The first of Gee’s theorems on Page 9 seems to be saying that for discourses, there is no being a partial part of a discourse. You are either in a discourse completely or out of it. Gee also mentions in this first theorem that, when learning new discourses, if you stop at the stage right before complete fluency, then you are a non-member of the group that controls the discourse. This first theorem seems to be controversial because it is saying that you must be completely proficient in a discourse to be a part of it. You cannot be training to be a dancer and act as though you’re in the dancer discourse. It seems controversial because it is essentially gatekeeping communities and discriminating against those who attempt to belong but are not quite fully there. The second theorem says that primary discourses, cannot be liberating or defining ideas. They must contain both a discourse that is critique worthy and a set of elements, such as language, words, values and attitudes. To me, it seems it is controversial because it is saying that certain discourses cannot be criticized, due to the lack of meta elements. This is of course controversial because it is acting as though there are groups that exist that are not worthy of criticism.
Metaknowledge is knowledge that relates to things you have already acquired, whether that be discourses, school work, etc. and also allows for you to analyze knowledge or things that you are attempting to learn. Mushfake is essentially faking it till you have what you want. It is combining your partial knowledge of discourses with other knowledge to essentially make the discourse, further supported when the text says, “do with something less when the real thing is not available”. Lastly, resistance is resisting the common knowledge or discourses presented to you in which ever format or environment they exist in, which then allows you to discourse more discourses or knowledge which suits you.
The students in Jordans class can be employing the combination in a number of ways. They have clear meta knowledge when it comes to language and literature, specifically Black English. For some time, they Mushfake the idea of standard English when absolutely needed too, until they decide to be more open and adopt using Black English in the class room, and lastly, they finally resist the idea of Standard English and are more comfortable using their own black English after some time.
This was more of rhetorical fodder, however I still find it mind blowing that even in the late 1980’s when this article was written, that these issues were happening, and even today they are all over the news, showing that very little progress has been made.
This was to challenge the writer and her rule, and to me, it seemed that Rule #2 right here claimed that Black English was incorrect, as if something was wrong in standard English but it suddenly became correct in Black English wouldn’t that make Black English the more incorrect language?
This was a simple extending annotation, just adding onto the sentence claiming how the authors claim sounded a lot like discourse.
This was a question annotation, asking why Willie opted for Standard English. Was it to fit in? If he thought he could “further” himself? What was the reason?
