So much to do in this final week of school, I almost completely forgot about this assignment.  Trying to get my thoughts together and compile everything I learned this semester is going to be quite a task, but I shall give it the ole college try.

One thing that I had written about in a previous blog post was the ever expanding definition of literacy. This is discussed in great detail in John Szwed’s article titled “The Ethnography of Literacy,” and he gives SEVERAL different definitions and types.  At first, I thought Literacy was just whether one could read or write, as well as understand what they are reading or writing.  Even though this definition has proven to be a bit too simplistic, it still had some complexities.  If my many literature classes have taught me anything, it’s that there is a learning curve to reading literature, and that some people are definitely very good at analyzing texts in very profound ways.  While this definition didn’t cover everything that literacy is, it did get that aspect correct, in that there are varying degrees of literacy.

Since taking this class, my definition of literacy has expanded greatly to encompass everything we do in this world.  One can become literate in cooking, as well as tasting, and having either of these literacies can give you value in this world.  This brings out another interesting idea I have learned, that in order to be able to critique something and have a valued opinion on the subject, you must be very literate in that field.  This is why we have valued critics in our country, and it takes a lot to become one of these critics because you need to portray a vast knowledge and informed opinion of the area you are critiquing.

Literacy also has a lot to do with one’s identity.  What you choose to be literate in ultimately shows how you define yourself.  One figure who comes to mind in this regard is Joe Rogan.  Joe Rogan has become a spokesman for several different subcultures today, and people hold a lot of value in his word. Even though he has never fought competitively, he is incredibly active in the UFC/MMA scene, and is the announcer of the biggest fights, because he has such a vast knowledge of the sport.  He has been able to portray the same amount of knowledge in other groups, such as marijuana advocacy and stand up comedy, and many others.  His vast array of interests and literacies has given him the ability to identify with many different types of people in American culture, and all these interests compile into the identity that is associated with the name Joe Rogan.  His identity in Popular culture is something that I, as well as others in America strive for.

Something that I had the pleasure of learning about in the last part of this class is the maker movement.  I had never heard of this subculture before, but had always considered myself a maker.  If there is way to DIY something, and make it out of objects that I have lying around, I will do it.  This mindset has made me into a very resourceful person, but there is a downside.  I have trouble throwing anything away, ever.  The thought of possibly needing something in the future keeps my house cluttered, and someday soon I may be diagnosed with a compulsive hoarding disorder.  I hope in future I can further be a part of this maker culture, and I really want to get a membership to the new local maker haven, The Fab Lab, where you can become literate with tools like 3D printers, plasma cutters, and more.

Overall, this was a very fun class to be a part of, and I was given chances to engage with others in my class who share common interests.  My definition of literacy has been changed forever, and I plan to pass on these ideas to my son at a young age, so that he can become literate in many areas of interest.  Thank you for the conscious-expanding class that will forever change my views on literacy practices and identity.

I had a lot of fun in the Make, Hack Play group, and I enjoyed this activity as a whole.  I enjoyed watching the other groups present their findings on their respective topics.  Through our presentation, I learned about this whole subculture of people who love to make things and to tinker with gadgets and stuff.  I have always loved making things as well as the idea of recycling and re-purposing items to make a new gadget or toy.  I got to teach a group to make Robo-fingers, which were fun to make as well as fun to teach.  The future teachers in the class are able to take what they learned about maker culture and use it in their future classrooms to foster creativity in our participatory culture.  The idea of hacking, conceptualized in a new and exciting way is fascinating to me.  To hack no longer just means to gain access to bank accounts and online firewalls, but to hack into the original way of doing things and make it your own. To use existing technologies in new, distinct ways to fit your needs.  I really enjoyed the Hip Hop and literacy group’s presentation.  I like that teachers are using hip hop to teach subjects that are usually boring to young students.  The rap about Watson and Crick was really funny, and accurate too. This class made group work fun and laid back, and I enjoyed that aspect of it most.

After the first few weeks of this class, my idea of what literacy is has drastically changed. Before this class, to me literacy was simply whether one could read or write in any language, and that there are varying degrees of how literate an individual is. I have found that literacy cannot be defined so easily, and these ideas have changed after reading the several articles that were assigned. The one that had the most effect was the Szwed article “The Ethnography of Literacy.”

A main aspect of Szwed’s literacy that I picked up from her article is that there is much more to literacy than just reading and writing, and that it is fairly difficult to assign a concrete definition to literacy. Szwed outlines the many different ways individuals measure literacy, and this makes the term even more abstract, and hard to pin down. Some measure it in how one uses reading and writing, and some measure it in what you read. This article seems to pose more questions than answers, and it serves to show that literacy can be seen in many different ways, and how broad the term really is.

What I have taken from this class so far is that there are many different literacies. It seems to me that there is a literacy to everything that we do on a day to day basis. For instance, riding my bike to school requires me to be literate in several different fields all at once.

1. I need to be able to ride a bike.
2. I need to be able to navigate through Chico.
3. I need to be able to read and understand street signs.
4. I need to be able to manage my time, and give myself enough time to get to class.
5. I need to be able to interact with others on the road in a quick and effective way.

These are just the things off the top of my head that all go into merely riding my bike to school. I still believe that there are varying degrees of literacies, as an individual can get really good at doing all of these things with practice. I think that you can become literate at anything you can get good at. Being “good” at something seems to be just that: Literate. After riding my bike to class every week day, I have gotten pretty good at all the aforementioned fields.

This class so far has completely changed my ideas of literacy, and I have started to become more aware of the many fields I am literate in, and to what degree those literacies are experienced. Now I just need to decide on a day to day basis: What do I want to become literate in today?

I wanted to interview my father, who is someone who has always put a huge emphasis and value in reading and writing, however I was called in to cater breakfast lunch and dinner for the PG&E workers who came to the area to fix downed power lines during the storm, and had to work non stop the past weekend.  Well anyway, the interview I ended up getting was interesting in a different way.  I interviewed my GF Rebecca Moisoff, who grew up in a house that did not emphasize or assert the value of reading and writing.  Her Mother worked all day during the week, and her Father worked graveyard shifts during the week, which gave them opposing schedules, and it was difficult for them to teach her the value of reading.  Her mother is also an immigrant from Nicaragua, so she is not a native English speaker.  When I asked how she thinks her parents affected her reading habits, she said “I think it definitely affected me negatively and hindered me in the long run and then once I got older and once they realized that I wasn’t the best student that I could be when they did try and enforce it a think I was it was a little too late. It was really hard to get me to get my homework done and I feel like if that would have been instilled early on then it would’ve just become like habit and I would’ve it would’ve been easier for me to have done it.”  It is interesting to see how it was to grow up in a house where reading isn’t a high priority, as I grew up around voracious readers.