Claire: See It To Believe It

The passage that stood out to me was “It is only some visual traces of literacy practices that are captured in still photographs – observable, but frozen moments of a dynamic process.  Even aspects of literacy practices that seem clearly visible in events are in fact defined only in relation to cultural knowledge that the viewer brings.  It might therefore be more precise to say that all elements of practices are inferred from the images, but some with more direct visual cues than others.” (middle of page 18) I had to read this line like three times before I really registered what it was saying and realized it’s very true. Basically these sentences are talking about things are not always as they appear. For instance, if I am looking at someone sitting alone with their face in a book, I would definitely say he’s reading the book. But if I turn away he could have looked up or away but from what I saw the previous second before I would still assume he’s reading. I only get to see and interpret what my mind captured in the second I saw him. It’s the same as looking at a photograph, I can only assume for that single second that I can see laid out in front of me when the person in the photograph is really doing.

That brings me to the photo I chose, which clearly a girl is hiding her phone behind a book instead of reading the book. Me personally seeing this makes me laugh because we have literally all done this multiple times thinking we’re super sly in class, but it actually ties in really well with this passage I chose from the article. Most of us see this and think she’s just texting or on social media instead of reading and paying attention to class. But for all we know should could be google something she didn’t know or something else academic. The truth about the photo is we have no idea because we all see different things when we look at it. I think this photo is pretty culturally significant because like I said earlier we all do this and/or have done this. Whether the girl has been reading the textbook or texting or actually just on social media she is practicing literacy. She is either reading or writing something and it’s hard to say that’s a bad thing other than that she is supposed to be paying attention in class.