Cynthia Selfe is an English studies teacher who finds the technological revolution not only interesting but important to help guide its users to better tomorrow. In her article titled “Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution” Selfe reveals how Americans view the development of technology by using advertisements as hard evidence. She states that there are three myths that are very popular and told throughout the history of technology; “The Global Village”, “Land of Equal Opportunity” and lastly “The Un-Gendered Utopia”. The global village is the idea that because of technological advances we have created a virtual social community on the internet. It is open to anyone and everyone who has access to a computer. So the idea of bringing the people of the World together in a place where there is no race or classes cause both good and bad thoughts in Americans. The good or romantic level is that as leaders of the technological expansion we (Americans) are helping to connect people from around the World. The bad or feared level is that since we have created this global village, we may become foreigners and objects of study to the rest of the village. The advertisements that Selfe uses to represent this myth proves not that Americans think we are the ones using technology to help others, but in fact using it to boost our own market and cultural profits.
Selfe describes the third photo by saying it “shows an Indian woman, bone picks through her nose with large feathers attached to her ear, beads around her neck, nursing a baby on one breast and a monkey on the other.” She uses this image because it is the perfect advertisement to prove that there is a global village but that Americans only want to use it the benefit ourselves by selling a color scanner. I look at the image and think that we are the mother breast feeding the other people of the World (the monkey) but of course the baby always feeds first( Americas market).
Welcome!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
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