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Flower and Hayes discussion of the cognitive process theory emphasizes the four key elements. I think all the four elements work together in the writing process. Writing process is a set of individual thinking, and it is a goal directed thinking process that is set by writers. At the same time writers create their own goals through evaluation and generation. But the process of writing is not hierarchical. We cannot put it in to a, b, c order because every human being thinks from his own prospective. Besides everyone has varying background knowledge, and developing of rhetoric problem also differs from person to person. I have found in many students that often they are driven away from the main goal, and sub goals intervene in the process. I found the solution in the loud outlining of the goals. It helps writers to stick to their main goals.
I like the ‘translation’ used by the authors. Taking Gardner’s multiple intelligence in to consideration, putting words on the paper is not writing or composing, it is translating ideas. The intelligences like naturalistic, musical, logical are translated on papers in the writing process. Besides that in my opinion, it is really important to consolidate the knowledge. Writing is uniquely adapted to the task of fostering insight and developing new knowledge. In the act of writing, people regenerate or recreate their own goals in the light of what they learn, and what they already know. If we teach writers the art of consolidating their knowledge in the writing process, many of the problems can be addressed. The writers will be clearer, focused and goal directed in their writing.
I like the idea of using writing as learning mode because it can be valuable in the learning process. Janet Emig idea that writing supports learning simply because of the fact that it reinforces its cycle through the use of the hand, the eyes, and the brain is true. I found the comparison between the learning strategies and attributes of writing process is actually interesting. Both are multi- representational processes, give self-provided feedbacks, establish synthetic and analytic conceptual groupings, and active and engaging process. These similar strategies of learning and writing can be used to teach study skills to undergraduates. It can help them to improve their academic writing, and to develop effective learning strategies. By integrating writing into the learning strategies, things can become easy for the learners. Much of their burden of learning academic writing as a separate course can be lessen down. If the burden is not lessen down, it is helpful for teachers as the learners will be aware of the learning strategies, and that will make the teaching of writing process easy.

I think this will be quite and interesting analysis, especially in light of the most recent efforts to legalize it in CA. You might also look at the FDA definition of what counts as a drug. I’ve heard it said that if sugar and caffeine were discovered _now_, they would also be controlled substances.

In terms of the control/domination aspect, what does the federal or state gov’ts stand to gain from their definitions of marijuana? What exact mechanism of control are we seeing?

I also suspect you may have to narrow your scope a bit; perhaps to one aspect of the discourse, or to a time period.

Also, what kind of analysis will you do, and what secondary sources might you use?

Look here for possible sources:
http://groups.diigo.com/group/emerging_social_software/content/tag/twitter

In part, the prompt asks “can a stable definition of a certain culture ever be developed?”. I ask, why would we ever want to develop a stable definition? I realize that putting things in categories and labeling them so as to convince ourselves that we have understood them is a fundamental human activity, however, culture is endlessly dynamic and therefore a stable definition is neither possible not desirable. As soon as you think you have one, it will be inadequate. Those who attempt to define a culture from the inside can offer intimate knowledge of its subtle motivations, but they are often blinded from fuller self-knowledge by its ideologies. Outsiders may bring to bear a contrastive and dispassionate perspective, but they generally lack true intimacy with a culture’s contextual assumptions and their descriptions can never escape the ideological entanglements of their own culture.

If, as Said says, there is no Archimedean point outside these two barriers of understanding, must we not finally abandon the attempt to create stable or complete definitions of other cultures and admit that partial understanding and passing definition is the best we can hope for? That may offend our desire for positivistic answers, but it is at least honest. I would compare the attempt to know another culture to knowing another person. Most of us spend our lives trying to find others who truly know and understand us. That intimacy of understanding between two people is one of life’s great pleasures. At the same time, who would want to think that we could be finally or completely defined by that other person’s knowledge of us? Although our selves may have continuing features and a history that shaped us, we are growing and developing, possibly even experiencing radical changes in viewpoint or behavior, as long as we are alive. To be finally defined is to be dead. And even that is no guarantee, as we can see from the way historians continue to revise their understanding of past events and persons.

Regarding Said’s explanations about the difficulty of understanding the ever-in-flux Arab-Islamic world, cannot the same be said for that culture’s attempt to understand our dynamic culture? In my observations of recent and not-so-recent historical events between these cultures, one factor stands out to me as responsible for much misunderstanding: the loud voices of extremist minorities who claim to be (or are taken as) spokespersons for the larger heterogeneous culture. Fundamentalists of various stripes on both sides make provocative statements. Fearful watchers from the other side assume that these strident voices represent consensus. Of course, more moderate factions protest that they do not endorse extremism, but their moderation is easily drowned by threats, violence, and fear.

I believe that most people in most cultures want to understand and accept people and cultures who are different from themselves. Difference is beautiful to experience, interesting to explore, and challenging to complacency. Others, however, seem to want everyone to be the same, even if it means violent imposition of cultural standards. Because we have to deal with the world as it is and accept the limitations of our abilities to understand or define others completely, I see efforts to illuminate the ways that intercultural understanding can go wrong, such as Said’s Orientalism, as very important. If other scholars argue with it, so much the better, since the issues are being discussed instead of ignored. Dominating cultures must recognize how their mechanisms of power and knowledge creation shape their own actions and reactions, often to the disadvantage of the colonized, and sometimes to the colonizer’s own detriment. Know thyself is one of our culture’s oldest proverbs. And as the saying goes, knowledge is power. But knowledge that empowers is what will make the world a better place.

Response to Question #7
Both of the readings of this week are thought-provoking and interesting. Referring the last question of Kyle that nearing the conclusion of his article, Said lists various scholars who have “posits nothing less than new objects of knowledge, new praxis of humanist (in the broad sense of the word) activity, new theoretical models that upset or at the very least radically alter the prevailing paradigmatic norms” (104). These works intend the “end of dominating, coercive systems of knowledge”(106). I do not agree that these works intend to end any kind of dominance of the Western opinion or try to alter the prevailing paradigmatic norms. These works intend to in the words of Said to “investigative open models of analysis” (106). I think these works will provide the contrastive view point to the already existing work, and this contrastive analysis will pave a way for the better understanding of the Orientals. I do not know how much success will these works make in the western scholars understanding of the Orientals, or will get any voice in the Western scholarship. But I agree with Said that there is a greater need for “crossing of boundaries, for greater interventionism in cross-disciplinary activity, a concentrated awareness of the situation – political, methodological, social, historical – in which intellectual and cultural work is carried out.”(107) I think such works are not the product of thinking “against the grain”, rather they must be taken as an effort to “sharpened the sense of the intellectual’s role both in the defining of a context and in changing it.”(Said: 107)
We should accept one reality that we are living in a new world, and many of us are the inheritors of colonial world. In the words of Homi Bhabha “the postcolonial project, at its most general theoretical level, seeks to explore those social pathologies – ’loss of meaning, conditions of anomie’ – that no longer simply cluster around class antagonism, but break up into widely scattered historical contingencies”. It is really essential to understand the representation of other cultures, societies, histories; the relationship between power and knowledge; the role of the intellectual; the methodological questions that have to do with the relationships between different kinds of texts, between text and context, between text and history.
Response to Question#2
Spivak discusses the way in which she is “reshap[ing] what is being taught”. She is not “against the teaching of traditional great texts, but . . . cannot see how this continued emphasis on single author courses has anything to do with the memory of the tradition. That is the tradition usurping the present”. I do not agree that the tradition usurp the present if we study the classicist. First as a student of literature I feel it is impossible to interpret any text without applying it on our own life and era. The universality of literary text lies in the fact that it must have some aspect that has the ability to affect the lives of people of all ages and regions. So it is not usurping of the present by the tradition. I agree with Ann where she quotes Said about the study of Shakespeare: “Each age . . reinterprets Shakespeare, not because Shakespeare changes, but because despite the existence of numerous and reliable editions of Shakespeare, there is no such fixed object as Shakespeare independent of his editors . . [and] the hundreds of millions of readers who have read him . . .since the late sixteenth century.” Said goes on to say that what seems to be an inert relic of the past “gain[s] some of its identity from its historical moment interacting with the attentions, judgment, scholarship and performances of its readers” (92). The function of reader response theory is also the same to give importance to the voice of the reader. It is reader who interprets texts. Without the incorporation of the contemporary text the teaching cannot accomplish its effects. I have personally studied American, Pakistani and Indian literature besides British literature, and it opens new channels of thinking for me. I agree with Spivak approach of teaching French Feminism by bringing in Algerian feminists to broaden the conversation with the French feminist writers.

Spivak
2. I don’t think that tradition usurps the present when teachers only use the same “old” texts without referring to contemporary ones. I think it’s almost impossible to look at traditional texts without considering the present. The way that students view traditional texts is based on their contemporary ideas, not the traditional ones. So I think that the present is always a part of the classroom when traditional texts are used. I think that the incorporation of modern texts is helpful to students; it allows them to understand the traditional texts better and they may have an increased interest when the traditional is paired with the new.

In teaching “with reference to the big picture” instructors are able to introduce students to new ideas and scholars in similar subjects; they’re able to look beyond the traditional text in front of them and into other texts. I think doing this encourages students to be aware of what exists beyond the traditional texts; it teaches them to step outside the box. Students learn more when their introduced to fresh texts. When Spivak writes “Teaching becomes intervention” I think she’s referring to the role of the instructor as a person to step in and divert students from the traditional texts, to students to view traditional and contemporary texts as partners in crime rather than enemies.

I think that more contemporary texts should be incorporated into the classroom. For me, when contemporary texts are paired with traditional ones, I find myself having an easier time making sense of the traditional. There are times when traditional texts have language that is confusing or considerably different from the contemporary, and using modern texts can aid in decoding the traditional language. I also think that contemporary texts have the potential to make classes more interesting.

4. I found Spivak’s brief answers to be a turn-off. I realize she was being honest, but at the same time, I felt like I deserved more explanation as a reader. When she answered one question with “A domestication, a circumscription,” I felt like she was shorting the interviewer and her audience. She wasn’t providing a substantial answer; she wasn’t giving me enough to really understand what it was she was saying, and maybe that was her intention. I thought that maybe she was “playing it safe” and that irritated me. Why would she need to do that? For me, her answer of “yes and no” suggested that she couldn’t make up her mind, that she was divided on the issue but didn’t want to come right out and say that. It made her seem insecure and unconfident. For someone who is obviously very intelligent, she sold herself short in those answers.

I like how you ask if her answers point out that knowledge/identity is flexible; I hadn’t thought of it that way. When I was reading the interview, I didn’t think that; I just thought she was inconsistent, but maybe that is what she was trying to achieve in her response. I guess I’m still not entirely convinced though.

Said
5. As I started to read Said’s work, a part of me thought Here we go again. It’s like Ramus all over, but as I kept reading I changed my tune, thinking that Said was actually going to reconsider Orientalism as his title suggests. Unfortunately for Said, his ending left a bad taste in my mouth, and I put him right back in the same category as Ramus. When he gets into the “one critic” who openly attacked his book, I became annoyed. If the guy wanted to vent, why did he waste my time doing it? Why didn’t he pay a psychologist to listen to him go on about how he felt? Throwing in phrases like “a comic effort” and “a particularly weak book” as well as, “intellectually scandalous generalizing” made me glad that I didn’t have to pay for his book and instead could just read it online. This glimpse made me not want to read it. Needless to say, I think he wrote it as a personal response to his critics. If that wasn’t his intention, he shouldn’t have consumed so many of the pages with his reactions.

I think examining a critique of your own work can help a person to improve in their future writing; it can reveal ideas to the author that may have never been recognized. What’s important is that the critique be constructively used. It makes me think of what my art teachers always told me, “When you make a mistake, make something out of it.” It’s important to turn the critiques into something positive, to use the negative feedback as a way to turn around the next piece of writing, as a tool to prove the critics wrong. I don’t think that’s what Said did here. Instead, I think he retaliated, gave the critics a reaction, which is maybe what they were looking for like an older brother taunting his sister hoping that she’ll snap. Said definitely snapped. Instead of using the criticism as a tool, he used it as a weapon and did to his critics what they did to him. In a way, he stooped to their level.