Instagram, has ads as well. My class last semester also discussed the popularity of Instagram and Snapchat, and that class agreed that there was something about social media sites centered around images, especially images that are temporary. These two important conclusions both show how technology changes communication, and also, as Cynthia Selfe discusses in the 1999 book Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century, technology and economic growth are have the potential to be and are thought of as interdependent.
Our assignment for the day, which we did before we discussed Baherl, was finding a meme and explaining the meme to the class. One student decided to show a meme that played off song lyrics from the 2012 hit "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen (see picture below). Like other students, this student explained the meme's origin; however, they also played the Jepsen's song while they presented the meme, and explained that they didn't know what a meme was before our last class. This student's presentation in particular, I believe, contributed to our conclusions that we came up with. Firstly, this student wasn't aware of memes. This further encourages the idea of learning about internet linguistics, especially since many people communicate on the internet through images like memes, including businesses. According to Randy Hall's article "Do Memes Have a Place in the Professional Business Environment?" memes can "make a statement" about your business. Hypothetically, if you were navigating the internet and saw a meme for the business, it would probably be in your best interest to know how to read that image and understand what the business is about. Secondly, here again, we see how certain aspects of technology are commercialized (businesses using memes). In addition to businesses using memes as a vehicle to promote their product(s), memes disseminate popular culture, such as music and television, and make this song or television show even more popular. Even if the maker of the meme does not intend on popularizing the original song or television show, it may happen anyway.
My students have a major project where they will have to analyze a music video or commercial later this summer, and this meme project was one step toward getting students to visually (and rhetorically) analyze images and videos. I can't wait for this project because, when I've taught this project in the past, it's been my favorite because students typically come up with genius ideas and analysis. Learning how to visually and rhetorically analyze images in our world today, as my class concluded, is an important language that we must teach sooner rather than later.
Works Cited
Baherl, Tia. "Your Ability to Can Even: A Defense of Internet Linguistics." The Toast, 20 November 2013, http://the-toast.net/2013/11/20/yes-you-can-even/. Accessed 28 May 2017.
Hall, Randy. "Do Memes Have a Place in the Professional Business Environment?" One World Technology, 7 October 2016, https://www.oneworldtechnology.com/blog/do-memes-have-a-place-in-the-professional-business-environment. Accessed 29 May 2017.
Johnson, E. Patrick. Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South. The University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
Selfe, Cynthia. Technology and Literacy in the 21st Century: The Importance of Paying Attention. Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.
For that day, we read Tia Baherl's "Your Ability to Can Even: A Defense of Internet Linguistics" for our discussion. Baherl explains that the interesting part of internet linguistics is "when the new grammatical structures and phrases express something that conventional language simply cannot." The example the author uses, the phrase "I can't even," is a phrase that has a much deeper and lengthy meaning (see the article for how the author translates the phrase) compared to the short phrase. Internet language, Baherl argues, requires "participation and imagination."
My students were receptive to the idea of internet linguistics (even when I challenged them), and they drew two important conclusions in our discussion. One was that internet linguistics and technological literacy should be taught early on in school. One student explained how she didn't know what "T" meant (according to what this student said and I've read in Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South, it means "gossip" or even "truth") and she used Urban Dictionary to help her understand. Another student pointed out that internet linguistics is just as important as learning academic English today because of how much the U.S. in general uses the internet. Building on that point, one student proposed a course in middle or high school that focuses on this type of English. Overall, students agreed that knowing how to navigate and use internet linguistics would be useful to their personal and professional lives. The second conclusion we drew diverged slightly from internet linguistics. Naturally, our class discussed social media websites, where much of internet linguistics is created and disseminated, but we also analyzed social media websites and how they have changed. For instance, my students and I talked how Facebook was incredibly popular when it first debuted, and now, as my sister says, "It's normally for old people." Our class agreed with but also examined my sister's statement, and we came up with an idea as to why this might be true: Facebook is now commercialized. It creates ads just for you. If your feed is anything like mine, it's full of posts about working from home with companies like It Works and the like. These posts typically attempt to get others to buy products and/or to join that company. Perhaps the commercialization drives younger people away, we thought. But then again, maybe not. More popular social media with younger people, such as Instagram, has ads as well. My class last semester also discussed the popularity of Instagram and Snapchat, and that class agreed that there was something about social media sites centered around images, especially images that are temporary. These two important conclusions both show how technology changes communication, and also, as Cynthia Selfe discusses in the 1999 book Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century, technology and economic growth are have the potential to be and are thought of as interdependent.
Our assignment for the day, which we did before we discussed Baherl, was finding a meme and explaining the meme to the class. One student decided to show a meme that played off song lyrics from the 2012 hit "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen (see picture below). Like other students, this student explained the meme's origin; however, they also played the Jepsen's song while they presented the meme, and explained that they didn't know what a meme was before our last class. This student's presentation in particular, I believe, contributed to our conclusions that we came up with. Firstly, this student wasn't aware of memes. This further encourages the idea of learning about internet linguistics, especially since many people communicate on the internet through images like memes, including businesses. According to Randy Hall's article "Do Memes Have a Place in the Professional Business Environment?" memes can "make a statement" about your business. Hypothetically, if you were navigating the internet and saw a meme for the business, it would probably be in your best interest to know how to read that image and understand what the business is about. Secondly, here again, we see how certain aspects of technology are commercialized (businesses using memes). In addition to businesses using memes as a vehicle to promote their product(s), memes disseminate popular culture, such as music and television, and make this song or television show even more popular. Even if the maker of the meme does not intend on popularizing the original song or television show, it may happen anyway.
My students have a major project where they will have to analyze a music video or commercial later this summer, and this meme project was one step toward getting students to visually (and rhetorically) analyze images and videos. I can't wait for this project because, when I've taught this project in the past, it's been my favorite because students typically come up with genius ideas and analysis. Learning how to visually and rhetorically analyze images in our world today, as my class concluded, is an important language that we must teach sooner rather than later.
Works Cited
Baherl, Tia. "Your Ability to Can Even: A Defense of Internet Linguistics." The Toast, 20 November 2013, http://the-toast.net/2013/11/20/yes-you-can-even/. Accessed 28 May 2017.
Hall, Randy. "Do Memes Have a Place in the Professional Business Environment?" One World Technology, 7 October 2016, https://www.oneworldtechnology.com/blog/do-memes-have-a-place-in-the-professional-business-environment. Accessed 29 May 2017.
Johnson, E. Patrick. Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South. The University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
Selfe, Cynthia. Technology and Literacy in the 21st Century: The Importance of Paying Attention. Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.
Quick thoughts on "When the first Voice You Hear is Not Your Own"
I just completed Jacqueline Jones Royster's piece "When the first Voice You Hear is Not Your Own" for a directed study course I'm taking in the fall, and I love her writing style and the content, but I'm still left with questions. In this piece, the author highlights issues she has had as a person of color, specifically in academia. Jones Royster expresses how many of her peers were (and possibly still are...this piece was published in 1996) surprised when she shared her work at all, but even more surprised when her work was impactful (35). She touches upon the issues that still echo today for people of color, no matter what space they are in: they become the "storyteller," or a person who is heard but not believed. When a person of color has straight up told you or another that they are being racist, what do you typically do? Do you brush it off, believe they are lying, that they are playing "the race card" to benefit them in some way or to make you feel bad? Or do you consciously evaluate what you did in that situation and think how it might be considered racist? This--along with many other reasons--is why Jones Royster calls for a more conscious act of listening, especially listening to people of color and their voices. The goal, as the author states, isn't "you talk, I talk" (38). The goal is to find better practices that allow these voices to emerge from the depths of oppression: of being ignored, of being told they are lying.
I'm all for Jones Royster's ideas, especially in the classroom and in academia. I'm still pondering over what happens when a person of color's voice is continually silenced, especially in spaces outside of the classroom, and how others can help, and who should help, and how we can (or should we) create a space for their voice to be heard. Perhaps these questions are too vague, but I suppose I would love--and need--to hear others' experiences.
I'm all for Jones Royster's ideas, especially in the classroom and in academia. I'm still pondering over what happens when a person of color's voice is continually silenced, especially in spaces outside of the classroom, and how others can help, and who should help, and how we can (or should we) create a space for their voice to be heard. Perhaps these questions are too vague, but I suppose I would love--and need--to hear others' experiences.
x
Cemetery (written July 2016)
I went to the cemetery today to find you, but I never
found you.
I found your sister, who isn’t even dead yet
I found your father, who died old
But you, I couldn’t find you.
You shouldn’t even be in that cemetery anyway
You should be here
(but I guess if you were here, I probably wouldn’t be
here).
Maybe I didn’t want to find you, though, because it
all would come crashing back to me:
The way I watched the life dwindle from your body
How I didn’t know what to say
How we were never that close
How I was going through a rough time myself when you
died.
I don’t want to recall this pain. And I sure as hell
don’t want to think about my own mortality.
Nonetheless
You are in that
cemetery, somewhere, hopefully resting (and not roaming) until I find you.
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