Sunday, August 3, 2008
8.1 Internet Reading and Ivory Tower Reading
The "Knowledge Networks or Discourse Communities" article is about communication on the Internet. The article author, Zariski, describes how it is nearly impossible for scholarly articles or conversations to exist online. Zariski says how there are more personal eJournals or web sites then there are scholarly scientific conversations. The "In the Basement of the Ivory Tower"article is told by Professor X, who teaches English classes at night to people who are required to take them. This article shows the difficulties of being a professor, as he is obligated to fail many of his students, giving him guilt about them wasting their money and time. The articles are similar in that one of X’s students, Mrs. L has troubles on a research paper assignment which requires internet research. She has difficulties because of her age and is completely computer illiterate, she too ends up failing the class, much to the dismay of Professor X. As far as reading the two articles, the first one is difficult to understand and follow in comparison to the second, which is less objective and more laid back. I sympathize with Professor X and find his story much more relatable and its point is clear cut. I’m still unsure as to what the first article seeks to prove.
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2 comments:
Me too I was very confused about the first article and I had no idea what it was talking about, probably since we are not part of its discourse community. I agree about the sympathy to Professor X. But though he is just doing his job as a professor in honor to the college. By being a hard grader he sets a tone to himself showing that the people who pass do truly deserve to pass. I did feel bad about Mrs L, but when Professor X felt like passing her I kind of help that was very hipocritic of him to do. Good overall post, but dude where are the questions?
Alex, I was also confused on the first reading on "Knowledge or Discourse Communities". It was more difficult to comprehend compared to the reading of "In the Basement of the Ivory Tower". I too felt for Professor X and understand how hard it could be on a teacher to fail someone who you could see was trying but just not getting it. I do understand that is must be difficult as a teacher to see similar groups of students each year, and being able to see that only few are there because they want to be but most are there just because they have to.
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