English 50 1

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Ivey Bai

Professor Johnson

Writing 2 Project 2: Literary Practices of U.S. Minority Literature

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Writing 2 M/W 12:00PM-1:50PM

Ivey Bai

5/07/17
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Writing 2 Project 2: Literary Practices of U.S. Minority Literature

Literature is known to be writtenbe published works that are especially considered as

superior or lasting in artistic merit. They can vary from books to writings published on a

particular subject. Throughout the history of United States of America, along with the rest of the

world, literature written by white male authors dominated the literary arts for the most parts.

Even though , in United States specifically, the nation is made up of mostly immigrants, the

proportion and the diversity of the American literature is still dominated by white males. But

despite its dominance of the literary world, white male authors are not the ultimate and only

contributors to the realm of literature in the United States of America, and that is exactly what

the course, English 50, taught at UCSB celebrates. English 50, taught by Professor Felice Blake,

is an introductionintroductory course that provides historical and cultural contexts to one or more

American minority literature., which Minority Literature usually taken to signify signifies

writings from the ethnic communities of : African American, Asian American, Chicano and

Chicano, and the Native American. The purpose of this course is to essentially bring light to the

underrepresented cultures, races, and individuals that also took part in building up the American

libraries along with the white majority. The literature pieces that are introduced in this course is

to provide side narratives to the textbook history of the United States of America. Based on my

exposure to this discipline during my English 50 class, taught by Professor Blake and assisted by

Alex Cassavant, I now recognize three distinct literary practices used in the Introduction to

Minority Literature of the United States of America: the use of historical context, inclusion of

discourse, and the lengthy analysis and discussions on the various texts by minority authors.
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One of the major literary practices used within the walls of the lecture halls, section

classrooms, and the pages of the assigned readings is the utilization of historical context. As

Professor Blake said in the very beginning of the English 50is course, It is one thing to

understand the words printed on the pages, but it is a whole different thing when you use those

printed words to dissect the mind and the past of the author. Historical context may be initially

seen as insignificant when it comes to literary genres such as fiction and playwrights, however

history is everything that the works are founded upon. The settings and the multidimensional

conflicts that of the characters of fictional pieces are not one hundred percent made up from thin

airnot pulled straight out of the writers magical imagination cap, but rather intertexualized from

various works and influences that surrounded the author during the creation process. An example

can be seen in the play, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, which essentially is about

an African American family who is presented with a chance to improve their way of living but is

challenged along the way buty residential racism and the patriarchal society, which all took place

a long time agothe time of the writing. But the reason why residential racism and the

intersectectional issues were so uch a prominent issue in the plays kitchen sink drama,

ratherwas because thatn simple racism and masculinity being the main focus could not be

explained by just reading the lines. It By observing the historical facts and events, one can

understand the reason why is because the author formatted the play the way she did. Hansberrys

of this play had a father, who took part in the sole Supreme Court case of Hansberry v. Lee,

which banned residential segregation, and a mother who wore the pants in the family. This is just

as Werner Sollos states in his published article about ethnicity in American culture, the different

movements of the different decades in America made different artists blood flow [or

creativity] at different speeds (Sollos, 274).

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A second major literary practice that has been observed in the English 50 course is the

inclusion of both explicit and implicit definitions of terms used and discussed throughout the

course. As previously stated, providing a solid historical context is a crucial part of the course,

but in order tofor one to truly comprehend not only the history origins of the text but also the

vernacular and language that assignedassigned texts themselves, the different

generationalcorrect variations of related terms had to be defined. Because words and their

definition changes with time, a word today would not have the same meaning and impact as it

would have been had half a century ago. Professor Felice Blakes lectures revolves around the

concept of discourse, which is basically how people talk to produce meanings and then

prompted by circulation. A contemporary, or rather recent and modern, example provided by

my teaching assistant, Alex Cassvant, is the term Alternative Facts, which was infamously

coined by Kellyane Conway, which exemplifies how once discourse defines one thing it is hard

to change the meaning in the specific context. During lecture, Professor Blake would not only

have us memorize the dictionary definitions of terms but also the terms in which is

comprehended without an outside source to analyze the difference in impacts and transitions of

the words. This is done accomplishedby during lecture as she would provide the definition of

some key terms but leave other key terms definition-less. The focus on discourse in minority

literature can also be seen in Josaphat B. Kubayandas journal article that analyzes Latin

American literature called the Minority Discourse and the African Collective: Some Examples

from Latin American, in which he describes observes and concludes how society and its many

smaller communities define not only others through their use of language but also themselves.

Since minority ethnicity is the focus in the texts assigned texts, the term race takes a major

role in the narratives and in class. Discourse is mainly used in this course to describe the term
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race and to discuss how it is not a thing that can be proven scientifically nor definitely. It is but

a product of the social construct.

The last , and certainly not the least, of the major literacy practice recognized in the

English 50 course, that will be focused on in this essay is the utilization of close readings and

discussions of the topics brought up in lectures and the assigned readings. By analyzing in depth

of the assigned readings followed by discussion among peers, it creates a window in which we

observe how each minority fits in the context of the American society. The purpose of discussion

is related to the previous literacy practice of discourse in that, in the words of Professor Blake,

meaning is constructed through language, and language is therefore crucial to culture and thus

discourse. The discussions of the analysis of the assigned text are used to instigate thought and

active participation and it is to make sure that the students understands the main topic of the

written piece and debate about the impact of the more controversial ones. The students utilize

compartmentalize one anothers thoughts in order to enlighten themselves, which because

through discourse we define our own thoughts and beliefs. In a research study done on active

learning, it was concluded that interaction with not only the giver of information but with the

information itself resulted in heightened attention and motivation. As feedback between the

student and the teacher increased, the level of satisfaction increased proportionally, (Snell, 288).

In all, it is due to the rich historical background of literature that these literacy practices

have been modified and adjusted by many professors and teachers in this field into the

recognizably relevant form found today. The literary practices of the use of historical context,

inclusion of discourse, and the lengthy analysis and discussions serve very important purposes in

the community of minority American literature because they open a window of opportunity for

readers to learn that there are more narratives other than those written by white men throughout
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history. What was the ultimate goal of this class was that analyzing literature is not only

analyzing solely on the text printed within the books covers but also the history and emotions on

which they were based from.

Reference page

Blake, Felice. Introduction to U.S. Minority Literature. Eng 50. University of California, Santa

Barbara. Giervetz Hall 1004. 03 May 2017. Lecture/Interview.

Hansberry, L., & Nemiroff, R. (1994). A raisin in the sun. New York: Vintage Books.

Kubayanda, J. (1987). Minority Discourse and the African Collective: Some Examples from

Latin American and Caribbean Literature. Cultural Critique, (6), 113-130.

doi:10.2307/1354258

Sollors W. Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture. Oxford University

Press; 1986.

Snell, Y. S. L. S. (1999). Interactive lecturing: strategies for increasing participation in large

group presentations. Medical Teacher, 21(1), 37-42.