Monday, November 9, 2009
My point of veiw
After reading the first four pages of chapter twenty in Joe Amato’s book Family Values Literacy, Technology, and Uncle Sam, I thought that Joe Amato was an unorganized writer and his story is very annoying to read. Even though he was very detailed and he told all, everything was all over the place. If he had more organization in his story it would have been more enjoyable for me as a reader because my mind wouldn’t wander from one character (family member), to the next. It kind of seemed like he was just writing whatever came to his mind as he went along like someone would do in a journal. Some of the sentences belonged in a different place. He says that he has a problem with speaking English and speaks “broken English” I think he has a broken form of writing to. His style of writing is not something that I am used to. I think that a lot of people could relate to the things that he was talking about though.
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I understand how you would find this writing to be a bit unorganized. It seems to me that he just lists alot of facts consecutavely without going into detial about the facts. If he did go into detial, its about irelevent subjects that dont really intertwine with his theme.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the writing , he does reveal his point somewhat clearly but thats after the fact he listed 300+ facts and only deeply explaing about 10 of them. which argueably doesnt really go with the theme.
I agree with what you mean, when I started reading the story it was nothing but sentence fragments. At some point in the story his style of language does change, it was around the time when he said that he was an English Professor; it was a little more ‘academic’. I also agree that the way he told his story made it hard for you to understand, or relate to the characters.
ReplyDeleteThe way he does write though may just be his style, He comes from a family with “broken English” he figured that having a position as an English Professor gives him the right to write in which ever style , and that style happens to be fragmented and broken. I’m sure that if he had to he could write in a more academic fashion. Anyone who works for a living can probably relate to what he says on some level.
I’m not really sure that you read the entire story, because you just talk about his sentence structure. The Professor asked us to talk about his views in society, and considering I that I couldn’t get into the reading I couldn’t write much about it, but I’ll tell you that you should try looking at Amato’s story and comparing it to the standards we have for English today, and how culture has effects on it. Consider where Amato came from and how he was probably taught English as a child. That’s Pretty much I for me, can’t find much else to say.
I agree with you on the fact that the reading was a bit unorganized but as you pointed it out , the reading had a feeling of being a journal and that’s probably how Joe wanted it to be like. I believe that when a regular person has so many experiences to talk about and to write about it’s kinda hard to write something in a too organized way. Most books go through editing and stuff like that and I think the whole point of this book being written like this was to show how the mind wanders through memories.
ReplyDeleteJoe Amato doesn’t really say that he speaks a form of “broken” English in any way in my opinion. He was describing his relatives that spoke like that. The reading actually becomes a little complicated to read at certain times and it doesn’t sound like he can’t speak English fluently. He uses a lot of vocabulary that is unusual and sometimes too academic but that is just what I thought as I was reading.
As I said before I think the author wants his book specifically to be the way it is presented and I think he wrote it mostly to get all his memories out and in physical form rather than just writing for the public. I don’t think it was too enjoyable either since I prefer reading about personal anecdotes more but it is no surprise to me anymore the way this book is organized.
I disagree with your comment because I don’t believe that Joe Amato’s writing was so unorganized like you made it out to be. I think he had a point to why he was talking about all his family members in each paragraph. He was showing the readers that his family did not really have that much education back round. A lot of people can relate to Joe Amato because he moved out with his dad when he was young and his dad didn’t have any educational backround so this made him thrive to learn. In the end I do believe that he was successful even though he wasn’t getting tenure that he accomplished a lot of challenges. He graduated from a good school and got a scholarship in mathematics. Joe Amato I thought had a different form of writing I wouldn’t consider it though bad just different. I liked how he gave us information about his family so we knew everything kind of like we were in his shoes. You said you only read the first four pages out of twenty chapters, which clearly is not enough to think his writing form is bad. I like how Joe Amato’s reading was like whatever came to his mind because it shows the reader how much thought he has about his story.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you saying that Joe Amato’s writing was like a journal reading. I think that he did a very good job at placing lines where they need to be to get the point across to the reader and so that the reader understands better You said that his writing was detailed but in journals, all journals are not that detailed. Journals are just your thoughts about certain experiences. Journal writings are more scattered and difficult to understand but I understood Joe Amato’s writing and I thought it was easy to read. Everyone has a broken form of English. All writings are different from others so why should his be criticized as “broken English”. No one has perfect English these days, people make up their own words and jot it down on paper but just because that’s not “proper English” that it should be ridiculed? I do agree though with your last sentence. Many people can relate to this story and how it came about. There’s many people that go through this experience and have to face the challenges he had to face as being Italian.
I like your view on Amato’s reading because I thought the same thing. I was pretty annoyed too when I was reading it. But if you look closely I think this reading can relate to the things we have been talking about in class. Such as, social classes and language or the way people speak. Joes writing wasn’t very organized but, if you can look past it you can see that, even though he wasn’t to organized he still got his point across to the reader. I disagree with the fact that you said his writing is broken because, even though we are taught a formal way of writing, writing is an art and can be written in any form as long as they get there point across. So in the end I agree and disagree with your post but overall it’s a good response to the reading.
ReplyDeleteI disagree, although he did jump around alot I didn't think it was unorganization, I thought he just had alot of things to say. His descriptions of the people in his family were very breif however I thought he gave enough details to where it didn't drag on but the point got there. He did sort of write like one would write in a journel but I actually liked that because he was telling his story, the story of his life and his family so it kind of made sense for it to be written like that. I agree that his writing is sort of broken though. Although I liked his story there were alot of times where he just kind of put random details or facts that didn't quite fit where he put them.
ReplyDeleteAmato's story was similar to the story of many immigrants who came here and struggled. It is simialar to the other narratives we read this semester. Although the authors are from different countries their stories of being here and growing up as a foreigner are all very similar to one and other.
I agree with what you said about how hes unorganized...im not sure that hes unorganized, just that hes going with the flow...as he continues to speak about his family, that facts he metions makes a connection between the two family members, so i dont completely agree with you...it was boring though...i liked that it wasn’t traditional in a sense, i can relate to that because I found that I like to write that way also…when I say “that way” I mean by just writing what comes to mind, as if I was writing in a journal…(just to throw it out there, if you haven’t noticed yet I love the dot, dot, dot)…um im supposed to tell you to read the reading again but if you need to read it again, I do too…I got nothing out of the reading, I feel like I was forgetting it as I was reading it, almost as if it was a chore…hehehehe…from what I said before Im just writing what comes to mind…in my experiences from writing this way I almost feel that it’s a little more honest than most writng because there a lot less editing, it goes from your mind, right to paper. .. I could be wrong but who knows…(I just caused a chain reaction of yawns…lol)…im running out of things to say, so Im rambling…I need questions to answer to help me give good feedback to your blog post...
ReplyDeleteDid he struggle?, I don’t know, because I live in a so called hard working family and im not struggling…I have it made to tell you the truth, I think that we think he was struggling because of all the other readings. What I mean by that is, the other reading were about struggling writers, they were slaves or lived in a “favela”(the slums of brazil)…not fun…but joe amotos piece was about someone who had access to everything he needed to become successful and in my opinion he was…maybe not financially but educationally and in other ways as well…he had a wife, an apartment, degree, he published books. i think the only struggles he had were in school or trying to find a good paying job. I think compared to the other reading, he had it easy.