Mushfake

I also love this, toddlers learning how to be humans are the ultimate example of mushfaking in a discourse they are trying to be a part of. They look up to their parents and siblings to learn how to do every day tasks by mimicking everything they do, such as reading and writing here in the pictures. Like Brittany said, the kid who wrote these papers could probably read the story they wrote no problem because it makes sense to them. But to an adult, they can pick out that this child is just trying to fit into the discourse. Like the Donald Trump example we talked about in class, I would make the connection that a child trying to write like their older role models would be a shibboleth since they aren't necessarily part of the discourse yet. (hopefully I used that word in the right context)

This is loosely related to the images, but since we all grew up in the age of technology and digital literacy, I remember really wanting to be able to write down my words on a computer. I would sit at my dad's laptop and "type" on the keyboard--not really typing anything, because I couldn't read or write yet. I also remember scribbling in a notebook, writing letters together, but not forming any words or meaning. I like that even when kids can't correctly do something, they just pretend they can. They aren't discouraged by their inability, and eventually they learn to do whatever it is correctly.

I think we have all been at this level of mushfaking is our discourse. My mom still has a card I made her when I was younger that has an *awful* drawing of my family along with "happe burthdae mommee i luv yu". Very similar to the photos shown, I tried my best to communicate words I had been before. I could speak them, but the spelling part got the best of me. However, over time I acquired the correct spelling for these words either through observation or spelling quizzes in elementary school. Also I remember in 2nd grade, my best friend was in 3rd grade. One day she was studying for a spelling test and one of the words was "motorcycle". At the time, I could not comprehend ever learning such a large word! However now, it seems like a pretty basic word.

This concept is interesting to me because you are seeing the process of a child going through the steps of learning how to write using their prior knowledge of the alphabet and composing a complete sentence. When children are learning how to read and write, this can be an incredibly difficult process because it's completely foreign to them. Children learn parts of speech and writing in segments and it is a gradual process. When children are expected to write something they have learned, it may be different than what they are trying to actually say because they haven't completely processed everything into their long term memory. They will write regardless because they are expected to and they may believe that what they are writing is correct. This is the whole concept of mushfaking. This concept isn't only seen in children, but in adults as well. When we are unfamiliar with something or do not completely understand a certain task, we will try to mimic what others around us are doing so we can eventually learn how to do the thing or at least pretend we do. This idea is developed at a young age. In infants, babies will mimic what their mothers or fathers faces are doing because they believe it is appropriate or that is how they should be perceived as well even if they have not completely formed abstract thoughts yet. Mushfaking isn't necessarily a bad thing-- it is just a certain literacy practice that helps people learn how to do certain things. Everyone is unique in how they go about certain things, like writing and speaking, so it is not wrong to be different because we are learning from others. This is how literacy changes over time.

I love this and I completely agree with Brittany that this is a form of literacy. I have babysat many young children when they were just beginning to write and draw and it was so interesting to me when they would draw something that, to me, looked like a big mix up of shapes and letters, but to the child, this was a whole, elaborate story. When I first saw this, I tried to conform their drawing or story to standard English by correcting them so that it made sense to me and anyone else who might see it but then I realized that for now this is their form of expression and it is 100% okay! Even now, for TSL4081, I am working with a kindergartener who is practicing journaling and every week he is given a prompt such as "What season I like best" and I let him write the entire journal and don't answer any questions about how to spell certain words or correct him and just let him write. Then, I have HIM read it to me and I do not read it myself. After he reads and explains what he wrote to me I then read and of course there are words like "liek" and "seasun" but I want to get his understanding of his journal before I try to make sense of it myself.

So when I first looked up the term "mushfake" some prison slang definition kept popping up from Urban Dictionary. I finally found a definition that made sense: Mushfake Discourse’ means partial acquisition coupled with meta-knowledge and strategies to ‘make do’. Although I'm not the biggest fan of small children, it is pretty cute when they're first learning how to write ad spell. This reminds me of an activity my kindergarten had us do. Once a week we would write something in our journals an draw a picture to go with it. I felt like I was an author writing an entire novel, but in reality it was only about 2-3 sentences. I had so much fun doing this as a little person! My teacher would read them every week and write the correct spelling or proper form of the words really small under our own writing. Now I see that she was evaluating our progress with the written English language.

Mushfake seems pretty great for little kids, but what if little kids aren't the only ones operating in this discourse? Hear me out for a second. Imagine if you haven't had the best educational experience and you struggle with reading and writing, you lost all motivation to try, so you try to avoid it. When you're finally forced to do these tasks, it looks similar to the mushfake of a toddler. Why because you're "making do" with the knowledge that you do have. See the problem? Is this a real thing or am I reaching?