WRD 205 FINAL EXAM

Answer 3 of 4 questions

Your answers should take the form of a short essay, with a clearly stated central claim/ argument at the beginning and subsequent paragraphs that support this central claim. The primary sources—i.e., the actual articles and scholars we’ve read—will serve as your main sources of evidence to answer these questions. The specificity of your claims and the quality and accuracy of your supporting evidence will be the primary criteria by which I will assess your answers.

  • Please email your final exam questions to me at mpearso4@depaul.edu by the end of the day on Wednesday, March 14 at 11:59pm Central Daylight Time.
  • Final exams emailed to me after 11:59PM on March 14 will not be accepted. You will receive 0 out of 15 points.

Question One

Apply Deborah Brandt’s concept of “sponsors” of literacy to three other sources—readings, films, or presentations—from our course this quarter.

You may use one example from a presentation; thus, your other two examples must be from course readings other than Brandt or films (so that you can actually look over the examples and not only rely on memory).

Look for specific examples of literate practices used by actual people (you’ll find examples in nearly all our readings and films this quarter). Define who or what sponsored the literacy of people you use as your examples. How did this sponsorship manifest, according to the terms that Brandt defines?

You could, for example, look at some of the students we met in Dyson’s piece, the readers of Oprah’s Book Club books or mid-20th Century women in China, Reba’s character in her video, “Is There Life Out There,” and so on.

Define the concept of literacy sponsorship and then note how (a) sponsor(s) influenced what specific literacy practices your examples engaged in. How did they shape, regulate, constrain, encourage, etc., these literate practices?

Also, note why the sponsor(s) sponsored these literacy practices by making a case for what the sponsors gained by their sponsorship.

Question Two

Gee & Jenkins, in the articles we read this quarter, both advocate for embracing & understanding popular culture forms of expression, namely video games and television shows. Gee argues that “people playing video games are indeed learning ‘content,’ albeit usually not the passive content of school-based facts” (48). In a somewhat similar line of argument, Jenkins argues that television shows, “provide tools to think with, resources that facilitate discussions, [given that they give fans a] level of emotional distance not possible in a more direct confrontation with these same issues and yet also provide concrete illustrations absent in more abstracted debate” (87).

Assuming that Gee & Jenkins are right in their contentions—that video games are already powerful tools for learning being used by corporations, the military, the government, etc. and that fans are writing online in meaningful ways not yet embraced inside schools—make a case for one of the two following propositions:

  1. Schools should use video games and/or fandom as a central part of their curriculum.
  2. Schools should not use video games and/or fandom as a central part of their curriculum.

To answer this question, you will need not only make one of these two claims, but also briefly summarize some of the claims that Gee and/or Jenkins make about the kind of learning and thinking that video gamers and fans engage in. You NEED NOT argue that BOTH video games and fandom are worthwhile—you may argue for only one of these two subjects. Whatever position you take, you should either use Gee and/or Jenkins to bolster your own claims OR be specific about where and why you DISAGREE with their claims.

In building your case for why schools should or should not use video games or fandom—or both—in their curriculum, use Anne Haas Dyson’s short piece about school and culture and social class to help you make the case for why your argument would best address some of the issues she raised about how teachers treat children from backgrounds different than their own.

It should be clear that there is no “right” answer to this question. Rather, what matters is the quality of the evidence you use in making your case.

Question Three

Back when we all first met one another, in January of this year, each member of our class present that day gave her or his working definition of literacy. How would you define literacy today, after 10 weeks of reading and discussion about it?

In answering this question, identify the scholars we’ve read this quarter who have influenced your definition of literacy. (You need not reference a specific minimum number of scholars, but you do need to account for scholars who explicitly contradict other scholars. For example, if you said you agreed with Collins about literacy, you’d need to say why his ideas are better than Goody and Watt’s, since he frames himself in opposition to them.) Also, make an explicit case for why and how your definition of literacy is either ideological or autonomous, according to Street’s definition of those terms.

Question Four

In a more reflective mode than in the three questions above, complete one of the following two sentences to serve as a central claim for a short essay (and then write the short essay):

  1. studying literacy and the history of literacy is important because…
  2. studying literacy and the history of literacy is not really all that important because…

Obviously I think that literacy is important to learn about, but I’m genuinely interested in your authentic response to this course and subject matter.

You can trust that arguing for the relative lack of importance of studying literacy will absolutely be valid and I won’t judge your answer negatively, just because I happen to really love literacy scholarship. (I think the original British version of The Office television show is one of the best pieces of art I’ve ever seen, but I would never say someone who disagreed with me was “wrong.” We just have different preferences, tastes, or proclivities.)

In answering your question, you should feel comfortable discussing yourself and your experiences (using the “I” pronoun).

In supporting your claims either way, you should reference at least three of the scholars/articles we’ve read this quarter.

You should feel free to qualify your claims, too. For example, I might say that studying literacy as we have this quarter is more important the more one’s professional life has to do with using or advocating for literate practices; thus, teachers, writers, lawyers, etc., should definitely know about the history of literacy and the debates about ideological versus autonomous literacy we’ve read about.

You might discuss things you read about that you found surprising or enlightening. You might also discuss things we’ve read that seem to overanalyze things or research unnecessary or overly specific phenomena.