GRDG526: Literacy, Language, & Diversity in American Education Week 2 – Understanding Our Thinking Dr. Gloria E. Jacobs St. John Fisher College

Agenda Sharing The Danger of a Single Story (TED talk) Small Group Discussion Break Guided Discussion Minilecture Next week

The Danger of a Single Story A TED Talk by Chimamanda Adichie What single stories do we tell or believe?

Small Group Discussion Lucia Danielle Shannon Angela Jacqueline Group 2: Meghan Jessica Alysse Robyn Brandon Group 3: Cristen Cynthia Jean Sarah Karyl Group 4: Stacy Kristina Amanda Michelle

Break Reconvene in 10 minutes

Minilecture The relationship between eugenics (Stoskopf) and “culture as disability.” What creates disability? The individual is somehow deficient The individual is different. A culture sets people up to be deficient/different. Social construction of disability/difference Need to ask, how does an individual’s experience affect how they make sense of the social construction of difference? How does the “single story” create difference/disability? Culture as Disability and the Single Story. (p. 326) When anthropologists instinctively celebrate the coherence of culture, they imply that all the people in the culture are the same, as if stereotyp- ing is a worthy practice as long as it is done by professionals. Thck brush-stroke accounts of Samoans or Balinese, to stay with Margaret Mead, may give some hnts as to what Samoans and Balinese must deal with in their daily life, but they can greatly distort the complexity of Samoans and Balinese as people. The coherence of culture is something many individuals, in multiple realities, manage to achieve together; it is never simply the property of individual persons. The anthropological instinct has been perhaps most destructive when applied to the divisions and inequalities that exist inside a presumed cultural container, that is, the culture "of whch they are a member," "to which they belong," or "in which they participate." The problem in assuming that there is one way to be in a culture encourages the misun- derstanding that those who are different from perceived norms are missing sometlung, that it is their doing, that they are locked out for a reason, that they are in fact, in reality, disabled. If it is distorting to describe Samoans and Balinese without an account of the full range of diversity to be found in Samoa or Bali, imagine how distorting it can be in complex divided fields like the United States.

Directed Discussion (Fishbowl) Inner circle please consider What ideas that you held have been challenged by these texts? What questions are being raised? What will you do with this new thinking? Implications for your personal growth Implications for teaching Outer circle, please consider group dynamics What does this group do well? What would you like to improve in your discussion skills?

Next Week Obama Effect (12 minute Podcast) Rex & Schiller Chapters 1-7 Wiki posting #2 – your response to tonight’s class