Modern Literacy

1)      Introduce yourself. What’s your story?

Chico is the end result of a second try at college for me. My first go, at Yuba College right out of High School, didn’t pan out. I’d been hoping to become a computer programmer, only to find out assembly language was the first class capable of putting me to sleep. I stopped attending after a point, and worked awhile in retail. Years later, I gave it another go, instead just going for a general AA rather than a specific one, more or less content to just take whatever I wanted. After a few years of this the college appeared to be somewhat tired of me, and I was forced into declaring a major. I’d nearly all the requirements necessary for an English AA, so that became my major.

I looked into working towards a BA, initially even considering for profit options. But I’d done rather well in offsetting the disastrous first go through community college, enough to consider state colleges. By virtue of proximity to my home town (and CSU Sacramento’s year long delay before accepting transferring students) Chico won by default.

Initially I transferred here as an English Literature major. I wasn’t really sure what I planned to do with it, but I liked reading. A few suggestions over the course of my first semester here led me to consider English Ed, and I switched midway through. I think what eventually sealed the deal was the possibility of teaching abroad. I’d long wanted to learn Japanese, and the ability to take it here in Chico, along with the Study Abroad people here on campus helped connect my interest in English with my interest in Japanese. Long story short, I’m looking to go abroad to Japan in 2015, hopefully completing my degree and eventually seeking out teaching opportunities there. If nothing else, the opportunity to go is one I’m most excited to have.

2)      Talk about your own literacy practices in relation to Szwed: what do you read and write? What is the purpose of that reading and writing? What does it DO for you? What is your take away from reading Szwed? What struck you as interesting or new or confusing?

I used to read novels more often than I currently do. Both my parents were big Sci-fi fans, so there were always thick tomes around the house to enjoy. It’s taken me most of my adult life to really identify what I like, but I think invariably it comes down to really liking to hear a good story. A well-crafted narrative, in whatever form it takes, be it television, books, movies, comics, or even blog entries or forum posts have been what I most enjoy reading lately. I like seeing a good story come to a satisfying conclusion. I think in part this is what attracted me to Japanese media. The standard procedure with American media is to keep producing more of something that takes off until everyone is sick of it. Particularly prevalent in American TV, it’s disheartening to have a narrative stretched until it no longer becomes profitable to do so, and either unceremoniously dropped, or hastily wrapped up. I grew up with things like the X-men and the like too, but if it’s one thing American comics seem to love to do it’s to retell the same stories over and over again. So I’ve turned to manga and the like. They’re still capable of following the American pattern of grinding things into the ground, but occasionally you find a story that just knows when to pack it in, and complete the story while it’s good.

As for what I write, I find outside class work I tend to tell people they’re wrong on the internet.

My takeaway from Szwed is that literacy in the modern era is not merely a matter of reading the English canon, or writing letters. The internet enables so many different forms of literacy, each valid in their own right. While few would argue they’re all equally important, they should at the least not be dismissed outright. Platforms like Twitter may occasionally be the equivalent of standing on a box and shouting at passersby about what you had for breakfast, but it also represents a way of rapidly communicating important and fresh ideas to massive numbers of people.

The digital era utterly reshapes the nature of content creation and consumption. Just as the printing press enabled rapid publication and dissemination of written works, the internet breaks the barriers to getting your work out there. The form content takes too has dramatically shifted. From 30 minute television shows to five minute youtube skits. From magazine and newspaper articles to user commented blog articles.

While books will remain a valid form (if increasingly, a digital one), our understanding of what makes an individual literate today must adapt to modern forms as well. A literacy standard cannot be relevant if completely detached from what people do with the language.