Upon entering this class, I had a feeling that I was throwing myself into the scary and unknown world of literacy that lay outside traditional and general understandings of the term (else why would there be an entire class on it?). When Kim started to explain that literacy did not come from just books but electronics, social circles, and unconventional readings, I began to understand the massive scope that this class would look into. After my initial shock, I was intrigued and pushed myself into group work that had topics I was not very well versed in like video games and rap, hoping to open up my mind and delve deeper into the unknown.

Knowing that I am aiming to be either a high school or college teacher, I have taken the entirety of the course with a mind set on conveying many ideas of this class into my future classes to encourage alternate literacy practices and reach a diverse student body. Even though I already know standardized tests are pure evil, I was surprised at the lack of correlation between countries that have high literacy rates and therefore high success. Throughout not only English classes, but history as well, we have been taught that the first step to making a country prosper is to give access to information and to teach their citizens to read. While this may help the country, the actual literacy levels of individuals are so differed that it is near impossible to judge ones textual literacy compared to another, especially in standardized form. While an ADHD child may not be able to sit and read a novel for class (resulting in a bad grade and remedial reading courses), s/he may love to read all of the history that is incorporated into a video games codex. In this way, we see Szwed’s idea of alternate literacies, accepting the black kid that loves video game’s fantasy historical texts rather than old white, unrelatable authors from Europe.

I really enjoyed my book club presentation where I was able to demonstrate the concepts of identity in a Xbox 360 game (Dragon Age II) to the class. I found it incredible how the game-player influences how the in-game character develops, because out-of-game morals that the game-player gives to the in-game-character will change outcomes and even cause different conversation options. This identity is transferred into the idea in which our minds build patterns from probing the video game’s environment. After probing the virtual environment, we observe the reaction that comes from the action and begin to form a hypothesis about the connections of both the action and reaction. Later, we reprobe and apply this hypothesis as a generalization, hoping for a similar reaction. This video game literacy directly transferred over to dealing with my parents technological difficulties during Thanksgiving break.

As I discussed in class, my parents got a new car stereo that they had little to no idea on how to operate. When they recruited me to fiddle with the system and eventually teach them the ropes, I thought to this class and began to probe the interface I was working through. By process of elimination and deductive reasoning I figured out how to connect Bluetooth, add channels, add different devices, change the EQ, and attach a remote. My parents were astounded until I also helped them figure out the Jacuzzi (which was relatively easily understood in comparison to the stereo). Before I was able to give them crap for their lack of technological literacy I realized that my generation has grown up in an era of growing technology usage, while my parents were introduced to the same medium at a much less impressionable time on their life.

After helping my illiterate parents I have come to realize that I have been navigating PC settings, Playstation game menus, and other such technical electronic mediums since I was very young. This constant exposure has helped me to build hypothesis and look for generalities within different programs. As it is difficult to mess up electronics permanently (due to the ever useful reset/restore button), I had a much more experimental and patient mindset compared to my parent’s short-tempered attempts that end in yelling. I’d have to say this is because I played the same level of Dragon Age II probably 45 different times before I could actually win.

I really loved having this class and I hope you have a great time on sabbatical this coming year! This class has been awesome and I may choose between this or rhetoric studies for my graduate and doctorate focus.

This course has literally been life changing for me. Before taking this class I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I was going to graduate (eventually) then go on to get my teaching credential and teach high school english or theatre. But then I took this class. I’ve realized through our readings and through the projects we’ve completed, that literacy studies is something that I’m really passionate about, and have been, long before I even knew what it was. So what is literacy studies? This is something I get asked so often as I try to tell people about all these great things I’m learning and as I begin to change the path I’ll be taking after graduation. We played with many different definitions of literacy in class and two that I really liked were “literacy as doing, as a social practice,” from Barton and “literacy as accomplishing things with reading and writing,” from Brandt. Brandt’s work resinated a lot with me, in her focuses in sponsor ship and opportunity. Sponsors of literacy can we good or bad, having a huge influence on a person’s pursuit of literacy. Ever since I first started going to school, I’ve wanted to be a teacher. Teachers are some of the biggest sponsors of literacies in a student’s life, and it’s important to me to find ways to be that positive sponsor, someone who allows their students to pursue the types of literacy that they’re passionate about. We talked a lot this semester after we read the Williams article. When people aren’t familiar with a certain form of literacy we automatically assume they’re dumb or inept, but maybe they haven’t had the opportunities yet. This goes for my generation looking at older generations and tech, and older generations looking at us with things like cursive and “classic” works of literature. Past generations define what literacy is, while discrediting anything the newer generations have to offer. This goes back hundreds of years, every time there’s a new generation or a new form of literacy, the old generations don’t count it as real literacy, and claim that we’re illiterate. This has always frustrated me, especially people who are so anti technology, claiming that my generation is just always on our phones, but what they don’t realize is often we’re reading articles and other literacies to keep up with things going on in the world and to learn.

Education is valued very highly in my house and it was always just kind of known that I would go to college. I’ve realized now how privileged I was to be raised in the family that I was. Two parents with masters degrees, bookshelves lining our walls, never having quite enough shelves to hold all of the books we owned, having a computer and access to educational games, and so many other things that influenced my growth and learning. I’ve always been aware that not every child has all the access that I’ve had, but I’ve never really looked at is as far as how that really influenced my education and ambitions. When students don’t have the opportunity to learn, to achieve more, then they won’t. It’s important for teachers to find ways to give every child access to technology and to books, because they may not have the opportunity at home.

Many of the things we’ve talked about in this class that has gotten me excited was the variations on traditional classroom experiences, things that remix and reshape the modern classroom. My learning style has not always matched up with the traditional ideas of learning so I’ve been excited to learn ways to change things up for my future classroom. In my book club, I learned about remixing classic works and working with students to make those works more accessible to a modern, youthful audience.

So we’ll see where this all takes me, whether that be getting a teaching credential and molding young minds, getting my masters and credential, or getting my masters and eventually pursuing a phd. All I know is that I want to keep exploring the topics of this class. I’m not done asking questions yet.

Listen Linda,

Let me just say, this has been a tremendously informative class. I have learned things I didn’t know were out there to learn (if that makes sense). One of the things that struck me as the greatest shift in mindset I made throughout this semester was the idea that people aren’t becoming more illiterate. We have simply developed new and, at times, more concise ways of saying things. This was a key issue in Bronwyn Williams’s writing as well as John Szwed’s piece, and I think this is the first time I started to have a perspective shift. “Little Johnny” is doing just fine even though every generation seems to have a literacy crisis according to the preceding generations. Literacy doesn’t mean knowing the difference between using the Oxford comma or not, it’s generally just a form of written expression. Szwed described how literacy goes beyond the academic setting, and I think that was really powerful. We tend to think about literacy as something strictly confined to essays and academic texts or novels. Szwed countered that we experience literacy in an abundance of other things in our daily lives from reading a sign to passing a note in class. Literacy cannot be restricted to the academic environment. This is something that the Hip Hop article group highlighted in their presentation; hip hop and poetry are distinctly related. That’s something I had maybe considered once or twice, but never really took an in depth look at how closely related they are. I’m so glad that the hip hop group asked us to examine it since they really expanded my perspective.

Are you listening, Linda?!

I really liked the idea of sponsorship in literacy. I didn’t so much enjoy the implications of sponsorship as much as the lens it provided through which to view literacy. Sponsorship developed the questions of “who gets sponsored” and “how.” Privilege has been a theme we have been playing with throughout the semester, and it’s something that Maggie has really brought to the forefront and helped me to think about in new and different ways. I had never really thought about how lucky I was that I had parents who encouraged reading and writing, as well as that I was exposed to computers and Microsoft Word from a young age. Not everyone gets these opportunities, and yet we are held to the same standards of the highest common denominator rather than the lowest. Sponsor programs like Common Core try to equalize student abilities, but result instead in restricted and cookie cutter curriculums (which is driving my mom, a fourth grade teacher, absolutely insane).

But Linda, honey, honey.

I think one of the most eye-opening things I’ve learned is the incredible benefits of low risk learning, and how that relates to gaming theory. I have never played video games, so I never saw their use until this class. The principles they are founded on are excellent models for the classroom, displayed not only by the gaming group, but by Kim’s entire class layout. I had wondered why it was that this class never seemed to be stressing me out while I was still learning twice as much information than in my other classes. It finally dawned on me (it was a slow dawn) after listening to the gaming group’s presentation that Kim’s class was so easy to be in because of the complete sense of security and pure learning environment that she had created. If I ever get into the teaching field (which isn’t really on my horizon), I hope I can develop an atmosphere like the one in this class.

 

 

Genuinely this was my favorite class I’ve had in college. Everything about it was super interesting, even the gaming presentations that I had zero interest in. I feel like this class made me think a bunch and reevaluate how I learn and what my literacy practices are and it all just blew my mind.

The tradition sense of literacy is read this, write that, but I don’t see that as learning at all. The most beneficial part of this specific class to me was the article groups. I 100% understand why we did the readings and the reflective blog posts for the beginning half of the class, but that was the part I could have lived without. To me it wasn’t that engaging and I just wanted it to be over with. But as soon as we got to the article groups I was all in. It was so fascinating to see all the ways literacy differ in schooling and how people might apply things that are relevant to this day and age. One thing I have a problem with is the reading that is forced upon us in English classes. Like originally these old books were chosen because they addressed controversial issues and the readers could personally relate, but now days we see worse things on South Park, so students are not fazed by the readings and don’t learn. I believe the idea of learning is directly connected to the clichéd idea of fun. As soon as I am bored I learn nothing because I have lost my interest. For example, the hip hop group was great because it took something that student were generally interested in and turned it into an assignment. They had songs everybody knew and we all broke them down and it was genuinely hard, but I was so engaged I couldn’t help but learn. Or the maker culture for that matter. In high school they tell you to read a bunch of old book, but you never do and just spark note your way to an essay. My freshman year was an engaging class because we took books and instead of writing, did things with them. Like for “Of Mice and Men” we had to build a scene. I built a barn out of popsicle sticks and had hay in it and then brought a blonde Polly Pocket from home to use as Curley’s wife and set up the scene where she dies. Or for “Romeo and Juliet” where we got into teams and made videos all over campus acting out the play. These are the book I actually remember. I learned things form these books because the activities associated with them were fun and engaging.

My ideas of being a future teacher have changed so much because of this class. It literally makes me want to throw every idea of teaching and learning out the window and start from scratch. I want to be able to use the ideas from the article groups to keep my students engaged and learning. Yes there will be reading and writing, but hopefully I will be able to choose options that they are interested in and give them the options to choose what they want to read and keep them active in class and base the standardized lessons around those reading/activities. Basically it sounds like I want to work the system.

Definitions/conceptions of literacy

literacy as doing, as a social practice (Barton)

literacy as accomplishing things with reading and writing (Brandt)

Girls use literacy to present a particular kind of self. Literate practices served to mark social boundaries (Finders)

Literacy as the ability to read and write situates literacy in the individual person, rather than in society. The practices of social groups are never just literacy practices; they also involve ways of talking, interacting, thinking, valuing, and believing. Can not pull apart literacy practices from non-literacy practices. (Gee)

Learning to write means learning to write in the ways (genres) those in an activity system write (Russell)

Literacy as a set of socially organized practices, which make use of a symbol system and a technology for producing and disseminating it. Literacy is not simply knowing how to read and write a particular script but applying this knowledge for specific purposes in specific contexts of use. A piece of writing, whatever its form, serves as a flag to signal activities in the ongoing stream of behavior that may have some component skills in common (258). (Scribner and Cole)

Literacy as a shorthand for the social practices and conceptions of reading and writing. ideological model of literacy: concentrate on the specific social practices of reading and writing. significance of socialization process in the construction of meaning of literacy for participants (Street)

What we remember…

Currently literacies: we’re still learning so much from old dead white guys, how language has evolved, political correctness because coming more involved with other, bc internet more closely connected.

Book club: identity and literacy; what can students do in class that help them get ready for what they might want to do later, being a part of a community, sharing ideas in the classroom, taking on different roles.

Szwed: people are literate in different ways, as a future teacher it’s important to see that and see student’s successes in different types of literacy. Can’t discredit people’s types of literacies and their successes just because you don’t get that literacy. What literacies are valued; aren’t illiterate just because it’s a different form of literacy

How little has changed in the classroom over time; the world is changing so much but the classroom isn’t. Huge resistance to change anything about classroom. Rooms set up for teaching not learning.

Sponsorship and privilege. Opportunities really affect ability and desire to learn. Who gets to do this? Who gets to participate in maker culture or cool ways of doing things? Issues of access.

What are forms of literacy? Key parts of our life have literacy that we just don’t think about

Mobile literacy

How is literacy changing? How does it relate to learning new forms of literacy?

Book club: let us explore the idea of choice and how that effects how we read and what we read. Talked about bringing that into the classroom and how that can help students and their desire to read and participate.