Change For a Paradigm

Hello, my name is Matt Poundstone and I am in my third year of Chico State. It took me two years to declare an English Literature major, but I did and I am sure it was the right choice.

I am the kind of person that strives to kind a deeper meaning in almost everything- something that would make a good story; and any kind of quote, gnome, character, or theme I find within a literary piece only augments that ability of finding depth and inquiry in the mundane and average aspects found in the routine of life. Last semester, I traveled to sixteen different countries on the program Semester at Sea, a study abroad program where I and five hundred other college students lived and learned upon a cruise vessel traveling to various ports in various countries. It was on this voyage that I discovered the idea of “orature”, the oral analogue of literature.

With being exposed to so many different kinds of cultures, customs, and people, I was able to be a part of some incredible experiences that I of course wrote about. But what I really found the most joy in is being able to tell these stories to different groups of people: friends, classmates, professors, etc. I loved being able to capture the entire room’s attention with my stories. My writing professor on the ship told me I have a gift of using my words and telling stories. The advice she gave me that affected me the most is that I should always write as I speak, because they should be one in the same.

Scwed, in his article “The Ethnography of Literacy” states, “literacy goes beyond the basic assumption of being able to read and write”(422). I think that what Scwed is trying to say is that literature is broad and comprehensive and it is because of that that society, and its failure to delineate a tangible domain and origin of literature, must compensate by rendering it to realms of reading and writing only. What I got from this article is that literature has many domains to which its both acquired and practiced; it is everything.  What I acquired from this is article was a new paradigm of literary merit, one that does not render my voice as simply “story-telling”, but one that amplifies it and gives me clarity as to what it is: orature.