“Context” by Dorothy Allison

          Dorothy Allison’s personal essay “Context”(1994) asserts that knowing a person requires a knowledge of a person's personal experience and familial background. Allison supports this claim by using comparisons and flashback to express her views on judgment assumptions. Allison uses flashback and comparisons in order to show that context gives perceptions, and if not appropriately perceived, it can represent false assumptions. Allison writes to the general public because everyone makes judgments, but however she explains how context, experiences and background plays a vital role in perceiving an individual.

           Personally, it's very easy to relate to the memory Allison shared of her family vacation. She spoke about the look the man in the gift shop gave her because of her stepfather's comment. We've all been in those situation regardless of wanting to be in them or not. Sometimes it could be because of the people we choose to put ourselves around or sometimes we're too naïve to understand the situation we're in. It's hard sometimes to face judgment from people because of situations we know they don't understand. It's especially difficult when we're judged by people on situations we do not want to put them in either. That's what I feel Allison was trying to get across. 

         According to google the word context means, “the parts of a written or spoken statement that precede or follow a specific word or passage, usually influencing its meaning or effect”. Allison writes this short story about a man who is fearful for his lover to meet his family. In this story, the man came from a poverty-ridden childhood and the lover is from a well off family. The man talks about how the lover says, “I thought I understood what you meant when you said ‘working class’ but I just didn’t have a context”(Allison 132) meaning she had no idea what the mother meant. Allison then writes about how even the circumstances of his family and how ashamed the man might be about his family, he can’t help but wonder what his lover would think of his past and how he took things into context.

" College Students' Cell Phone Use, Beliefs, and Effects On Their Learning" by Elder, Anastasia D.

         


      
     Anastasia Elder’s article, COLLEGE STUDENTS' CELL PHONE USE, BELIEFS, AND EFFECTS ON THEIR LEARNING (2013), entails that cell phone usage in educational environments has an adverse effect on academic learning. Elders support this claim by providing surveys and case studies that presents the effects cell phones have on students learning and achievements in college. Elder’s purpose is to highlight college student’s personal perspective on cell phones usage in academic environments in order to jolt the awareness of the reader into considering how their own personal use of cell phones may obstruct academic learning for others and themselves. Elder makes references to college students who condone the abuse of cell phone during class periods and to the administration who prefers to enforce polices on cell phone use instead of abolish cell phone use.

        When reading Elder’s case study she ran through several ideas that pin points cell phones being detrimental to the school environment in a classroom, outside of the classroom like driving and walking around. I agree but also don’t because it depends on the situation. If you’re in class and you need research or to Google something, I’d like to have that handy. If your professor is talking then I would say put your phone away.However, I believe it really depends on the situation. I always have a phone in my purse, but not always have it out. Especially since I have family and a job I feel that having a phone is a necessity for me. Also, if you drive and you get in an accident or an emergency happens you need to have a phone available to get help. I am not saying to text and drive and to always have your phone in class, but to have one available to you somewhere near yourself in case of emergencies.

        Elder's case study is all about student cell phone use, beliefs, and how it effects learning.  Studies are showing the different outcomes from students who use their cell phones and students that don't use their cell phones in an educational environment.  Elder's statistics reported mixed results on the beliefs of cell phones, the results showed that most of the students were neutral in their beliefs that cell phones can be a distraction on their work.  Even though it can be a distraction it helps to become better at multi-tasking.  So there are good and bad outcomes on cell phone use, it can come handy in an emergency or it can be over used and that will cause distractions.  Overall Elder's case study can either have a bad effect or no effect at all on a student.

"Mother Tongue" author Amy Tan

     In her personal essay, Mother Tongue (1990), Amy Tan asserts that language proficiency should not determine a person’s intellect. Tan supports this claim by giving the reader insight of her personal experience, affiliated with preconceptions. Tan shares her self-discovery as a writer of language proficiency in order to help readers capture the essence of “limited English”, just as Tan did with her mother. Tan makes reference to individuals who are or have struggled with language proficiency and even to individuals who judge others of their inability to speak English fluently.

     The author of the passage had a very clear meaning as to what she was trying to get across. While reading through the passage I thought about not only myself, but all of us have had that same situation happening to us numerous times. Whether it was on the side of having someone you grew up with speaking broken English or being in front of someone and having to deal with listening to someone speak English in a way you aren't used to hearing. To some of us broken language is just as normal as Proper English. What I happened to get from the passage was that the author hadn't thought that her mom's English wasn't normal English until she got older and realized how limited her mother was.

     The story Mother Tongue by Amy Tan is about an Asian-American daughter who’s mother speaks “broken” or “limited” English. When growing up no one took her mother seriously and was oppressed because of it. Tan also goes on talking about how she never scored as great as she wanted to on tests in the English section as she did in math and science partly because of the way she was brought up talking and listening to her mom. Tan then writes about how teachers in school, “are steering them away from writing and into math and science, which is what happened to me” (Tan 139) but continues on and explains how she wanted to prove them wrong and became an English major her first year in college.  A great example of how this is true and how I’ve witnessed it myself is when I’m at work, which is Truetts, and a family comes through the Drive-Thru and the parents have the kids from the back seat talking and making the order and even handling the money because the parents can’t speak or understand English. Tan ended up writing in a way she knew her mother would understand and others like her mother, and despite her critic, her mother exclaimed, “so easy to read” (Tan 140) and Tan knew she succeeded when it came to her mother.