Marquay Collins

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“Facts about Languages” by Elaine_Smith is licensed under CC0 1.0

“Failure is Not an Option” is a bad idea, because some people use failure as a motive to become successful. Failure is used as a learning tool to grow from what have been wrong or mistaken. Failure is an option and should be used, students shouldn’t shy away from it or feel down if they encounter it, because it is an experience that they will learn from.

In the article “Failure is Not an Option” by Allison D. Carr stated, “What should be clear is that failure is a significant part of the entire scene of learning, an assertion that, again, is borne out by widely respected research.” (Carr,75) She explains that failure is an option that students should partake in. She said that it is a very important step when learning. Doing this will make you a better writer and make your writing process easier. She also stated, “Writing scholars don’t use the word “failure” very often (or at all), but we should.” She explains that many scholars didn’t accept failure or speak of it as often, but they should.

            In the article called “Literacy and the Discourse of Crisis” by John Trimbur, he stated, “The discourse of literacy crises engages deep-seated cultural anxieties and attempts to resolve them magically, by regulating the production and use of literacy and by drawing lines between standard English and popular vernaculars, ‘masters’ and ‘servants’…Middle-class anxieties about loss of status and downward mobility have repeatedly been displaced and refigured in the realm of language practices and literacy education ” (Trimbur,279-280) He explains that the literacy crisis represents the social, economic, and cultural anxieties of the middle class more than declining literacy itself. It was also found that the history of literacy crisis shows that these discourses related to social, economic, and cultural flux in the US. He also stated, “an offensive to stop affirmative-action, remedial, and equal-opportunity programs in higher education and to firm up the meritocracy in order to consolidate the privileges of the middle-class and upper middle-class students” He explains that literacy was in crisis by not making an equal-opportunity program in higher education. This means that the world was more worried about dividing the world up into different classes that they forgot to bring to realization that literacy is also just as important.

Boundaries were set amongst literacy and had no control. As mentioned in “Failure is Not an Option”, But cultural attitudes toward failure remain as sinister as ever, perhaps more so in the wake of standardized testing, No Child Left Behind, and Race to the Top.” (Carr,78) She received her view that literacy was at a crisis when these items were perceived as a weakness. This is also why failure is considered weakness, it should be used as a positive outlook for students.

In the article “The History of Literacy and the History of Readers” by Carl F. Kaestle was listed in the article “Literacy and the Discourse of Crisis”. Kaestle stated, “Literacy has become an issue, within the United States and internationally. This spurred through historians.” (Kaestle,11-12) This relate to the topic discussed by Trimbur. He explains that literacy became an issue due to the views of historians in the article from 1985. The decline in literacy leads to the thought of failure not being an option. Kaestle also agrees that failure was not spoken upon. (Kaestle,31) He explain that communications revolution including; televisions and computers, makes the world question the understanding of failure. Most of the early historians believed that failure was a sign of weakness, that should never be spoken. This relates to the world now and how it is viewed as weakness. (Kaestle, 42)

Kaestle also stated, “One cannot merely adapt a master view of multiple expectations, historians shy from the attempt.” (Kaestle,27) He explains that no one of that time period had a clear view of expectations, and that the people from the past closed their eyes toward this topic. Expectations was mostly based upon not being associated with failure. This explains why most people didn’t think highly of failure or at all.

Failure is an option and should be used, students shouldn’t shy away from it or feel down if they encounter it, because it is an experience that they will learn from. Failure is defined as a lack of success. Many people believe that when you encounter it, you are failed as a student. But that is no longer a suggested outlook of failure. It is proven that we perceive failure as an insult according to our historians, which was based off our ancestors’ experiences. This grew the word into a decline. The literacy decline is a major reason why failure is surfaced. When dealing in the academic world, you are taking a risk. Failure is just part of the process when you want to succeed. Failure should always be an option.

Work Cited:

Carr, Allison d. “Failure Is Not an Option.” Bad Ideas about Writing, 2017, textbooks.lib.wvu.edu/badideas/badideasaboutwriting-book.pdf.

https://textbooks.lib.wvu.edu/badideas/badideasaboutwriting-book.pdf

Trimbur, John. “Literacy and the Discourse of Crisis.” The Politics of Writing Instruction: Postsecondary. Ed. Richard Bullock and John Trimbur. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 1991.

https://jessicamwinck.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/trimbur-literacy-and-the-discourse-of-crisis/

Kaestle, Carl f. “The history of Literacy and the History of Readers.” Research in Education Vol.12, 1985, book. Ed.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1167145?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents