Blog Post 1

Hey everyone. I’m Kathleen and I am 21 years old. This is my second semester at Chico State after attending El Camino College in Torrance, CA for two years. I grew up in Southern California so Chico has been a bit of a change for me but I absolutely love it so far. I am studying English Education and plan to teach high school once I finish with my degree and credential. I’ve always had wonderful English teachers and that’s what has inspired me to study English and pursue teaching.

I read and write without really being conscious that I am doing so during almost every waking moment. I wake up, catch up on reading my Twitter timeline, and sometimes type up a tweet. Typically, I spend a lot of time on my phone, scrolling through various social networking websites and that involves a lot of reading, although it may not be intellectual material. I really cannot think of a “good” answer to why I spend so much time doing this reading, maybe just my uncontrollable wonder of what other people are doing and thinking. I guess what I take away from spending so much time reading social networking sites is those few minutes of mindless entertainment I need to wind down during a tough school week or busy day of errands.

As an English major, reading and writing is something that comes with the territory. The purpose of reading and writing in relation to my academic career is something I really enjoy, although it is very time consuming and can be sometimes frustrating. The end result, however, is always something I am really proud of, whether it’s a slick ten page paper I slaved over sitting on my desk or a book that was once new and shiny on my bookshelf that is now tattered and stained with coffee.

Szed’s article on literacy allowed me to realize somethings I had never really thought of or observed before about our youth. Szed discusses the definition of literacy and the idea that “as an ideal that seems to be suffering a crisis” (421). This statement made me wonder who wholly decides who is literate and who isn’t. One group of individuals may think we are sinking intellectually, but another may believe that we are just changing our ideals and what we find to be more necessary in literacy. Traditional ideas of what are literate should be questioned, because we are a different society and we ARE constantly evolving. What struck me as interesting in this article is the idea of different social classes being exposed to different levels of literacy. Ultimately, if a child’s family has the money to send him to private school the chances of him receiving a more personalized and focused education may allow him to be more “literate” than a child whose family lives in a poor area and is sent to a school with low funding. The child living in the poor area is likely to be dealing with more extrinsic stresses than the other child. Literacy is relative but I think it is possible to determine a basic level of literacy that includes reading and writing.