Blog Post #3 - Delpit, Brittany Schmidt

Lisa Delpit wrote an article titled, "The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse," which includes many arguments about discourse and literacy. Many of these arguments provide different aspects of Gee's arguments that Delpit disagrees with. Delpit makes two important arguments concerning Gee's theory of Discourse, and whether or not it is possible for those born into non-dominant Discourses to learn dominant Discourses. I agree with Delpit when he finds Gee's argument problematic that states, "First is Gee's notion that people who have not been born into dominant discourses will find it difficult, if not impossible, to acquire such a discourse" (546). In other words, Gee is saying that people are incapable of learning or changing throughout their life. If teachers today had the mind set that their student's will not be able to learn new discourses or even change them, they would fail miserably. It will become impossible for them to succeed when their teachers give up on them. I believe that if a person truly to change themselves and work hard at doing so they will be able to acquire a discourse that they weren't naturally a part of. I can think of one example of this. My Mom grew up with eight brothers and sisters and were never extremely wealthy. At the same time, they continuously picked on their brother Rick (my uncle). Rick would be singled out and made fun of numerous times. This led him to prove them wrong and be the best that he could. He did extremely well in school and it has paid off. He now makes the most money out of his family and is extremely well off. This shows that he was able to prove himself and try extremely hard to become wealthy.

Delpit's second aspect of Gee's work that he finds troubling "suggests that an individual who is born into one discourse with one set of values may experience major conflicts when attempting to acquire another discourse with another set of values" (Delpit 546). I agree with this statement that people may acquire difficulties and conflicts when acquiring other discourses. On the other hand, these difficulties may only be small bumps in the road. I do believe that people will overcome these difficulties because when a person truly wants to change they will make adjustments in their life to do so. If we thought that it was impossible to acquire different discourses without experiencing conflicts, then teaching would be easy. If we agreed with this statement, then it would be impossible to teach students new discourses.