Wake Boarding as a Literacy By: Eric Gerbus

Extreme sports do not even begin to describe what wakeboarding feels like. It is the combination of balance and focus that enable one to wakeboard. The skills and literacy needed in order to start or become an expert in wakeboarding describe the literacy practices of this sport. You need to learn the language of the sport and the equipment needed to participate.

In the picture above, you can see that this sport is for both man and women. You can also see equipment that is used to keep one safe while partaking in the sport. The number one thing needed for this sport is a swimming suit. You are going to be in water almost the entire time. The next thing that is needed is the mainly for girls but it is what is known as board shorts. These are a pair of pants that replicate a male swimming suit. These help during a whip out, so your bottoms do not ride up your rear. One of the things that this picture does not portray is a life jacket. This will ensure that if for some reason you become unconscious you will float and not drown. Last but not least it the board and boots. These are separate items even though they are attached to one another. Many people wear helmets but they are not required.

Once you have your gear on you get into the water. You will be handed a rope with a handle that you hold on to for the duration of the sport. Without this rope you will just float in the water. This next video will show you how to start by getting out of the water.

The gentleman in the video does a great job of explaining how to get up on a wakeboard. When being pulled by the boat, most people have the instinct to pull back. This is not what you want to do. The boat will do all of the work for you, you just need to relax. Most of this sport is trial and error. You will never learn anything without falling. You cannot be afraid to fall. There are injuring that comes with the sport but they are considered an occupational hazard.

The language of the sport is probably the hardest to learn. Although you do not need to know this, it will be difficult to communicate with other wakeboarders without it. You will hear a lot about heel side and toe side once standing and the terms only get deeper from there. This next video shows how to control a wake board once standing.

Although it looks very simple, you will have some difficulty with the balancing. In the article “Getting Started: Wake-Boarding” by Mark Anders, Anders talks about board control. This is what he had to say, “To swipe back and forth across the wake, turn your shoulders and hips so they are more open to the boat. Look where you want to go and move the handle slightly to the inside of your forward-facing hip, while transferring your weight to your heels. As you cross the wake, keep your knees bent. ‘Don't steer with the rope,’ says Shawn Watson, two-time national wakeboarding champion. ‘Keep the rope at your hip and your arms straight. It's more of a lower-body movement.’ To cut back in the other direction, slowly press your toes down and push your knees forward toward the water. Turn your shoulders and hips in the direction you want to cut” (Anders).

Most of the beginning stuff is practiced on land before you hit the water. This is because it will be easier to perform the task if you know what you are doing before you get into the water. When I learned to wakeboard, we just got in the water with the equipment on and went at it. Most of the time I would wipe out and have to start again but I eventually learned. I have been wakeboarding for several years now and I still cannot perform the tricks that are shown in this next video.

As you can tell from the video, these tricks are very difficult to perform. They people shown are professional wakeboarders and do this for a living. These tricks were done hundreds of times to look as smooth as they do in that video. Many have ended in wipeouts but that is the only way to learn in this sport. You have to adjust to what you last tried. Many of the tricks performed in the video were close to wipeouts but the boarders were able to keep balance to stay on top of the water.

The ritual used to perfect these tricks is to get up very early in the morning and practice on the clear glassy water. Tina Black the author of “Wakeboarding” talked about how she learned to wakeboard. “Our ritual was to go out alone at dawn before the Coast Guard (or bay pigs, as we call them) came out and found us without the obligatory third person on board. For a few hours, we would catch the flat, glasslike water in the bay, boarding in fast rotation one after the other. Once we learned to stand upright, the rest came quickly. Before long, I was crossing the wake, cutting, carving, starting left- or right-side forward and jumping from wake to wake, getting a respectable amount of air between my board and the water” (Black).

Wakeboarding as a literacy is a language of its own. This language is used throughout a few other sports. The language is not the only way of communication. There a hand signals used to communicate with the boat. A few of the hand signals used are the thumbs up sign to increase speed, the thumbs down to decrease speed, and the hand across the throat mean to stop. These communication skills help the rider to achieve almost perfect conditions in order to perform at their best. Communication is very important in a sport that can result in injury.

Many sports have their own language, but wakeboarding takes it to a whole other level. Without the knowledge of this language, understanding the sport is possible but would be difficult when it comes to talking to other riders. This is a major step in becoming an expert in the sport. You can learn many things but partaking in discourse communities. They teach you valuable communication skills that will stick with you for the rest of your life.

References

Black, Tina. "Wakeboarding." Women's Sports & Fitness (10996079) 3.6 (2000): 42. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 2 June 2011.

Anders, Mark. "Getting Started: Wake-Boarding." Popular Mechanics 186.7 (2009): 30-31. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 2 June 2011.

Nora Rege : “The customer is always right…I think that’s a bunch of bullshit.”

“The customer is always right…I think that’s a bunch of bullshit.”
An Ethnography by Nora Rege

There is a shared belief among some in the service industry that every person should hold a position in hospitality services for at least a few weeks in their young adult lives before they can have a successful night out. While each reader may or may not believe this, it is not unreasonable to believe that those bar patrons who have experienced giving the service they are receiving will be more understanding and patient with the staff serving them.

Just as there are many types of bartenders, and bartenders fill many roles, there are as many ways to approach those customers who are not quite as patient as others. In two weeks of interviews and observation, I found that there is a maturity dichotomy not only in the way that these customers are approached, but also in the way bartenders choose to express their sentiments about these customers.

My interview subjects included bartenders and managers at the Mt. Adams Pavilion. Interviews took place at both Pavilion and aliveOne, located in Mt. Adams, Cincinnati.

_______________________________________________

After speaking with my bartenders, it would seem that no one can understand the motives behind some of the characters that walk in and out of the bar every night. There is no limit on when, for how much time, and to what degree these people will unleash their lack of bar etiquette. According to Raymond Bissonet, a New York-based Professor of Psychiatry, “The phenomenon of role separation tends to prolong artificially the sociological stranger role for the bartender. This is because most bartenders and patrons interact as only segments of their total selves” (98). Bartender Ashley McDowell explains her approach to the “stranger” occurrence. “I feel like the more ‘human’ you kind of talk to [customers] – I feel like some people kind of put us on a pedestal and think we’re not human, that we’re just like worker bees. If you kind of try to humanize the situation, you know, people sometimes just do forget, so I’ll try to remind them that they’re being rude, just in a nice way.” Sarah Fisher explains that there is an aspect of immaturity that plays a large role as well. “You get the people who come in to a bar and get a drink and they appreciate what they’re drinking, they appreciate the alcohol and the craft you put into a drink…then you get somebody who’s just 21 and they come into the bar and as for a beer and throw down a dollar ‘cause they know it’s dollar beer night. They don’t tell you what kind of beer they want. They don’t tell you anything, they say ‘I want a beer.’”

In the course of my research, I was able to interview bartenders of different qualifications, experience, and background. I interviewed some men, some women, some new bartenders, some veteran, some with other bar experience, and some who were mainly bartenders. I noted that the biggest differences between all these people were their manner of communicating when I asked about “unsavory” customers. The responses were as varied as they were enthusiastic.

The younger, less experienced bartenders tended to approach bad customers angrily, but ultimately realized that they were best served to find a manager to take over the unruly situation. The more experienced bartenders saw approaches by “clueless” customers as an opportunity to educate young bar goers about the etiquette of being in public. The men tended to have a “don’t-let-it-get-to-you” attitude toward customers, which also fit with their less-enthusiastic negative answers. The women, I noticed, seemed to be inclined to answer questions about their approaches to these customers with much more fervor than the men. The women, regardless of experience and age all seemed to view bad customers as an opportunity to leave their mark. Said 15-year service industry veteran Ceris Christopher, “If you come to my bar and you act like an idiot, you’d better believe that I’ll let you know you’re being an idiot. And will you ever walk into my bar and act like an idiot again? No, no you will not.”

When asked to recount the stories of their best and worst customers, the women were very quickly able to recall a story regarding a very negative customer, but took about thirty seconds to a minute to recall a good customer, and over half responded to the “best customer” question with generalizations. Only two of the six women interviewed spoke about bad customers in general terms. All three men, however, regarded all customers, both good and bad, in general terms. Similarly, the women held very few qualms about writing about bad customers in public forums - specifically Facebook and Twitter. They viewed it as a means by which to vent or to glean support from friends and coworkers. None expressed to use of specific names or anything that would humiliate or embarrass the customer later, but mostly just looked at social media as a place to joke amongst eachother and also demonstrate the behavior that makes them react in that manner.

Alternatively, the men were very apprehensive. One, in fact, recounted a story of posting a Facebook status poking fun at a DJ, (not even a customer!) who is also his friend, for playing “cheesy Backstreet Boys” music at the end of the night. He said he felt so unprofessional after that instance that he would never use social media to poke fun at anything from work again (Mike Schroeder).

What I found most interesting, though, was the manner of speaking applied to customers in general, when I was asking about neither “good” nor “bad” people. Words with very positive connotations were used, like “guest,” and “visitor,” as opposed to the neutral “customer” or words with a negative slant. While my observation showed that bartenders could quickly get frustrated with customers who are frustrated with them, they ultimately appreciated the persona of the customer and enjoyed having someone to display their talent to. Those customers that appreciate the bartender as an expert in mixing drinks, and also as a person worthy of attention and respect, are the ones who keep these enthusiastic men and women in their professions.

So is the customer always right? Using the slogan “The customer is always right,” abusive customers can demand just about anything – they’re right by definition. This makes the bartenders’ job that much harder, when trying to rein them and their attitudes in. Also, it means that abusive people get better treatment and conditions than nice people. However, it makes much more sense to be nice to the nice customers to keep them coming back. The fact is that some customers are just plain wrong, and that the bar is better of without them. Regardless of the sex of the bartender, their experience, or their approach, some customers will just be unruly. It would seem to me that those customers are looking for a fight, not a refreshing beverage.

Firefighters Use Literacy to Communicate? By: Ali Stigler

        Sirens and pagers going off at all hours of the night are what I have grown up around my entire life. These aspects along with many other features of my father’s career of choice have always intrigued me. Firefighters and paramedics have their own vocabulary and means of communication that would seem completely crazy to anyone outside of their discourse community. My research will be focused around their literacy practices and how they incorporate them with the way they communicate. This project will include the run reports they write, the pagers and radios they use to keep in touch, and the vocabulary they must know in order to understand it all. By interviewing my father and using him as a main resource, I will be able to obtain my goal in this project which is to realize just how much literacy is incorporated into their communication and how they communicate effectively. Through my personal experience, interviews, and on-site observing I have been able to pick up on the literacy practices firefighters use daily that I would not have ever expected.

This is the bay area at the headquarters of the Delhi Township Fire Department where all the emergency vehicles are kept, such as the truck, the ambulance, and the ladder truck. Their gear is also laid out on the floor so they can just jump in it and go as quickly as possible.

        Picking the topic for my research was easy, but digging deeper into what I already knew was going to be the challenge for me. I have visited my father at work since I was a child, however I just knew that he got to wear cool equipment, had to take some classes here and there, and he saved people’s lives, and that is all. The amount of knowledge he has to know in order to perform his job to the best of his ability is more than I imagined. He has to take classes every year called refresher courses that are paid for by his employer to ensure that he knows the vocabulary you need to make it as a firefighter/paramedic. The amount of literacy that is used in any college class is exactly what he goes through each year. This enhances his language which in turn provides the best communication possible among his bosses and co-workers. Many medical terms are necessary to be able to understand in order to complete the daily tasks of a firefighter/paramedic. When I was talking to my dad about it, I asked him if he got upset if any of his newer co-workers said the wrong term or phrase for something and he said “Yes, it can get irritating however we take the newer boys under our wings and just simply ask them to repeat whatever they were trying to say and usually they get that they messed up by that point.” Not only do they have to do in-class training, but also physical training called live fires. They have run down buildings that they use to practice live fires in using all of their equipment; they practice their communication skills using radios during this time. 

This picture is an example of a few of the guys getting ready for a live fire.

       My dad has pagers and radios everywhere; whether they are on a shelf that is custom-built in his Suburban, on his night stand, or on his belt, he constantly has access to whatever is going on within his discourse community. I just figured he was truly passionate about his career, which he is, but these pagers they use are the primary source of communication. While doing some of my research, I found an article on the United States Fire Administration website that focused on radios and communication along with a 71 page study that focuses on radios and their effectiveness. In the article it states that “Firefighters are unique radio users. The life safety of both firefighters and citizens depends on the function and usage of these communication tools in the harshest and most hostile of environments” (USFA). The radio system is much more complicated than I could have ever thought, but after talking to my dad I was able to clear it up. First of all, each station is identified by a number and Delhi Township has three different stations: 30, 33, and 36. Each emergency that is reported is called a “run”, I have no idea why that is just what it is. The primary dispatcher is the Hamilton County Communication System which operates on channel FD WEST and once a run is received the dispatcher says the station number and which fire ground to turn to. Each of these four fire grounds is on the DLHI FD channel and once everyone is on the channel the dispatcher gives, all of the information about the run will be given there. Not only is the information given on the radio but also on the pagers that everyone carries at all times, the full time guys have their own radios and the part time guys have to check theirs in and out once they get to the station. In case this particular run needs back up, the radios have access to 6 different stations that are located in the area, as well as the Delhi Police Department’s station in the case of a stabbing or shooting. The radio and pager system is continuing to be updated as technology upgrades; for example, the radios actually say which fire ground you tune in to as they change between channels so if they happen to be in a building or an area with a lot of smoke, they can at least hear it if they can’t read the screen on the pager or radio. These are key concepts of communication in the firehouse because it is how they receive their assignments and determine how they are going to assess them. So these radios and pagers are a main source of communication, so what about the literacy they utilize and do firefighters even knows what literacy is? The answer is yes and you’d be surprised at just how many literacy practices are incorporated in the lives of firefighters and paramedics.

       This board looks like a dry erase board with a bunch of numbers and letters on it to anyone besides someone who works for the Delhi Township Fire Department. This is their primary tool of communicating who is in charge during that shift on that day and if one day you happen to see one of these, you will understand just what it means. First, there are 5 people on a shift at a time per station. On the upper left hand, the Q33 means quint 33 which is their station number and quint is another name for their fire truck. Underneath that, FAO means fire apparatus operator, which is just a fancy name for the person who is in charge of driving the truck. Next to that is the CO which is the company officer and he is the guy in charge of that shift. FF1 means firefighter one and he is next in command after the company officer and sits behind him in the fire truck, FF2 is firefighter 2 and he sits behind the fire apparatus operator in the truck and FF4 is firefighter 4 who sits across from FF1. The FAO and FF2 are in charge of search and rescue/ventilation which means they break windows and pry car doors open if necessary. FF1 and FF4 are the ones who attack the fire and actually go inside to fight it. On the other side, M33 means Medic 33 which is the station number and medic means paramedics which are firefighters who also have been certified through a program to perform advanced medical procedures on patients. There should be 3 paramedics out of the 5 people on the shift. This crew is in charge of the ambulance and the driver is pretty self-explanatory. The medic is the also called a chaser and he is the guy who gets in the truck and follows the ambulance to the scene. BLS 33 stands for Basic Life Support and this person has to be a paramedic and he floats between the fire truck, ambulance, and truck and basically goes wherever the rest of the team needs him to. SCBA means Self Contained Breathing Apparatus and each person has their own and is in charge of it to ensure that the level of air in their tank is maxed out, and if it isn’t, they have a filling station on site to fill it up as soon as they get there. This dry erase board is one of the many literacy aspects they used in order to facilitate the flow of the shift on that particular day. 

Mailbox Wall

        Other literacy practices that are incorporated at the firehouse are e-mailing, letters in each other’s mailboxes (see picture), texting, post-it notes on random things, bulletin boards around the station, and run reports. Their e-mail system is one that they can only use at work therefore it is their responsibility to check it while they are at the station in order to be updated on any news around the station. They have a wall of mailboxes where all the paperwork for each employee goes. Texting and post-it notes are simple ways of communicating that everyone uses, but still a literacy practice. The bulletin boards that are hanging up around the station are home to thank you cards, pictures, and newsletters that allow the firefighters to know what is going on in the community they are serving and protecting. This newsletter is published every Thursday in order to be as updated as possible. I believe the run reports are the most complicated form of literacy practice they perform and this is where many of their vocabulary and knowledge of language is incorporated.

Bulletin Board

        The run report is larger than a normal 8x11 sheet of paper (see hard copy attached) and has tons of information on it. While talking to my dad on the phone one day, I asked him what exactly this run report was and how vital it was. He said, “A run report is documentation of EVERYTHING you did on the run.” He also told me that their motto is “if you didn’t document it, you didn’t do it.” That to me signifies the importance of the information on this document. Information such as the person completing the report, the name, address, chief complaint, social security number, date of birth, phone number, medications, allergies, and the treatment of the patient is all recorded on this sheet of paper. To give you a better idea of what information has to be written about what happened once the firefighters and paramedics arrived on the scene, my dad wrote a fake run report for me to show the type of vocabulary he uses and how you have to document every detail about the accident. The run report is of a 26 year old male who seems to have overdosed on Oxycontin and he uses abbreviations throughout such as pt. (patient), b.p. (blood pressure), b.p.m. (beats per minute), u/a (upon arrival), b.v.m. (bag valve mask), and a few others (see hard copy). The way it is written is formal and describes each step of the process in detail and also provides some background information in order to provide a better understanding of the situation at hand.

         After reliving my personal experiences, partaking in interviews, and on-site observations, I can say that I now know exactly how many literacy practices are incorporated into the lives of firefighters and paramedics. These literacy practices that they use daily are the way they communicate with each other and with other firefighters all across the country, while they might not use the exact same terminology, they are all part of this discourse community that stress the importance of public safety and all work together in order to save lives. Without the use of the literacy practices and means of communication they make use of, these firefighters would not be able to serve their community like they do today.

References

Henderson, N. D. (2010). PREDICTING LONG-TERM FIREFIGHTER PERFORMANCE FROM COGNITIVE AND PHYSICAL ABILITY MEASURES. Personnel Psychology, 63(4), 999-1039. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01196.x

USFA. (10 June 2010). U.S. Fire Administration home page.  <http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/fireservice/research/safety/communication.shtm>.

Voracek, M., Pum, U., & Dressler, S. G. (2010). Investigating digit ratio (2D:4D) in a highly male-dominated occupation: The case of firefighters. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51(2), 146-156. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.2009.00758.x

The Relationship between Culture and Religion and its Effects on Identity by Thao Hoang

The Relationship between Culture and Religion and its Effects on Identity

Thao Hoang

The connection of culture and religion creates conflict of identity because the world outside the church vastly changes. The clashing culture of different ideas, especially by generations, causes identity confusion within the individuals of the community. Ebaugh and Chafetz (2000) noted that “congregations that focus most strongly on recreating ethnic ambiance of the old country are most likely to alienate the youth” (p. 447). Standards and practices revered in the Vietnamese Catholic community are dismissed or become spectacles such as the various forms of Vietnamese honorifics. On a greater scale, older generations typically have more conservative views on some issues and raised their children with these views. The children then learn more about the subject through the western culture and form an opposing idea. The different ideas, from the one the individual are raised upon based on the faith and culture of their community, and the one they learned outside of it, often diverge. These differences raises question of their culture which then lead to an evaluation of how they view their identity. The different cultures of the Vietnamese Catholic community and of the American produce different ideas that conflict and create tension between the members, often by generation, as well as force the individual to examine their identity.

For immigrants of this country, maintaining their culture becomes crucial in how they view their identity. In the midst of exposure of this western society, everything changes. Unfamiliar things exist behind every corner – different language, food and utensils, dress, music. Immigrants cling to their cultural identity and seek out or form a community as a way to maintain the practices of their homeland. The Vietnamese Catholic community in Cincinnati is no different. The community operates as a church, called the Lady of Lavang, but becomes something greater than just an area for worship. It can be argued that all churches are communities in their own ways, but particularly, the Vietnamese Catholic church strives to form a little niche where the people are able to worship freely in their language. More so, in this way they are able to communicate their culture. The church preserves traditional Vietnamese culture through a variety of different methods. This causes the religious and cultural part of one’s identity to intertwine. There are both benefits and trade-offs to this relationship. A benefit is that it brings an individual closer to the community. However, there is always an obvious awareness that they no longer live in Vietnam. Although the culture of Vietnam is preserved by many means, there exists a clashing culture of the western society beyond the doors of the Lady of Lavang church. The communication of culture in religion creates an intimate discourse community that allows the members to feel closer to one another of similar background, but also then produce turmoil in how an individual view their identity and can isolate them from the Vietnamese Catholic community as well as other different communities.

Before settling in Ohio, my family has previously lived in Louisiana and California because either my mother or father had family members who had lived there and helped us transitioned into living in the new country. The move to Ohio was also motivated because of family. However, the decision to stay was greatly influenced by the Vietnamese Catholic community in the Cincinnati area (see Figure 1 and 2), because, according to Thompson and Gurney (2003), who conducted a study of various immigrant youths’ relationship with their faith, religions “provide a strong connection to one’s familial and cultural identity” (p. 84). The Lady of Lavang creates an atmosphere where individuals of a common background worship freely in their own language. Ebaugh and Chafetz (2000) note in their study of immigrant congregations that “language commonality is central to the development of such networks, to the reproduction of customs in a new and different socio-cultural milieu, and to the feelings of personal comfort” (p. 437). My interview with L.P. also acknowledges this point. She is an older woman who feels more comfortable going to the Lady of Lavang as oppose to a nearer English church. The mass services are essentially the same, only one is in Vietnamese, but that makes all the difference in her understanding and participation in the service. An example is the Our Father, recited in all Catholic masses but here in Vietnamese:

Our Father

Vietnamese are also able express the customs and traditions of Vietnam here. The Lady of Lavang forms an environment specifically for Vietnamese Catholics, and the culture of the country can be easily perceived. I observed an instance of this last weekend when the church celebrated May Crowning. During the procession, which took place in the church’s parking lot, I saw right away various forms of Vietnamese culture such as instruments (see Figure 3 and 4). These instruments can also be faintly heard in the beginning and throughout the procession outside (Note that the sounds are not as powerful as there were no nearby microphones):

Instruments Sounds During Procession

In Figure 5 and 6, a dance was performed by girls in the church’s youth group. These pictures also show the ao dai, the traditional Vietnamese dress. These dresses are usually worn during special masses, but some women, typically of older generation, wear the ao dai every Sunday. The members also meet in the basement of Church after all mass services, special occasion or not. During these times, Vietnamese food are set up and sold. There is not extra prayer service here; people just come together at the various tables to talk and enjoy a meal together. This community also celebrates non-religious holidays of Vietnam such Tet, the Vietnamese lunar new year. These communications of culture all takes place within the church property. The ao dai will never be seen at the local Target, and Tet will never be celebrated or recognized like the New Year at the beginning of January. The Vietnamese Catholic community in Cincinnati intertwines and communicates culture literacy with relation to religion. The relationship of the two is strong within the community because the church becomes the sole environment of Vietnamese culture.

The Vietnamese Catholic church provides a close-knit community but also isolates their members from other communities in this manner. The discourse community is for a very specific group of people. As a place where culture is so freely expressed, it becomes very important to its member. However, according to Ebauch and Chafetz (2000), immigrants of religious congregations often feel “too isolated in their parish” (p. 442). This is because the members spend the majority of their time away from this community. Sometimes, they need to hold meetings and plan for special services like the May Crowning. Mostly though, their life is immersed in American culture and society. Those who are part of the discourse community understand that their Vietnamese and American lives will never really mix. In an interview with T.O., he said that he keeps his activities with the Vietnamese Catholic church separated from his other communities in school and work. While he never outright said that it made him uncomfortable, it is something that he just did not and would not do. Yet religion and culture are such significant part of his and other members’ identity. To have these parts of identity so detached from the majority of their life creates conflicting feelings in how they view themselves in the world. Because the cultures never mix, they see their identity as divided. The Vietnamese Catholic community binds the member through a common background but also isolate them from other communities.

The connection of culture and religion creates conflict of identity because the world outside the church vastly changes. The clashing culture of different ideas, especially by generations, causes identity confusion within the individuals of the community. Ebaugh and Chafetz (2000) noted that “congregations that focus most strongly on recreating ethnic ambiance of the old country are most likely to alienate the youth” (p. 447). Standards and practices revered in the Vietnamese Catholic community are dismissed or become spectacles such as the various forms of Vietnamese honorifics. On a greater scale, older generations typically have more conservative views on some issues and raised their children with these views. The children then learn more about the subject through the western culture and form an opposing idea. The different ideas, from the one the individual are raised upon based on the faith and culture of their community, and the one they learned outside of it, often diverge. These differences raises question of their culture which then lead to an evaluation of how they view their identity. The different cultures of the Vietnamese Catholic community and of the American produce different ideas that conflict and create tension between the members, often by generation, as well as force the individual to examine their identity.

The Vietnamese Catholic community in Cincinnati allows member to worship freely in their language and unit members under the same ethnic background. The expressions of culture through dress, food, music, and instruments connect culture with faith. This relationship further unifies members but also paradoxically isolate them from one another as well as from other communities. It should be noted that there are varying levels of how an individual may feel this distance which depends greatly on their greater understanding of the ideas in their cultural literacy. The concepts learned from the different cultures clashed and force the individual to greater understanding of the limitation of wholly accepting all beliefs of one culture. While this discourse community provides a way to unite Vietnamese to their culture, it also creates conflict of identity because of the presences of other ideas of other cultures.

Figures

Figure 1- Church Building Figure 2- Sign on Church

Figure 3- Vietnamese Instrument 1 Figure 4- Vietnamese Instrument 2

Figure 5- Youth Group Dance 1 Figure 6- Youth Group Dance 2

References

Ebaugh, H., & Chafetz, J. (2000). Dilemmas of Language in Immigrant

Congregation: The Tie that Binds or The Tower of Babel?. Religious

Research Association, 41(4), 432-452.

Thompson, N. E., & Gurney, A. G. (2003). “He is Everything”: Religion's Role in

the Lives of Immigrant Youth. New Directions for Youth Development,

2003(100), 75-90.

Saints in the Catholic Religion. by:Stephanie Hamann

Stephanie Hamann

English Comp 289

Ethan Philbrick

May 27, 2011

Religion was a very large part of my life growing up. I attended church every Sunday and was sent to a parochial grade school. I never questioned religion when I was young. It all seemed so black and white. Of course God created the world in 7 days and of course a man named Jesus died for our sins. Every school day would begin with prayer, we prayed before lunch, and every day concluded with prayer. Sometimes, if you ended up with specific bus drivers, we would pray on the bus ride home. Most of the prayers we said were not original. They were rehearsed prayers that had been around for centuries such as the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles Creed. Although I am not a Catholic, I have been exposed to the community for a large portion of my life.

One of the main differences between Catholics and Protestants is the way each religion presents saints. The Protestants acknowledge their existence and applaud their contributions to the bible, but they save all of the praise for God and Jesus. On the other hand, the Catholics use saints more actively throughout religion and religious education. I can recall the courtyard of my grade school being packed with stone statues of the mother Mary, St. Peter, St. Francis of Assisi and many more. On occasion the teachers would bring us to this courtyard to pray to the statues. I can’t tell you how many projects I’ve done about saints. I even remember having trading cards with saints on them. When I went back to St. Columban church for research I noticed the different saint inscribed on windows and walls.

The Catholics actually receive quite a bit of criticism from other religions. This started in the 16^th century with the protestant movement. The first two of the Ten Commandments instruct us not to worship anything but God himself and not to create any false idols. Some protestant religions believe that the Catholics are violating these commandments. When confronted about this issue, the Catholics explain that “they do not pray to the saints, but with them.” This is known as the communion of saints by those in the catholic religion. The communion of saints is “the spiritual solidarity which bonds together the faithful on Earth, the souls in purgatory, and the saints in Heaven…”

Listen below to hear a list of some of the saints.

What is a saint? One might ask. According to the Webster’s dictionary, a saint refers to a person who has been formally canonized by the Catholic Church, and is therefore believed to be in Heaven. Second question, what does it mean to be canonized? Let me just start off by saying, if you were planning on becoming a saint as your one claim to fame, you might want to reconsider. The first step in the process is fulfilled by the bishop of the area in which the candidate died. The bishop simply has to give permission to launch an investigation. Unless waived by the pope himself, this investigation can begin no sooner than 5 years after the candidate dies. It is not uncommon for the pope to waive this waiting period. Pope John Paul II did this for Mother Teresa and Pope Benedict the XVI did the same for John Paul II when he died. This investigation includes extensive search of the candidate’s writings and sermons, and a biography is written based on this information in the mean time. Next, all of this information is presented to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. Once the proper approval has gone through, the candidate is then exhumed and examined.

Once all of the investigating has been concluded, the candidate’s information is presented to the pope. At this point the candidate begins to be referred to as “Servant of God”. The pope then determines whether or not the Servant of God expresses “heroic virtue.” This means the servant has provided a heroic display of faith and charity throughout his or her lifetime. The proclamation by the pope brings the canonization to the third step. Once again, the name is switched from Servant of God to “Venerable.” One thing you must know about the process of canonization is it requires the Venerable to perform at least two miracles after death. In order to provoke a miracle, people of faith often create prayer cards to encourage others to pray for a miracle on the behalf of the Venerable. At this point in the process, because the canonization has yet to be finalized, the venerable may not have any churches named after him or her and does not have a feast day.

There is still one more step before the venerable is declared a saint. First he or she must be determined as “Blessed”. There are two criteria that constitute a venerable as “Blessed” the person is either a martyr or a confessor. A martyr is someone who died for their faith and a confessor is someone who lived a life of faith and has performed a miracle. After all of this investigation into the Blessed person’s life and compositions, and after two miracles have occurred after death, the canonization is finally complete and the person is declared a Saint.

I would have never understood all of the literacy behind canonization if I hadn’t done a bit of online research and talked to Father Larry, the priest at St. Columban. Father Larry explained all of the different steps and gave examples of miracles performed by different saints. Most of these miracles involve a person being cured of a chronic illness. He also told me that the Catholics believe that although the saints have died, they are very much alive. The Catholics believe that the saints can see and hear everything. For example if you lost something you could pray to St. Anthony to help you find it because he is the patron saint of lost items.

Before this project I didn’t know much about what a saint was and how one is canonized as a saint and I went to Catholic school for half of my life. Even when I was sitting in the church listening to Father Larry preach nothing he said was making any sense to me. I decided to interview my brother and my father to see what their conceptions of saints were. My younger brother is currently an eighth grader at St. Columban and has a religion class every day. He explained to me that every person who enters the gates of heaven in considered a saint. However, only canonized saints can have churches named after them. He told me the story of St. Lucy, the patron saint of those who are blind. St. Lucy refused to marry her betrothed husband because she wanted to save her virginity. Her husband to be became so angry at this that he sent the guard to kill her. The guards tried to burn her but she could not be harmed, so they gouged her eye out with a fork. St. Lucy grabbed up her eyes and handed them to the man she was once supposed to marry and said “now let me live to God.” My brother told me that he doesn’t believe that this story happened exactly the way it was written. He thinks that Catholics respect the saints for the message behind the story.

See top of page for picture of St. Lucy

The interview with my father went quite differently. He was raised in a very catholic family with his five sister all named Mary and his three brothers James, Paul, and Edward. Not only were all of his siblings named after the bible, but they all attended the same catholic school throughout their school years. My father hasn’t been a regular at a Catholic church in over 30 years, but he could still explain the canonization process to me perfectly. He named of multiple saints and the stories behind them. He then explained to me that he really doesn’t believe any of the specifics of religion anymore. He thinks religion is essential because it gives people a reason to be good especially for children.

This is pretty much the same boat I am in at this point. I like to consider myself a mildly religious person. But I found myself questioning Father Larry throughout the entire mass I attended for my research. I hadn’t been in that church for six years but everything was the same. We sung the same hymns, read the same books of the Bible, the soloist and the pianist were even the same. Other religions seem to be evolving as the rest of the world does but the Catholic religion remains the same and always will.

Effective Approaches in Teaching a Foreighn Language by Marizzel Garcia

I remember my first day in Italian 101 like it was yesterday. The main reason I recall this day so vividly is due to the feeling of confusion in the class. It was the first day and the professor spoke to use in pure Italian, for the first half of class. I remember looking around and wondering if I was in the right class and if this professor was aware that this was a 101 level course. As time progressed in the class I got better at the language and started to pick it up. How do professors manage for students to learn a foreign language and get rid of this sense of confusion and perplexity? There are many techniques used by professors when learning a foreign language. For this essay I will be focusing on the following techniques interaction, connecting what is learned in the classroom to student’s personal life or preferences, and humor.

Through recent research I have found that one teaching technique used by foreign language professors is interaction. I have recently observed three foreign language classes at UC. These classes consist of a Spanish 101, French 102, and Italian 103 class. Each one of these classes incorporated interaction weather it was the teacher asking the students questions, the students asking the professor questions, or the students having conversations amongst each other in the language. According to Pawel Scheffeler (2008), an English syntax professor interested in research in language accusation, interaction is important when learning a foreign language because “communicative interaction can drive language acquisition forward” (p. 291). Here we notice that interaction has been found to be linked to acquisition. Another reason why interaction is important is because “in-class interactions help the learners maintain their attention and interest” (S. Deniz, 2010, p. 1281), which is also important when learning a language.

Students also find interaction used in the classroom useful when learning a language. Olivia Anastasi, one of the students from the Italian 103 class I observed, stated that “I think interaction is vital with any language being learned. Reading and doing the exercises in the book only do so much. In order to really grasp the language you must interact with others who speak it” (O. Anastasi, personal communication, May 26, 2011). This shows that interaction is also important to not just happen amongst the instructor but also amongst the students. For this interaction to be effective a second language class “should be organized in such a way that learners are given opportunities to interact freely with the teacher and other learners (Scheffler, 2008, p. 290). This demonstrates that this interacting amongst students plays an important role in learning a language.

A second technique used by foreign language professors is connecting what is learned in classroom to students’ personal life or preferences. Professors do this by giving writing assignment to students in which the write in the language about themselves or state their opinion. Another way they do this is by asking students questions during class in which they are then forced to practice their speaking skills and have to state their opinion on a topic or their feelings. I observed some examples of this in the Italian 103 the professor asked the students in Italian what kind traveler they were when discussing traveling. Another example was in Spanish 101 the professor asked a student in Spanish, how are you when you are with your husband, or cat to get a student to use the new vocabulary learned.

Connecting what is learned in the classroom to the students individually has been found to have a positive effect on learning a foreign language. In a study done by Deniz in which students evaluate foreign language teaching, it was found that “students thought that the strategies that encouraged student to share personal experiences and thoughts and ask students to work towards the same goal were important but that their instructors didn’t use them enough in class” (2010, p. 1278). This shows that students believe that making these connections help when learning a foreign language. For the teacher to make these connections of in class learning to the students personally, it’s important that the professor has a positive relationship with the students. According to Deniz, “the teacher should be sensitive towards his/her students’ needs, develop positive relationships with them, and listen to them to show that he/she cares about them” (2010, p. 1279). When a teacher shows that they care about the students this motivates the students to learn the language. This motivation is vital to effective foreign language teaching. Deniz’s research shows “Motivation is one of the most important factors required for effective foreign language teaching” (2010, p. 1269). This motivation is important because “factors such as interest and paying attention, making an effort, willingness to spend the required time, not giving up when challenges appear, strong willpower to reach the goal, being determined, and using strategies to achieve the goal are important factors of motivation” (Deniz, 2010, p.1270).

A final teaching technique that professors use is humor. Humor was used by all professors I observed except for one. To make learning a foreign language as effective as possible “a teacher must desire to make learning fun by exhibiting teaching behaviors that demonstrates that he/she is enthusiastic and eager to teach”(Deniz, 2010, p. 1278). An easy way for teacher to do this is by using humor.

Through my research I have found that the use of humor has a positive effect on students. Nick states that “using her comedic approach wakes us up and keeps us in toned with what she is saying” (personal communication, May 26, 2011) when referring to his Spanish professor. In Deniz’s research students also found it important that their teachers “create a supportive classroom climate that promotes risk-taking, bring in and encourage humor, avoid social comparison, and use short and interesting activities to start the class, to create a pleasant classroom climate” ( 2010, p. 1279). These students also stated that these principles weren’t used enough in the class. So this leads me to believe that students enjoy classes in which professor incorporate a lot of humor.

In the classes I observed each professor would use humor in subtle ways. In the Spanish 101 class the professor would tell a student “I’m sorry that’s Russian, what language are you speaking”, the class would then chuckle and the professor would then correct the student’s pronunciation. Another example was the professor would tell female students that used masculine verbs, “I’m sorry I didn’t know you were a man did you change your sex” to get her point across. Every time the professor said something comical students would laugh and it drew their attention to the lesson.

When humor isn’t used in the classroom it can also have negative effects on the classroom. Lack of humor can lead to “a classroom climate which is serious which can cause stress for students” (Deniz, 2010, p. 1280). This stress can then affect the interactions or communication of the class. The French 102 class that I observed barely used humor. Out of all three classes I observed this one also seemed the least effective. Throughout the class time students demonstrated a lack of interest. Prof of this was the fact that more than 5 students arrived late to class. Another example was some students in the class had their phones out in class and were texting. The last example was that when doing partner activities many students were lost and didn’t know what they were supposed to be doing. If this professor incorporated humor in her class as a way to draw the students’ attention maybe the students would be more receptive and attentive to the language and class.

Overall, the most effective foreign language class is a class that incorporates all of these techniques. A class that uses constant interaction connects what is learned in the classroom to student’s life, and uses humor are found to be the most successful approach in teaching a foreign language.

Interview from research.




Interview final by garciamz

Painting without Paints by Alex Hand

Alex Hand

6/1/11

Throughout the ages artists have been using paints to create master pieces. As commercial illustration developed the need to produce artwork at high speeds became a necessity. While a fine artist may take several years to complete one piece, a concept illustrator may only have a day or two to complete a finished piece. The importance of speed in the field of the illustrator is of the utmost importance. If they are not able to produce a suitable piece in a short period then they will not be able to get a commission. Digital technologies are constantly being developed to aid the illustrators in their work and artists are switching to digital mediums. Many illustrators are putting down their brushes and picking up styluses. Some artists even bypass the brush stage and head straight for the stylus and tablet. Is this really wise to abandon the old or is it more important as an illustrator to have a good knowledge of traditional mediums despite the push for digital media? The following essay examines the two fields of traditional artwork and digital work and takes a look at the opinions of a couple illustrators who work digitally.

Traditional mediums are the materials that an artist uses to create an artwork manually and not on a computer. This can include oil paints, acrylic, charcoal, and all the other materials that have been traditionally used to create artwork. Digital Imaging Software is used as the medium in which digital illustrators work. The programs most commonly associated with illustration are Photoshop, Painter, and Illustrator, each has their own strong points and some illustrators use a combination of these programs instead of just one. These programs emulate traditional media while eliminating the mess and space that traditional mediums would require. The tools within the programs are named after the traditional tools used when working in a traditional manner. Although these programs can be considered a medium themselves there are also different mediums or tools that exist within them. For instance Photoshop may be the medium through which you are creating a work but the tool you are primarily using is a paintbrush. It is because the digital programs are so versatile they are more of a workspace than a particular medium. To say that someone created an image using Photoshop would be too vague to actually give a clear understanding of the process involved in creating the image.

One reason many artists prefer to work digitally is the non-existent cleanup and easy storage of file that take up no physical space. This is a huge benefit that allows artists to create vast bodies of work without worrying about finding a place to store them within their studio. This easy archiving has its disadvantages though. As digital programs become more advanced and newer versions are released they sometimes lose compatibility with files from older versions. Similar to the transition from VHS to DVD, illustration programs move to new platforms as well. This is due to a difference in coding and often happens over the span of several versions of a programs development. The Digital Art Conservation project is a collaboration between several art institutions in Europe to help preserve pieces of digital artwork for public viewing. The work that these institutions are faced with can be described as this, “The most used formats are more robust over time. Versions of the same software may not be compatible, and therefore all or part of the code does not work as well as when the work was created. That requires additional time to reprogram or to use a software to emulate.”(Laforet). This means that the work of digital artists is fragile and that it can quickly become outdated. Though they may not be deteriorating physically these pieces are threatened by the rapid development of the programs used to create and display these works. Although this applies primarily to pieces that are meant to be displayed, it does apply to the work of illustrators and their ability to go back and use old pieces as reference.

Another reason many illustrators are working digitally today is their ability to work quickly and easily edit and image. With the emergence of programs like Photoshop artists are able to rework or edit an image that they are more than halfway finished creating in a very short period of time. Jonathan Kirtz a concept artist who studied under C.F.Payne and worked on concept artwork for Warhammer Online explains his experience with digital media, “Concept art requires efficiency, and traditional media is too slow. Often an artist would be required to make changes, sometimes drastic ones, halfway through a piece and digital lends itself well to that.”(Kirtz) An example of this would be, if the colors are off in an illustration all the artist has to do is slide a few meters and the hue changes. With traditional media this process could take hours of painstaking work and might even require the artist to redo their work.

A Video of me creating a digital painting in Photoshop.

An artist who was trained and worked traditionally but recently switched to working digitally, Richard Collingridge, describes a moment of frustration that caused him to make the transition. “The final straw came when working on the cover for ‘Trash’ by Andy Mulligan. I had produced a very red sky as a backdrop to the main image and it was decided that the sky needed to have blues as well as reds in it. I tried to do this using my traditional technique by selecting certain areas of the sky and changing their hue to blue. This didn’t work so I ended up having to paint the blue parts of the sky digitally.” (Collingridge). Before this point Collingridge made it clear that he did not want to work digitally and tried to strictly using traditional mediums. Although he wants to work in a traditional manner he is unable to in his line of work as an illustrator. John Kirtz also expresses a similar desire to work traditionally but feels that it is impractical when Photoshop allows him to quickly produce work within the deadline. “I actually really love the feel of brush on canvas and really miss that with my Cintiq. To help circumvent

this I try to use brushes in Photoshop sometimes that emulate the bristles of a paintbrush. “(Kirtz) The Cintiq which Kirtz described is a tablet that also acts as a computer monitor allowing the artist to draw directly onto the image instead of a pad. Although the Cintiq is a high tech piece of hardware that allows the artist to work more naturally, it still does not offer some of the subtleties of working traditionally.

Perhaps it is the nuances or subtleties of feeling a pencil or brush on a canvas that originally drew artists to their craft. That they are perhaps only working digitally for the sake of their employers and want to someday return to working primarily with traditional methods. Although Digital Media is definitely an effective means of producing amazing pieces of art in a short period of time, there is a connection between an artist and the tangible that still exists. In my interview with Jonathan Kirtz he expressed his thoughts on the abandonment of traditional mediums,” A lot of kids get into art these days and never even pick up a paintbrush. There's something really satisfying about having a real tangible, physical piece of art in your hand.”(Kirtz). He believes that everyone should have the same experience working traditionally before moving to digital. And so as artists leave there brushes behind to create their own digital masterpieces they still may feel the grasp of nostalgia calling them back to the traditional.

Artwork of Jonathan Kirtz

Works Cited

Collingridge, Richard. "From Traditional to Digital Illustration." The View from Here Literary Magazine. Web. 23 May 2011.

Laforet, Anne. "Digital Art Preservation." Digital Art International: the International Portal & Community Dedicated to Digital Art. 05 May 2011.