Literature

I really enjoyed this article. I am completely agree that most literature discriminates against women and African Americans. I remember being in middle school and finding out that some poets and writers that were female had to go under fake men names because women couldn't write books. I never understood that. Why does society want people to be someone they aren't? Aren't we supposed to accept everyone as they are? Something else that makes me iffy about is if you really want to know about a past time you read about it. But if you are reading about the civil rights movement that was written by at white person it doesn't make sense. Someone that was there and was really having it happen to them should know more about the topic and have a clearer understanding of what was going on. So when someone cannot write about a past time that happened to them then you are losing a valuable piece of history.

Men didn't want women and African Americans to learn how to read and write or publish anything because they didn't want them to be smarter than they are. So the whole this is sexist, racist and just plan stupid.

Literature's problem

We live in a world that is filled with various cultures, backgrounds, and races. We live in a country referred to as a melting pot, but only in the sense of general acceptance. As the case for canon in literature the people are left out. For in the society the white man has remained the master of who he thinks the lesser.

The white man has remained the man behind the curtain; he speaks to us as if we were equal, but only for our own self reassurance. For when we bring our new ideas forward we are chastised for our endeavors, but the worst part is we agree with him.

The challenge is questioning a generally accepted ideal and convincing others and ourselves to maintain that ideal. It’s the only way an individual will change the norm and change the minds of the masses.

I may have strayed far from the point

In education systems today, it is important that students understand and be informed of different cultures. Not only how they are different, but also how they are alike. Religious actions through all cultures are different and important, but they are not so unlike and that is what we need to have younger generations and students understand. Being educated about other cultures we can find an understanding of people are both different and alike of us, and how we can find common ground between each other. History is how we are all taught this. Every culture has a written history that we can use to further and better understand people who are different from us.

I think that writing these days is too structured for the mind of kids our ages. There are so many opportunities and opinions about absolutely everything that people will never agree with one another. Writing is turning into a way to opinionate you and be heard and set apart from others. I think that in order to be notices for writing these days, that the old rules of writing cannot apply. Old five paragraph essays from the days we can barely remember just wont cut it anymore, we all need a more moving and personal writing piece than one point and three supported facts to back it up. Writing now takes freedom and strong beliefs.

Literature to Fight Discrimination

Discrimination has been part of our country since its conception. First it was the Native Americans, then the African Americans, and more recently Muslims or those who participate in Islamic traditions. As a society we have always been leery of those who are different. Whether those differences presented themselves in skin color, traditional practices, or religious beliefs, we began cataloguing those discrepancies in distinct ways. Such profiling has slowly seeped into the world of literature, and instead of using the texts to fight prejudices, they are serving to add fuel to the fire.

In his essay, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. states that teachers need to use literature as a tool to teach students how similar the various cultures are, as opposed to focusing only on what separates them. Though the traditions and religious beliefs are different in many ways, there are many cultures that overlap in a sense. That is, they may practice something in a unique way, but the core concept stays the same. Christmas comes to mind as an example—however many different ways it is celebrated around the world, it has still become a commercialized holiday where children receive gifts from Santa Claus or Father Christmas or Papa Noel.

Literature is universal, meaning that it is a valuable instrument to fighting prejudices and discrimination around the world. But breaking it up into categories of black canon and white canon and so on is part of the problem. Children need to be taught that uniqueness is something to aspire to, not something to shun, and therefore moving past this idea of “canon literature” is important.

The old cliché “walk a mile in another person’s shoes” is overused but relevant. For many it is nearly impossible to fully immerse themselves in a different culture. Literature makes that possible, because in a couple hundred pages these authors offer the reader a glimpse into a world they may not be able to totally understand, but hopefully learn something from. Any piece of writing that rightfully belongs in the category of literature overall is there for a reason, usually because it makes the unrelatable relevant, even for just those few hundred pages.

Gates probably believes there are more similarities in cultures than there are differences, if only humanity would take the time to look. Removing the stereotypes from literature could be the first step in absolving them all together from our society. Children are heavily influenced by what they see and what they read, so teachers and schools need to take the initiative to teach literature as a whole topic, without subcategories based on race or culture or other discriminative subjects.

Is literature on the Decline?

I personally disagree with Orwell's excerpt. While it is true students today are more inclined to shorten essays and have interest in them due to facebook and other blogging websites, I believe this is not such a bad thing. In the real world being able to communicate with others in a quick and precise manner is very important. In large essays, there is a tendency to fill in useless details in the interest of length, when it is really not an equal amount of worthwhile content. Orwell is saying literature is on the decline because of a lack of interest in depth, but I think we as a generation are simply defining depth in a different way. I feel like it used to be if an author wanted to express their opinion, they would write a book exhibiting it. Today, someone might, instead, simply write their opinion on a blog or on facebook. This is a big problem according to Orwell, but I don't think it is. It's possible we are just expressing our opinions in a different way than in the past allowing us to expand our knowledge in a much easier and faster way.

Different Cultures, One Education by Amanda Schroth

In the aspects of culture, to separate a white canon and a black canon seems to be impossible to me. Our histories are intertwined, like a tree. The trunk itself is twisting with all the literature we share that branches off into individual sections. Still, the branch is connected to the tree, and therefore, is a part of everything that the tree is.

Gates is right when he says that education needs “to account for the comparable eloquence of the African, the Asian, and the Middle Eastern traditions” (125). Teachers need to stand before their students and inform them about cultures throughout the world and how they are all related. Traditions and beliefs are sacred to each culture, some even cross over between two different cultures, and these are what we need to be taught. By learning these aspects of other nations, we gain a sense of how to relate to people who seem different than us. Literature is one means of connecting everyone—to teach them about the past in order to understand the present. Every culture has its own history, but at the same time, these histories are intertwined.

Remove the idea of white canon, black canon, etc, in order to understand that we are all one people. How we believe and how we are raised depends on these background and these histories. No history is less important than another, which is why we need to understand and relate to other cultures. Literature is the best approach to understanding if one cannot personally experience a situation.

Taking away the idea that each history is individualized based on a culture makes viewing the human race as one a much easier picture. In a classroom, literature should vary in culture to make the students more adept in understanding the past and present of other worlds. People live differently in comparison to others depending on many factors. It is the education system's job to teach its students that each way of belief is not wrong and that each culture is connected to ours in some way or another.

I think my AP U.S. History teacher in high school must have read this same excerpt.

My teacher was generally well loved by everyone who had her. She was pretty much always smiling and you could tell that she had a real passion for what she taught. No one ever really complained about her, except for the fact that she was one of the hardest essay graders most of us had and still probably have ever encountered. She would cross out random words and phrases stating that stylistically, there was something off. None of us ever really understood why she crossed off the things she did and grammar wasn’t a huge part of our essay grades so most of us let it go.  After reading this passage, I now know why she crossed out the things she did. She pretty much used the if-all-else-fails rules from the second to last page and used it as her grading guideline.

Now that I know the reasoning behind my teacher’s system, I agree with her. I can remember all the times I put clichés and overused metaphors in my writing. There have been countless times that I’ve used longer words because I thought they made my writing sound better. Especially in history class, I’ve used “jargon” to enhance my writing, or so I thought. 

After reading these explanations, I now realize that none of these things make my writing sound better. In fact, it’s the opposite. If anything, it makes my writing worse.