Herlocker – First Blog Post!

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.