E121 Week 5 – Discussion 1

     

Reflect: Using the SQ3R reading method, consider how the author(s) you read are writing about communication/speaking out, and how they view and interact with the idea of communication/speaking out.   Also, think about how those points of view compare to your own perceptions of what you see as communicating/speaking out.

Write: Upon reflection, select ONE of the above   essays on place and write at least three paragraphs (200-300 words for each   paragraph) where you accomplish the following:

· Summarize what you read and explain what parts of the SQ3R process helped you.

· Make connections between what you read about communicating/speaking out and other knowledge/experience/observations you have had about communicating/speaking out.

· Articulate any questions/curiosities/predictions/challenges you have based on the reading and use examples from the essay to explain those.

· Incorporate a quote and/or paraphrase where appropriate with proper APA citation.

Your initial post must be at least 600 words in length and posted by Day 3. Support your claims with examples from the required material(s) and/or other scholarly sources,   and properly cite any references as outlined in the University’s  Writing Center.

Call and Response— Taking a Stand
By bell hooks

Reading Silas House’s speech “Our Secret Places in the Waiting World,”
I hear him speak our collective pain and lamentation, those of us who are
exploited, oppressed, dominated. I hear the lamentation of the privileged
who witness suffering, who long for justice but who feel more often than
not overwhelmed by powerlessness. Even though Silas powerfully calls us
to act again and again, to revolt and resist on behalf of freedom and justice
for all—on behalf of fairness—there are not many who are answering the
call. Then there are those who have answered, but whose voices grow weary
from burnout, from encroaching fear and despair that there will be no change
coming. All too often, when freedom fighters are telling our stories again and
again, speaking truth to power with no response that brings about progres­
sive change, we grow weary. We become afraid, and we long to be silent.
But, Audre Lorde, poet, activist, lesbian, has already told us in her poem “A
Litany for Survival” that “when we are silent / we are still afraid / So it is
better to speak / remembering / we were never meant to survive.”

To re-kindle a spirit of home, Silas evokes the emergence of a “New Ap­
palachia” made up of folk who are outsiders, nomads, immigrants. House
declares:

We are gathered as a community to talk about a New Ap­
palachia of the rural and the urban, the white and the black,
the Cherokee and the Hispanic, the straight and the gay
and the transgendered, the queer, the Other. We are a new
Appalachia made up of a people who are perpetual immi­
grants, those whom the rest of the nation see as the Other,
no matter how assimilated they may be within this culture.

When I read these words, the speech in its entirety, I affirm the spirit of
difference and diversity evoked. Yet, I do not see us as representing a new
Appalachia. What is new is our visibility, our speaking out without change,
our solidarity. Yet this diverse Appalachia has always been and will always

Professor, activist, and feminist bell hooks is the author of numerous award-winning works
that seamlessly blend the study of race, class, gender, culture, and teaching into a unique
and thought-provoking call to action, hooks, born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, received a PhD
from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1983. She has taught English, African
studies, and African American studies at Yale University and women’s studies and American
literature at Oberlin College, and was a distinguished lecturer of English literature at the
City College o f New York.

122

R esponses to A S A Keynote A ddress 123

be. And we must be careful not to fall into the binary separations that simply
re-articulate another version of us and them.

I am almost twenty years older than Silas. And what I remember most
about my growing up life in the Kentucky hills was the widespread belief
that those of us who lived in the hills were different because we chose to
separate ourselves from the conventional world and its laws and creeds. No
doubt there was plenty of racism and sexism in those hills, but there was
always racial integration, the crossing of boundaries, folks living the life
that they wanted to live in spite of all manner of prejudices and obstacles.
Truly shared class positionality was a unifying factor; everyone around
us was living with less, everyone around us was poor and working class,
squatters, renters, and a few owners. There was much diversity in that
world, and even though many folks were not educated, they were radically
open, refusing to judge and condemn others.

I evoke this subculture of Appalachia that has always been because I
think it is vital that we honor connections to a past where difference, however
relative, survived and was at times celebrated. With critical awareness, we
must recognize the spaces of openness and solidarity forged in the concrete
experience of living in communities that were always present in radical spaces
in Appalachia both then and now. Rather than speak of a “new Appalachia,”
I believe it is essential for unity in diversity to gather those seeds of progres­
sive change and struggle that have long characterized the lives of some indi­
viduals in rural Kentucky. While Silas says “in Appalachia, we have always
been about remembering,” he declares: “I hate the fact that so many of us
within this region believe that we must cling to the past without ever going
forward.” With insight, he shares that “we must find balance between . . .
remembering and going forward.” A fundamental aspect of that balance has
to be that those of us who are progressive, who are more critically conscious
and aware, not construct hierarchies wherein we separate ourselves from
those who are still held in bondage by dominator thinking. For we will not
convert or change folks without extending the forgiveness and compassion
that is essential for the building of communities of solidarity.

There is no evil that exists in the larger society that is not present here
in Kentucky, and in our beloved hills—the hatreds that abound in the world
at large (hatred of queer folk, hatred of colored folks). The only way to
change from dominator culture to a culture of fairness is to teach folks to
love justice. And that teaching begins with those who are most likely to be
the targets of hate-embodying principles, the revolution of values that are
the heart of all true movements for social justice.

We are not calling forth a romantic nostalgia about the Appalachian
past when we work to reveal and remember the roots of radicalism, linking
progressive change in the past to the progressive change we long for in the
present.

Copyright of Journal of Appalachian Studies is the property of Appalachian Studies
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SQR3
 Method
 for
 Reading
 a
 Text
 
How
 to
 Read
 Textbooks
 
Use the SQR3 method of reading to be an active and effective reader. The
passive reader learns little. The aggressive reader organizes information
and answers questions. SQR3: survey, question, read, recite, review.

The
 SQR3
 Method
 of
 Reading
 
Survey the chapter—Read the introduction to the chapter

o Look over the major section headings. Glance at the figures.

o Skim questions, key words, and summaries at the end of the chapter.

o Create a context for remembering information.

o Generate interest and a sense of what is important.
o Plan your study session. Set a time limit for working. Include breaks and rewards.

Question—Create and answer questions; For each section in the chapter, ask these 4 basic questions:

1. What is the main point?

2. What evidence supports the main point?

3. What are the applications or examples?
4. How is this related to the rest of the chapter, the book, the world, to me?

Read the section

o Skim or read the section actively. Search for the answers to your questions.
o Take notes in the margins to create your own organization (see below).

Recite the main points

o Look up from the book and verbalize the answers to your questions.
o Talk out loud and listen to the answers. Recite to remember.

Review

o Now go back and highlight or underline the main points in the section.

o Add more notes in the text and margin.

o Repeat SQR3 for each section: mini survey, question, read, recite, and review. When finished, create a

one page hierarchical summary of the entire chapter.

o Now do any homework assignments. Use your summary first, then the text.
o Review often and reward yourself for a job well done.