This week, the magic word is “Discourse.” Discourse, with a capital D! Discourse, according to James Paul Gee, is a major component of understanding literacy (last week’s magic word!). This notion of “Discourse” was defined by Gee as coordination of who we are, and that coordination is how “we humans become recognizable to ourselves and to others, and recognize ourselves, other people, and things, as meaningful in distinctive ways” (Lankshear, 2011, p. 44). More simply, Discourse is how we “’do life’ as individuals.”(Lankshear, 2011, p.43).
These coordinations of are defined by human and non-human elements. For example, the human elements include ways of thinking, feeling, moving, dressing, speaking, believing, and valuing. The non-human aspects include tools, objects, institutions, places, vehicle, locations, etc. So, as Lankshear describes, a "football player Discourse" includes the human elements of “patterns of bodily activity… patterns of mental activity: distinctive forms of ‘know-how,’ of interpretation (e.g. interpreting what other players are doing as a basis for anticipating and acting), aims of purposes… emotions, feelings desires… and so on” (2011, p. 34). The non-human elements would be the football, the helmet, the pads, the field, the team logo, etc.
Think about what Discourse you belong to. We participate in many. For me, I’m in an instructional designer Discourse, a student Discourse, a skier Discourse, a hockey player Discourse, and many others. Discourses give us a sense of identity. To identify yourself in a certain Discourse means you are “able to coordinate elements of that Discourse competently and to be coordinated by them competently” (Lankshear, 2011, p. 45).
Much of this is probably experimented with in high school as teenagers identify with different cliques. Imagine the Breakfast Club; the jock, the geek, the criminal, the princess, and psycho, each in their own Discourse. Of course, we all leave high school and find more meaning in other things (or at least some of us do). We travel between different Discourses. Once we graduate high school, we no longer identify ourselves in the high school student Discourse. Some may still identify with their specific clique Discourse, while others may not.
The human and non-human elements within each Discourse creates a “social practice,” or the way people “’perform’ in their bodies and their minds, their desires and ends, their emotions and values, in certain ways" (Lankshear, 2011, p. 34). And, as Lankshear notes, these performances of social practice develop a social structure or order. So, to continue my Breakfast Club analogy, imagine how each member of the Breakfast Club carries out their social practices and how this develops the social order of high school.
Anyway, to bring it back to literacy, literacy represents these social practices and Discourse in, as Lankshear describes “encoded texts.” These encoded texts are “frozen” or “captured” and can “travel.” Being literate means you can translate or interpret these texts in the context of your Discourse.
To identify in a skier Discourse, and to be skier literate might mean interpreting a green run as easy, a blue run at intermediate, and a black run as hard, and determining which can be handled. This begs me to question, how granular can Discourses become? Referring to my skier Discourse, I personally ski black runs for fun, however, to a beginner skier, a black run may seem impossible. Does this categorize me as into an expert skier Discourse, and the other into beginner? How much do we deconstruct Discourses?
The War of Art, Pages 30-60I admit this isn’t the first time I’ve read The War of Art. It’s actually my third. But, as what Lankshear calls an “encoded text,” I can revisit Steven Pressfield’s wisdom as many times as I need to instill philosophies of combating Resistance.
Like the first 30 or so pages, these 30 pages listed the ways that Resistance (Pressfield’s deeper term for writer’s block) can manipulate and prevent you - the aspiring artist - from accomplishing your work. After reading Chapter 2 of New Literacties, I could see how in these 30 pages, Pressfield is establishing the social practices and human elements of a Discourse. This Discourse is a prolific writer, artist, musician, or whatever role that creates, and therefore most likely suffers from Resistance.
Pressfield also makes references to other Discourses as well, noting the triumph or flaws that exist in each of their social practices. Between the lines, this also creates a social order of which is considered better than the other. In one example, Pressfield makes a distinction between an “amateur” and a “professional.” He wrote “grandiose fantasies are a symptom of Resistance. They’re the sign of an amateur. The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like” (Pressfield, 2003, p. 43). The human elements of these two Discourses being the “grandiose fantasies” of the amateur and the hard-working focus of the professional.
He also compares the Discourses of a fundamentalist and an artist. Pressfield argues that the fundamentalist, when facing Resistance (or as a fundamentalist might express as sin, the devil, or evil), looks backwards, into the past, into scripture, and faith. He then likens the artist to a humanist, who “believes that humankind, as individuals, is called upon to co-create the world with God,” (Pressfield, 2003, p. 36) and that “each individual has value, at least potentially, in advancing this cause”(Pressfield, 2003, p. 36). He asserts that the artist therefore has a better ability at governing himself or herself, than the fundamentalist, who wants to be governed by old laws and philosophies rather than progress forward. The artist becomes “the truly free individual… free only to the extent of his own self mastery”(Pressfield, 2003, p. 37). This self mastery is part of the literacy that I referred to when I thought of “
Resistance-literacy” last week; a practice of understanding how to combat writer’s block, and create.
But, what is the encoded text of this self mastery, or Resistance-literacy? As noted in New Literacties, “literacies are ‘socially recognized ways in which people generate, communicate, and negotiate meanings, as members of Discourses, through the medium of encoded text’”(Lankshear, 2011, p. 50). Well, as I suggested earlier, I suppose a book like The War of Art could be one of these encoded texts, or Stephen King’s
On Writing, or William Zinsser’s
On Writing Well, or Julia Cameron's
The Artist’s Way. But it could also be the works of authors, artists, musicians, etc. Knowledge about each Discourse can be gleamed from their creations too.
Citations
Lankshear, C. (2011). New Literacies: Concepts and Theories. In New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Social Learning (3rd ed., p. 34, 43, 44, 45, 50). New York, New York: Open University Press.
Pressfield, S. (2003). The War of Art: Break through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles (p. 36, 37, 43). New York, New York: Grand Central Publishing.
