Lives on the Boundary-2

So much for that longer post... Well here is at least some of it.

I was able to relate to some of what Mike Rose was describing in his book, even though I did grow up in a "reading" family, a family that always had books and other type of print around. What I was able to relate to the most was the feeling of isolation  and inadequacy that Rose was talking about in relation to the freshmen entering college, except I experienced it during my first semester in graduate school, and, to be honest, I haven't quite shaken that feeling of inadequacy off. And of course, once this feeling appears, you start doubting yourself. Rose puts it very poetically when he talks about "something central to your being [that] is, after all, a wish spun in the night, a ruse, the mist and vapor of sleep" (174). But it is NOT you - or, in Rose's terms, the center of your being is not fake. It is the inconsistencies between what is being assumed the students should know and be able to do and what the students actually know and are able to do. Rose gives a perfect example of such inconsistencies when he describes a case of Marita, a student who was accused of plagiarism. He writes, "Marita was adrift in a set of conventions she didn't fully understand... [and] was only partially initiated to how... to position herself in an academic discussion" (180). Another student that Rose talks about, Lucia, was having difficulties analyzing an essay because of her belief system and lack of the background knowledge on the subject. From this and other examples it becomes clear that the assignments (or the readings) do not take into consideration the possible difficulties that may arise from the various students' backgrounds. Rose explains it by saying that abilities like analysis or synthesis "have only been developed in an elite: in priests, scholars, or a leisure class", and that in the process of developing these abilities, a student with different background will go through a process of making all sorts of errors (188). However, these errors should be welcomed as they signify the progress and gradual improvement of the student's academic writing.