First off, I would like to apologize to Malcolm (our, as rumor has it, fabulous presenter last week) and the rest of my classmates for bailing on our meeting at the last minute. It was not a good day, health-wise, for me.
As I was reading the two pieces for this week, I couldn't help but be reminded of my grandmother. Now, I come from a white, upper-middle class background and I'm probably the most open-minded of the bunch. So, while my complete lack of diversity doesn't connect me to the article and chapter at all, my grandmother's lack of tact does. Upon meeting random strangers, she would ask embarrassingly personal questions. Of course, now that I mention it, I can't think of an example. Typical. But that's what was in my head and is now blabbed onto this page.
Monroe states "a white person might make conversation by asking direct questions that attempt to locate a new acquaintance within a social, professional or educational network" (38). I reflect back on the many introductions I've made of myself and others in my life and am amazed to see how well I conform to just that standard. Of course, there are those questions you just don't ask, but it's all relative to social interactions and who it is you're talking to.
Of course, my g-ma just didn't care, but that's neither here nor there.
Gee is wonderful in his ability to use explicit examples in his writing. When he says "People build identities and activities not just through language but by using language together with other 'stuff' that isn't language," I think of the way I talk (too fast and too much) but with hand motions and variations in tone. But it varies greatly depending on who I'm talking to: professor, long time friend, new acquaintance, etc.
Speaking and writing aren't the same. As much as I try to convince my students of that, they still insist on shortening "legitimate" to "legit" and the like. There is a different between spoken and written language, and English 101 is meant to give students the basics of academic writing. In Monroe's chapter she details the absence of AAE in the Detroit students' writing, but notes they all spoke it fluently (51). I think that there is definitely room for code switching and using vernacular in academic writing but that they (the students in 101) need to learn the rules of multiple literacies before they can break them.
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I kinda liked your admission about the "many introductions I've made" and how they conform to Barbara's description of WMC direct introductions. While I've gotten very good at doing these, out of conforming to grad school's socialization process (which itself tells us something about graduate school, even at WSU...), I still feel an acute *ping* of terror every time someone asks me a direct question about my "social, professional or educational" background. And, ironically enough, I have a far easier time with "those questions you just don't ask," which probably explains why I have such a hard time making conversation in the Writing Center.
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