For this assignment, I chose to interview my dad.

7. In the next ten years, what will reading and writing will become?

“Writing is going downhill fast. Unless you’re in school no one is really writing thing by hand. You will never walk into an office building and see a hand written memo on the wall and a secretary and you a hand written phone message, you’ll receive an email. Put it this way, the only time we really get hand written mail is at Christmas time and we get Christmas cards from family members.”

The passage that stood out to me was “It is only some visual traces of literacy practices that are captured in still photographs – observable, but frozen moments of a dynamic process.  Even aspects of literacy practices that seem clearly visible in events are in fact defined only in relation to cultural knowledge that the viewer brings.  It might therefore be more precise to say that all elements of practices are inferred from the images, but some with more direct visual cues than others.” (middle of page 18) I had to read this line like three times before I really registered what it was saying and realized it’s very true. Basically these sentences are talking about things are not always as they appear. For instance, if I am looking at someone sitting alone with their face in a book, I would definitely say he’s reading the book. But if I turn away he could have looked up or away but from what I saw the previous second before I would still assume he’s reading. I only get to see and interpret what my mind captured in the second I saw him. It’s the same as looking at a photograph, I can only assume for that single second that I can see laid out in front of me when the person in the photograph is really doing.

That brings me to the photo I chose, which clearly a girl is hiding her phone behind a book instead of reading the book. Me personally seeing this makes me laugh because we have literally all done this multiple times thinking we’re super sly in class, but it actually ties in really well with this passage I chose from the article. Most of us see this and think she’s just texting or on social media instead of reading and paying attention to class. But for all we know should could be google something she didn’t know or something else academic. The truth about the photo is we have no idea because we all see different things when we look at it. I think this photo is pretty culturally significant because like I said earlier we all do this and/or have done this. Whether the girl has been reading the textbook or texting or actually just on social media she is practicing literacy. She is either reading or writing something and it’s hard to say that’s a bad thing other than that she is supposed to be paying attention in class.

Hello everyone, my name is Claire Cocchi. I’m from Vacaville, California which is only about two hours from Chico. In all honesty my background in English is a disaster, but to me this just makes everything a little bit more fun. Growing up I never read much and it was really forced upon me. Every year for Christmas I would get like four or five books and every year I would never touch them because at the time I was not interested at all. Eventually I got really into reading and was super disappointed when none of my teachers assigned books to read in high school. That’s why I am an English education major because I don’t want anyone to be as horribly unprepared for college as I was.

For me everything I read is on separate levels. Whether I am reading for school, pleasure, or out of necessity they are all different to me. Like most I wake up and go straight to my phone. First is always messages and emails, then fun social media, and then real life stuff like the news and I google what the weather’s going to be for the day. From there I would also put my reading into sub categories because I don’t consider reading a tweet actual reading, but now days many people don’t read books or at all so that is their form of reading. Being able to measure the literacy of someone is impossible because there is a level for everything that we read. When it comes to writing, in this day and age, it almost obsolete unless you are in school. The most I write outside of school is a text or email and my journal, but other than that it’s limited to return receipts at work.

The purpose for reading and writing is to understand. Everything that our eyes see and read is meant for us to understand. It could be a book, a newspaper, a sign, or even a clothing tag. The same goes for writing, nothing is meant to be gibberish. I write things to be clear when another picks it up, even if it’s just my grocery list. Reading and writing is all about comprehending.