Because my life is ridiculously busy, and everybody I know seems to be equally busy, especially when I need something from them, this Saturday morning was my first opportunity to get just one question out of somebody for our Literacy Narrative.

Oddly enough, the person I was able to get on the phone, was my older brother Tyler.  I was trying, once again, to track down one of my parents, but apparently they are currently driving around Chico!  Hopefully they will have some time later today to come see their baby boy.  Tyler fortunately (surprisingly) awake at about 9:00 a.m.  I mentioned before how busy everybody I know well enough to feed these questions to, well, Tyler is probably the busiest.  He doesn’t work, and he doesn’t go to school, but this guy is busy making love to the world every day.  It’s a full time endeavor.

Although Tyler is only three years older than me, I thought he might have some interesting things to say about literacy, especially in comparison to me.  We have had an essentially identical upbringing, but in terms of literacy, we are polar opposites.  Although we lived in the same house with a similar network of friends and family contributing to our development, my brother has read a total of five books so far, in stark contrast to my unknowable multitude.  Where reading became a passion of mine at nine years old, my dad and I are still holding out for Tyler to develop a taste for a good book, besides the latest edition of Sports Illustrated…

Alright, I’m back at this blog after a long day.  I started at about 9:30 this morning, and now we’re looking at 11:00 at night.  That’s life.

So, back to Tyler.  I only had time to ask him half of the first question.

Try to think of your earliest memories of writing and reading.

Before I could continue with the rest of the question,

What do you remember of reading and writing before you began school?

Tyler had already started talking.

“First Grade!  You know, those letters with the dotted lines.  We would connect the dots first, then write the letters on our own right next to em.”

This answer, although clearly not what I was looking for, was interesting to me nonetheless, because I had completely forgot about this type of lesson.  After he described this little exercise the memory came back to me though.  I wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint the beginning of my writing days with that kind of accuracy and detail in a million years.

Do any of you remember learning to write that way?

Before I got off the phone I asked if he remembered anything before school.  He mentioned that our mom would sometimes try and show him how to write his name while they were coloring.  This was another pleasant memory I had suppressed which quickly and clearly returned to me.  Our name is something we all probably tried to write before anything else.  It got me thinking about how many times I’ve spelled out my name.  Another unknowable statistic.

Well, that’s my blog for the day.

I’ll probably try and do one of my folks for the actual literacy narrative, but maybe not.  Ty did a pretty good job.  And he’s a pretty interesting subject regardless of his generation.  A literacy narrative on a guy who would probably tell you he has no use for literacy or narratives.

 

What’s up gang..

Time to blog another blog..

First of all I’d like to mention how much I enjoyed our last class.  I can’t believe how quickly our three hours go by compared to some of my hour-long classes.

Obviously I’m getting to this blog a little late in the game.  At this point, I’m just hoping Dr. J wasn’t setting a booby-trap when she said the Friday deadline wasn’t hard and fast.

Scribner’s piece was definitely dense, but the basic concepts that were manifested within the depth of her analysis, were fairly intuitive.  Literacy is highly valued in our society, but it is difficult to conceptualize for a variety of reasons.  Even though many scholars attempt to find the boundaries and parameters of literacy which are conducive to western conventions, the global scope of literacy is impossible to gauge due to extensive cultural variety, even within considerably small communities.

Last Tuesday my table (Group 2) focused on the “Literacy as Power” section of Scribner.  Our commenting on the Google Docks, although fairly generic in content analysis, was effective in sparking the dialogue that followed.  At the very least it gave us all a valuable opportunity to reread the text and formulate some ideas.  I thought it was cool how easy it was to interact with the text.  That kind of technology applied to reading and messaging is right up my alley.  Never knew!!

The lasting impression we all seemed to gain, after conversing digitally and personally, was that in fact the relationship between literacy and power is completely ambiguous.  This ambiguity is clearly demonstrated by the fact that Scribner ends the last four sentences of this chapter with question marks.  She doesn’t even know if literacy correlates to better standards of living, and the eventual betterment of impoverished People, or if mass literacy is really just a perk of “good” living conditions to begin with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Howdy ya’ll..

My name is Travis, and I grew up in this region of Northern California, which is why, of course, I write with a Texas accent.  If you’re not from around these parts, and have only been exposed to the liberal oasis of Chico so far, just venture east into the Sierras, or west into the never-ending valley of farmland, and you’ll assuredly here that Texas twang a time or two.

Back to my story..

I was raised in Oroville.  If you are from around here you know it’s a dirty village, teeming with tweakers, about twenty minutes south Chico (travelling well over the speed limit).  If you’re not from this area, you will probably hear soon enough why you should never take that twenty minute drive.  I’m not going to try and change anybody’s mind about my hometown with this blog, but I will tell whoever is reading this (probably nobody) that I love that little shit-dog town.  It’s beautiful.

So far I’ve written mostly about where I’m from, which isn’t the prompt, but that essentially is who I am.

I don’t wanna “blog my blog” about my major, or what grade I’m technically in.  But, I will give you a little glimpse into what I’m doing at this moment.  If you’re still reading..

I got off work about an hour ago, after a pretty long day of classes followed by a full shift.  (I’m a shift supervisor at a retail store, conveniently located about a five minute drive from the cottage I rent).  Am I allowed to put a whole sentence in parenthesis? Probably not.  Anyways, I’m polishing off my second Heineken and trying to get this blog-ball rolling.

In regards to literacy.  To be perfectly honest I don’t write unless I have to for a class, or I’m texting. Even my text messages are abhorrently abbreviated.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m lazy or… Yeah, I guess that’s it.  I spell your, and you’re, as ur.  I spell there, their, and they’re, as ther.  As if that second e is such a waste of time.

I read constantly.  Obviously, I must be able to read in order to function as a college student, and a working stiff in my little universe.  As far as I know, I have to be literate to pay my bills.  I also read for pleasure, and it is one of the deepest passions of my existence.  Hopefully, as the English teacher I aspire to be someday, I’ll be able to pass on my appreciation for reading to my students as a career.  I suspect I’ll be even more passionate about that..

Basically everything I’ve written tonight has been formulated within the context of Szwed’s “The Ethnography of Literacy.”  But, what I have taken away predominately from reading Szwed, is the entirely new light (to me) he has shed on literary forms such as “graffiti” and “gambling slips” and “pornography.”  It never occurred to me that a scholar would appreciate the dark and dirty corners of modern society, beyond the scope of an intriguing study, or an exciting setting.