I’ve been thinking quite a bit about literacy being social. When I was a teenager, my father started a construction company. My dad knew construction, he was good at it. But he struggled with writing. He didn’t now how to write business proposals and invoices, and while he tried to learn and he knew what he wanted to say, he struggled with how to say it. He was unsure how to word certain phrases so he would ask me for help. But I struggled as well. I had no idea how to write proposals and invoices. I considered myself a good writer. I have never struggled with any type of writing until this. So in order to help my dad out (and of course I was helping myself and the rest of my family because if my dad can’t get proposals and invoices sent out, he can’t get paid) I had to learn how to do this type of writing. While my dad could have hired someone else to do this, I wanted to be the one getting paid, but I also wanted to figure it out so my dad didn’t have to worry about finding someone reliable and trustworthy. So I figured it out. I spent hours searching online for examples of business proposals and trying to mimic these examples. I was eventually able to figure it out. While there was some financial gain in learning, my biggest goal was to help my dad and make his job easier and less stressful and if not for this, I probably would have never learned how to write documents like this.

I tried to read the blog by Keri Franklin about digital literacy but it would not load. So I got extremely frustrated and kept trying to make the thing work, and it just wouldn’t work. However this really got me thinking about digital literacy without even reading the blog. Because here I am, spending almost half an hour to get this page to load, using everything I know about computers. I reloaded the page around 100 times. I closed my browser and restarted it. I double checked my internet connection. I triple checked it. I restarted my computer.  I really wanted to read this blog! So I have no idea if any of this relates even remotely to what she said, but here are my thoughts about sponsorship in digital literacy. My biggest reason for using twitter is to connect with other students, professors, and stay up to date with research related to what I study, or just other topics I’m interested in. So in order for me to try to be the best student I can be and eventually the best educator I can be, I have to know what’s going on. I need to stay connected whether on twitter, facebook or even tumblr. This has pushed me to become more comfortable with computers- specifically the internet. In English 30 workshops I needed a way to communicate with students and allow them to share their work, so I created a google group. The first week I had no idea what I was doing, and neither did the poor students. But because communication and sharing is such an important part of English 30 I had to learn it. And quickly, which I did. By doing so I have been able to to create a space for myself, the students, and our interns to communicate and share easily.

I really like interviewing my younger brother because the two of us had drastically different experiences with reading and writing. To me, the most interesting part was the fact that he could enjoy reading but dislikes writing even outside of school.

4. How did reading and writing change as you entered elementary school?  What did you do with it?

It got more literal and boring. It got better stories. (me: So did you enjoy reading and writing more once you were elementary school?) Reading yes writing no. Reading had detailed stories and there were so many different stories, some I liked and some I didn’t and some that interested me. Writing never interested me. I only like writing stories about what we wanted to be when we grew up, but I didn’t like when they asked for our life stories. I didn’t like being open about that kind of stuff so I wouldn’t do them, I would just fail them.

 

5. What are you asked to do with reading and writing at this point in your lives?

In high school, all I really do is write research papers and journals about a book and notes. We just read novels and sometimes a textbook. And text messages! No, but seriously, there are also 20 page powerpoints that we have to write notes on. The reading I sometimes enjoy, but writing I only like if I can type or it’s short but I hate handwriting and long essays. (Me: what about outside of school?) Most of the reading I do outside of class is stuff on facebook, texting, or reading notes my girlfriend wrote me and same with writing. Outside of school I don’t mind reading and writing since I get to chose what I’m reading and writing about. I still don’t like writing long texts or facebook updates though. But it school it seems like most of the reading and writing is pointless and won’t help me. This is why I don’t want to go to college.

 

There was one particular quote that stuck out to me in Scribner’s article and that is “The one undisputed fact about illiteracy in America is its concentration among poor, black, elderly, and minority-language groups-groups without effective participation in our country’s economic and educational institutions (Hunter and Harman).” Part of the reason this stuck out so much was because of the truth in it. It my first blog post I mention that I was interested in how economic factors limit one’s access to the tools they need to be literate. These groups, the ones “without effective participation in our country’s economic and educational institutions” are the groups that need these institutions the most but do not receive the access. Of course these was in the metaphor of literacy as power. Certain groups of people are kept from these resources so that they don’t have power something that I find pretty sad. However, these groups are usually literate in other ways but these literacies are seen as powerful or important. I really don’t know where I’m going with this, but it has me thinking again about economic factors that limit of allow someone to become the specific type of literate that is seen as powerful.

Hello everyone, I’m Ashley Schwieger (It’s pronounced SH-VY-GER and yes it’s German). I’m a junior and my major is English Education. I transferred here this fall from American River College in Sacramento where I earned an associate’s degree in Psychology. I came to Chico State because it’s actually the only school in northern California that offer’s my husband’s degree (Applied Computer Graphics) but it worked out really well because of the awesome English Education program.

Reading and Writing had always been a huge part of my life. In fact, when I got married, my wedding was literary themed (we used hundreds of books as table center pieces, props for photos, and we even had a ring book instead of a ring pillow). When I was younger I would beg and beg my parents to buy me books but they were never able to afford it and never had time to take me to the library. I would stay with my grandma on weekends, holidays, summers, and any other time I wasn’t in school so she would take me to a used book store to get books so I wouldn’t be bored. She would buy me a bunch of books that I could trade in for more when I was done with them. I eventually ran out of books I wanted to read at that store so she had to find others to take me to. If it wasn’t for my grandma I probably would have never excelled at reading and then writing as much as I did.

I really enjoyed the article by Szwed. There is so much variety in how and why we read and write that we are probably pretty oblivious to it in our daily lives. It always makes me laugh a little when my brother tells me that he hates reading because he does so much reading in his daily life that he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

Something that Szwed touches on, that I would be really interested to learn more about is the economic influences and reasons for reading. He mentioned the “book culture” and then later talks about the sharing of books privately within the working class. While reading used to be something for the upper class and wealthier citizens it has spread to those in all economic situations and while I am unsure how much we will talk about these things in this class, I am very interested in how and why this happened. But it seems as if there are still economic factors that limit access to reading and extensive writing.