This Is what I believe about literacy learning and teaching…. at this moment. That we are in charge of who is literate and who is not. I have also learned that we participate as teachers, even when we do not think we are, and our practices, then as teachers, enhance or deplete literacy depending on those that can read us. “It had a lot to do with speaking” with, “seeing correct words”- Deborah Brandt says in accumulation of literacy, a reading that I took heavily from in this course. Another thing I took advantage of while during this semester was the the literacy narrative. The narrative more then any other assignment drove me to criticize that exactly how much we promote literacy, is exactly how much we do not.

In interviewing my grandfather, I learned how much his literacy wasn’t was not encouraged by the newer accumulation of literacy that surpassed him.“Sponsors are a tangible reminder that literacy learning throughout history has always required permission , sanction, assistance, coercion, or at a minimum, contact with existing trade routes.” This comment by Debra Brandt has stayed with all semester, peeping in and out of my discoveries of what exactly literacy was, and how it functioned in our every day life. How our education shapes us through our literacy, first, as a force of identity, an identity we must choose and live with, and then as a debilitation to the ever piling accumulation of literacy itself. During the interview process from the narrative assignment, I interviewed my grandfather and his experiences with learning to read and write, and how his experiences, shaped him into the level literacy that he currently has attainted at the age of eighty four.

My grandfather graduated high school, and served in the military. During his time in the military, his reading and writing were very minimal. He was not needed to to convey many messages in his position, and in fact the only times he remembers reading and writing at all, was to write a very small repot, that was a few sentences long. A question and answer formatted worksheet. He also translated letters from family members from english to Spanish, or read them out loud in Spanish so that other officers could understand. This translating, was not needed for any other aspect of his job however, so his accumulation of this type of literacy, as well as all Spanish forms of literacy during this time in the united states, (1950-1953), were not tangible necessities for the american literacy trade routes of the 1950’s. Trade routes, taken from a Bradnt Idea again, “When economic forces are adressed in our work, they appear primarily as generalities: contexts, determinants, motivators, barriers touchstones. But rarely are they systematically elated to the local conditions, and embodied moments of literacy that occupy so many of us on a daily basis.” In a similar way, my fathers skill of translating, earned him a job as a translator in a lumber yard, working when he was eleven years old. The skill was worthy enough to earn a living, for not only himself, but to provide food for his family in the 1970’s, up until he quit the job after three years of alright pay.

This change of tactical need for literacy changing is what made both Brandts accumulation of literacy and sponsorship of literacy clear for me to see. As well as how much our own teaching practices, shape these trade routes that Bradnt speaks of. Through the development of our work, that address economic factors, as I already brought attention to before, Bradnt tells us something similar that James Paul Gee tells us, that we constitute how a learner develops, through each element of the world we ask learners to participate in. Too often these worlds that we sponsor, hinder identity more than inspire identity to grow individually, because of literacy’s’ competitive nature.

What Ive taken away from the make hack play article group more than anything, was that when literacies are given as playful tools, rather than working tools, the creations are more beneficial, and more creative, as well as more individually useful to discussion.

Above of all of this, I also remind myself of what Kim said in the very first week of the course if I remember correctly, that a child behaves a head on top of himself when they are at play. This is defended by the workings of maker culture. Also that could be a way to explain just how important the teaching of literacy is to our individual and communal growth. If we wish to expand literacy, with a literacy that is threaded into economic success, the expression of failure makes most literacy, out-side of study- literacy as high risk learning, and therefore semi permeable forms of expression, that continue to hinder literacy in all of its forms, if they are not changed, by the sponsors themselves, to suit the learner.

 

While dissecting the book, What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, our book club has discovered not only a tangible analysis of hands on learning principles but also a guide toward understanding the hidden processes within the acts of reading and writing, that without the illustration that video games have given us, would be otherwise unnoticed or less stressed. It is possible to examine literacy as a force of identity, as well as a force of transformation within the context of said identity, to better understand the catalyst that ultimately propels players of video games such as Arcanum, or System shock, to fail forward and to practice learning, most times more efficiently and more truthfully than the learning practices introduced to students in school. What James Paul Gee explains in his book in detail, is the effort that video games put into the creation of a transformable identity, one that can be controlled in detail by the player, so that one engages with the literacy at hand in a way that teaches players by their own efforts, quickly and without the negative stigma of learning useless information. The information given in video games is needed for the transformation of these identities, and it is understood by the player that he or she may better their identity throughout the game, without the worry of being exalted from the game. If he or she takes time to accumulate the skills necessary for transformation, he or she will win the game.

One way a players identity can be transformed is through the built in learning principles that are found in most useful games as Gee puts it. These principles are subset, or simple domain introductions, incremental stages, concentrated sample missions, and bottom up skill sets. James Paul gee says that,“Starting them with cases that are basic or fundamental in a sense that they lead the learner to discover and practice what are, in fact, fruitful patterns and generalizations. Fruitful patterns and generalizations are ones that allow the learner to make real progress in the domain and that can serve as the correct basis for more complicated patterns.”, to learn and discover can be seen as a way to transform the identity of the player. Our group talked a lot about how this bottom up learning is so attached to the positive reinforcement of the identity of the player. In school when one fails, there is no underlining transformation that takes place. The opportunity for learning is since lost. We discussed the narration of the gameplay of Arcanum by James Paul Gee, to connect with another game, System shock, in which the element of bottom up learning gave confidence to the players nearing the end of the games. In system shock, you learn that the person training you is the final boss you must defeat in order to beat the game. This can be seen in every way as the game providing the necessary skills to transform your character, or identity, or avatar, the concept is the same.

Sponsorship in digital literacies have a strength over sponsors of print based literacies in that digital interaction has shaped into a culture of an eager learners playground, and print based literacy, into one of definite choice and forceful thinking. The solidity that gives print based literacy its power as Brandt explains in Accumulating literacy, when combined with the option of the free, more playful, and more satisfaction orientated environment the digital world has become. ( We talked in class about youtube tutorial culture, and “how to” videos allowing for the spreading of literacy with newer and more friendly approach, distilled from the playfulness of choice. A topic searched for, or looked for,as opposed to one that is traditionally given, or dispersed.

This culture of choice and play as Keri Franklin writes in #pleasehelp, is one of the four pieces of emphasis in teaching new literacies. In her second point, “reading widely” Franklin writes that “we need to the opportunity to read and write within the genre, first for fun, and without aim” the benefit of choice that digital literacies come from, could be said are more easily accessed or adapted too, because of this wide survey of genre.

In the newest Literacy that I have tacked for myself I have noticed this same element of choice helping and hindering my decision to continue learning it, and my self esteem during the learning process. Much like Franklin, when I began to attempted to read an old fashioned dictionary. Recently Ive noticed that my digital aid has left me with little to no knowledge of how to use a dictionary. When my poetry class required I use it profusely, I continued to struggle with accessing the language. What frustrated me the most, was that I couldn’t search for the word, I had to find it the pages that were already there. There was no search bar, and if I found a page where the word might be on, I had to look closely and find it, but I still had to digest what I wasn’t looking for, no instant gratification. It made looking for words at first to be more of a struggle, rather than a journey of words, as I have come to understand it, but not until recently. The language of searching for words, and finding words were more separate identities than I had originally perceived, and when I actually sat down and attempted to learn how to read a dictionary the way it should be read, the element of choice, and decision making, in my part as the user, was not needed, and the language barrier became more and more apparent to me, because of other reasons, yes lack of support, and maybe others, sticking with the four element outlined by Franklin, but mostly by the lack of a word being offered to me, and rather being there for me work toward. This was the biggest challenge in appeasing that specific print based sponsor, and the most vibrant difference in the two markets of literacy, as we have outlined in class.