Gee Chapter 3

Give your thoughts.

I enjoyed this chapter (more than chapter 2, but less than chapter 4), and its tripartite identity model.

Can you recall or imagine an experience you have had that fits this tripartite identity model?

An example would be my experience in Boy Scouts. There is the virtual identity (Bill Qualls as boy scout), the real world identity (Bill Qualls as boy scout), and the projective identity (Bill Qualls as boy scout). The projective identity is one which educators should be most concerned with: it is what leads to the semiotic domain discussed in chapter 2 and the embodied meanings discussed in chapter 4.

Choose two principles summarized on page 67 and describe briefly how you might or have used them in your educational setting.

11. Achievement Principle. For learners of all levels of skill there are intrinsic rewards from the beginning, customized to each learner's level, effort, and growing mastery and signalling the learner's ongoing achievements. (This reminds me of ranks in scouting, and belts in tae kwon do.)

14. "Regime of Competence" Principle. The learner gets ample opportunity to operate within, but at the outer edge of, his or her resources, so that at those points things are felt as challenging but not "undoable". (Example from scouting: you learn knots before learning lashings, and swimming before life saving. Example from tae kwon do: you learn a round house kick before an autobahn kick, and single kicks before kick sequences.)