I interviewed my mother for this and I found her parents’ backgrounds with literacy interesting. My mom was such an avid reader growing up, and still is, and it’s interesting to see where her parents came from and how they influenced her love of reading.

 

What stories did your parents tell you about their own efforts to learn to read and write?  What kinds of values did they place on reading and writing?

Both of my mom’s parents placed a high value on reading and writing. Her mom tried to do well in school but wasn’t encouraged at home. My grandmother’s dad was quite verbally abusive, so it was hard to succeed in school when she was constantly being told she was stupid by her father. My mom’s dad was the first in his family to go to college, he was more literate than anyone in his family. His family lived on a farm and was bilingual in german and english. His parents were immigrants and his father could barely speak english, let alone read or write in it.

A section I found really interesting in the Hamilton article was in the section titled Comparing ethnographic photographs and media photographs. I found part c of this section the most interesting because it talks about how the images for these different outlets are selected. While images for enthographic purposes are selected based on what they define as ‘typical’ or ‘critical’ literacy moments, media photographs are selected based on the values of the newspaper and those of the readers. However I really like the reference that Hamilton pulls in from Stuart Hall that talks about how photos for news agencies are only shocking or newsworthy because we as readers understand that those images are out of the ordinary. Our literary knowledge and knowledge of the world lets us know how and why the image before us is shocking. Hamilton goes on to explain that the media, along with ethnography, show readers about our common cultures and stereotypes.

 

The image of literacy I used this week was a street art mural I saw this summer in London. The text comes from my favorite song by The Smiths and it says “If a double decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.”

For me, this was such a cool piece of street art because this song means a lot to me. The Smiths are one of my dad’s and mine favorite bands and this song in particular is our favorite to belt out. So finding that image on a wall in London was amazing for me. But street art doesn’t always bring up positive emotions from people. Street art and graffiti are ften looked down on depending on where it is and what is shown. Tagging verses art tends to depend on who is talking about the image. Our different literacy backgrounds effect how we look at street art and how we value the art. 

Hi all! My name is Maggie Herlocker and this is my fourth year at Chico State. I’ve changed my major a total of five times but I know I’m where I should be now. I’m an English education major, focusing on theatre arts. I plan on teaching either english or theatre at the middle school or high school level. I just got back a few weeks ago from studying abroad in London which really solidified my love of both literature and theatre. It’s been really weird being back so far and I know I’ll be back in London some day.

I was really interesting in what we were talking about in class on Friday about our own literary practices. There was a great deal of nostalgia in the conversation at my table as we talked about points in our life that shaped our literary practices and our different loves of reading and writing. For me, literacy has surrounded me my whole life. My house is lined with bookshelves so reading has always been a crucial part of my life. My older sister was an avid reader and as much as I liked to be different from her, I couldn’t help but want to keep up with her reading. I think that family has such a huge impact on a person’s literary practices and for me it really effected the amount I read and wrote on my own.

When I got to school, for a long time I did not resist the required reading that was given me in my classes. In elementary school I was encouraged to explore my creative writing so much and it really shaped me into what I am. It’s been a dream of mine since the second grade to be an author and in sixth grade I created a creative writing club with my teacher and I felt super comfortable with my writing. When I got to middle school I was shocked by my english teacher. Maybe it was just a hit to my ego, but it was shocking to get the first essay back and see a big read C written on it. It was interesting for me because it forced me to take a step back and really look at my writing and separate the creative and the academic, something I hadn’t yet have to do. This was when I really learned to recognize my audience and who I was writing to. This was talked about in the short article by Lunsford about how students are aware of their audience and write differently when it comes to texts to their friends versus emails to their professors versus formal essays.

For me I read and write for myself more than anything. I of course write for school, but most of what I do is for me. I write creatively, both short stories and poetry, as well as writing things online. Reading and writing is relaxing for me and allows me to take time out of my day to do something just for me. As a future teacher, I really want to work with my students to make them feel kind of like that with writing and reading for my class as well. I’d love to find a balance between required reading and writing and giving my students choice because I’ve found that the most resistance against reading and writing occurs when students are forced into doing the work.