blog 3

For this blog, I would like to revisit a reading that we have completed thus far, which is Paulo Freire’s “The Importance of the Act of Reading.” The reason why is because, to be honest, I have grown so enamored with this essay. Call me biased but I think it’s totally important that we ought to re-read the world since that essentially is connect with language. And so I want to revisit this essay as the topic for my blog #3. Though no need to fear since this blog isn’t just going to gush over the language Freire has in his analytical and rhetorical essay. For this blog I will incorporate with the plans that I have for my course plan semester. So basically, this will reveal what I am currently working on in my ENG 710 course. In doing so, I am going to connect with how Freire’s essay correlates with what I have planned for my future course in composition.

Originally last semester in ENG 709, I didn’t want to have a focused theme in my course semester plan units (or actually, year-long plan since my final was going to be the stretch year course, ENG 104/105). A theme that kept popping secretly in my head was the theme of identity. However I figured that it was “pointless” and that I didn’t want to be that teacher with an agenda every class considering that my expertise of interest in my research consists of such topics like women and gender studies, race/class/gender topics in pop culture, etc. I guess it came from my undergrad days when some students would complain about how their female instructors kept pushing their feminist agenda in their literature courses. Looking back, I found it interesting that the ones who complained the most were coincidentally male students. This isn’t to make a generalization since all my male friends are very open-minded about feminism. Sadly, it is typical to see males who react that way towards female instructors that want to create a diverse platform for students. Nevertheless, it would be problematic if these instructors only relished on feminism without adding context and connection with the course topic.

In referring back to last semester, I finally then realized during winter break, that it would be best to rely on a theme. However, I wasn’t sure if I needed to rely on the theme of identity. Yet it wasn’t until just this semester, when I read Paulo Freire’s essay, that suddenly everything came into place for me. I realized that I HAD to do a theme on identity since it was necessary for me. I think a section from Freire’s text that would best connect with my revelation is, on page 8, which he states

“A little while ago, with deep emotion, I visited the home where I was born. I stepped on the same ground on which I had first stood up, on which I first had walked, run, begun to talk, and learned to read. It was that same world which first presented itself to my understanding through my reding it. There I met again some of the trees of my childhood. I recognized them without difficulty. I almost embraced their thick trunks —- young trunks in my childhood. Then, what I like to call a gentle or well-behaved nostalgia, emanating from the earth, the trees, the house, carefully, developed me. I felt the house content, feeling the joy of someone who has red-encountered loved ones” ( Freire, 8).

So, with the purpose of the quotation in connection to my revelation, I like Freire, had to revisit my own thoughts. While I didn’t go back to my old childhood hometown back in Northern Virginia, I reminisced a bit on my own educational experiences. My best moments, was when I was allowed to truly express myself and emphasize on why my voice matters. Plus, referring back to his quotation, revisiting places, whether literal or abstract, is important and is key when practicing academic reading and writing. So, with this essay, I would have students annotate this article and write a difficulty paper on this, since the language, though beautiful, may be tricky for developmental students. Additionally, it would help aid them in understanding the text by first expressing what they might find difficulty rather than to immediately search for meaning. And I’ll constantly ask students to revisit and re-read the text throughout the semester. Since they’ll need this as one of their guides when working on an analytical paper on how identity is misrepresented in pop culture as their assignment. That way they can understand how reading is actually a constant cycle and they must not only read the world, but re-read the world. And by re-reading the world, that includes literary texts as well.