1. Try to think of your earliest memories of writing and reading.  What do you remember of reading and writing before you began school?  Who helped you with it and what was that like?

“While growing up I don’t remember reading and writing before I began school. Speaking and learning English was a struggle because my whole family didn’t speak English at that time when we came from Thailand. My parents didn’t speak English so it was hard for them to teach my siblings and I how to read and write. Though they didn’t speak English, my mother would always read the book Fa Mulan: The Story of a Woman Warrior by San Souci translated in Hmong to my sisters and I when we were in elementary school.”

Here is a photo of my best friend Khue and I.

In Hamilton’s article, she talked a lot about newspaper photographs and how they add color to a story. I’ve worked with the Orion in the past so I  agree with this notion from my personal experiences. In each story that writers are assigned with each week, they are also paired with a photographer who will complete the story. A matching photograph with a story is a great example of how photography and literacy can work together. When people read a news article with a photo, they can make a connection between those two and it will create more emotions.

Here is a photo I took for the a news article. In this photo we can see the people gathering around this man and he seems to be guiding them about something. The paper in his hand can be a schedule or notes. The man on the right side is holding a notebook and it looks like he might be taking notes. The lady on the left side is reading off a piece of paper as if she’s reading to get information. It’s important to see literacy existing in photos because we can guess what people are doing in the photos and how it all relates to the photo. It sort of tells us a story about the picture. This picture can fit into the category of “literacy as an accessory” because most of them are caring papers signifying that they have a particular status.

Here is the picture that was actually chosen for the story.

Original story:http://theorion.com/blog/2014/02/16/retired-professor-keeps-history-alive/

Like my FB photography page here: https://www.facebook.com/MaivC.Photography?ref=hl

 

My name is Maisee Lee (pronounced My-See) and the story behind the spelling is that my Dad did not want people to think that “SEE” was my middle name because he did not want people to call me only “MAI” since a lot of Hmong girls have that name already. He didn’t want me to be the “typical” Hmong girl. Thanks to him I’m stuck with everyone calling me “MAYSEE” for the rest of my life. Anyways, I was actually born in the refugee camps of Thailand during the time after the Vietnam War. We came to the United States when I was just a year old so I don’t remember anything. Just as every other immigrant, my Dad saw a better opportunity for us here in the US so I want to be make the best out of my life so that it would be worth his sacrifice of leaving his Mother behind.When I was a Junior in High School I got elected to be a Girls State delegate out of all the junior girls at my school. I was really excited and happy because it was one of my biggest accomplishment so far. Girls State had really opened my eyes since then and made me step out of my comfort zone to strive for more accomplishments. I was really shock to receive such an award because English wasn’t my first language because I wasn’t the student who took all AP classes. So relating my story with John F. Szwed’s article, I can totally relate to the part about how it is important to understand the gaps between a household that doesn’t require reading and a school that does. Coming from a home where English wasn’t my native language, my parents could not teach me the stuff that the schools wanted me to know. I had to admit that I’ve lied on reading logs about me reading when I didn’t even read because I didn’t have anyone at home who could read the English books with me. So when I met all the smart girls at Girls State who didn’t come from a bilingual home, I felt like I didn’t belong there and that someone else deserved it more than me. Well, the point of Girls State was not to determine who is the smartest but to see who possessed leadership skills and who wants to make a change in the world and so that’s where I belong. I realized then it’s not about how smart you are or how many books you can read in an hour, it’s about having motivations, a goal and getting there with a smile on your face. Even if my Mom didn’t understand English, it didn’t mean she was illiterate,  she was able to help my brothers and I with simple mathematics when we were younger and that has made all the difference.