rachaelwhitten – Fall 2015 Class Portfolios

What Literacy Means to Me

rachaelwhitten — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 00:11:21 +0000

A literacy narrative is a work that describes a person’s process of learning not only to read and write, but of learning to interpret the meanings of certain pieces of writing. To me, literacy has more value than being able to read a passage or write a sentence. Literacy means understanding the deeper meaning in a work or art, be it a novel or a painting or a piece of music. More people today can learn to read and write than ever before, but the true mark of literacy is applying what you learned from a work to your life – taking something from it. That is what literacy means to me. I want to be able to take things at more than just face value.

Intro: To what extent can literature and first person narratives be used as a source for gaining insight into the role of women in Islam?

rachaelwhitten — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 00:07:24 +0000

First person narratives can be both helpful and somewhat complex in understanding women and gender in Islam. Without them, we would not be able to hear Muslim women’s voices with regard to their own religion and lifestyles. Because outside perspectives may simply be based on observance, we aren’t able to fully understand the thoughts of a woman who lives each day as an identified Muslim. Literature, both fiction and nonfiction, enable a reader to tap into a more emotionally descriptive point of view, and give detailed accounts of how an Islamic woman carries out day to day life. However, there is difficulty in deciding how much representation we allocate to one person’s story. There will always be exceptions in a community, and literature may be just telling the unique story of one person. Even with this in mind, we can still dangerously make generalizations about women and gender in Islam based off of one testimony. Despite the chance of one remarkable story manipulating a reader’s understanding of how all Muslim women live, literature can further our understanding of Islam in a way that other approaches cannot in that it removes third party bias when written by a primary source, it may attract more readers because of writing style, and gives greater insight in a setting where a guest may not have access to the level of intimacy that a society member might. However, third party literature can also create assumptions about Islamic women that are unwarranted.

Hello world!

rachaelwhitten — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 15:19:31 +0000

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