Reflection

What a semester it’s been! Over these last few weeks my ideas and attitude about literacy have drastically changed from how I viewed things before this class.  We have discussed so many aspects of literacy such as motivation, sponsors, literary crises, literacy as an adaptation, multiliteracies and much more and none of these words were in my vocabulary before this semester. Because I was never forced to look deeper into the realm of literacy I took what I had for granted. I have almost always had the privilege of reading and writing what I wanted to when I wanted to so I never got a chance to analyze my literacy choices or even recognize that some of what I didn’t consider to be a literacy practice actually was one. Who knew that writing a Facebook status or stalking some of my old high school friends on twitter was a form of literacy?

I think part of me not considering Facebook or twitter to be a part of the literacy world was my literacy snobbery. I know we all do it (sometimes without realizing it) but we judge people based on what they read and what they value in writing. I hate to use the example again, but if I saw someone reading Twilight I wouldn’t place them in the same category as someone reading Shakespeare. Or at least I wouldn’t have before taking this class. But now that I’ve learned more about motivation and sponsors my views have changed. Maybe I still don’t think that Twilight and Shakespeare are on the same level but now, looking at a kid reading Twilight, I will think, “well at least they’re reading.” This is part of me trying to learn how to be a better literacy sponsor. As a future educator, I think that it is very important that I value what my students are doing in terms of literacy. Even if my student’s literacy practices and tastes are very different from my own, that doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. I think that that is my main take away from this semester. We can’t continue to bash what the next generation is interested in and then expect them to be excited about reading and writing. If we continue to shove the old down their throats, we make no room for the new.

This topic of acceptance and pushing the boundaries of what literacy can be has been a major theme for me throughout my blog posts. From my post about my ten year old brother saying that he wishes he was allowed to write his stories on his laptop rather than with a pencil and paper to my post about why what I read is cool, their has been a common element of the older generation telling us that what we’re interested in doing isn’t ok. How much have we missed out on because parents and educators have been telling kids that their new ideas aren’t acceptable? Why aren’t we pushing the boundaries? I understand an appreciation for tradition and the classics but at some point our generation has to start contributing to what will be “the classics” for our great grand kids.

My Ignite project really tied together all of these ideas about valuing kid’s work and suggested some specific ways that we as future educators can be better sponsors for our students. I think that the Ignite project tied together all that we had learned in the semester and explained practical uses for our new ideas. Before this class I had never learned anything that I actually thought I would use in my career one day. Sure I’ve taken creative writing classes and studied literature but nothing ever seemed to actually be applicable to my life like until I took this Intro to Literacy Studies class. While I still have a long way to go in my college career, I think I have taken a great step forward in learning about what it actually means to be a teacher.