End of the Semester Reflection

The way the readings progressed throughout the semester with each one building on the other, I was able to really absorb all these new information and concepts that I hadn’t heard about before. It expanded my views on literacy (or literacies after having written on multiliteracies) that I didn’t really know or understand from having done linguistics. The most interesting part has been learning about the heated debates on literacy pedagogy (one of the words that I learned this semester!), debates that aren’t cooling down any time soon. The class and group discussions we had on the readings were very helpful in understanding how those theories and practices were applied in the classroom. It also provided me with a different point of view in which to analyze the readings. I constantly thought, “I would have never thought about it that way”, during discussions; I very much liked that because it pulled me out of that single point of view when it came to understanding literacy

All these literacies: traditional, formal, functional, multilingual, visual, digital, community! This class has amped my enthusiasm for becoming a teacher and it made me realize there is so much more to learn, so much more literacy to delve into, and that even after graduating the learning process still doesn’t end. As a society we will continue to change in the ways we know literacy; technology keeps advancing so rapidly that in a year I won’t have the slightest clue how to use the latest social media.  But that is the challenge we face today.

It really has been an amazing introduction to the L&L program!

Essay #3 The New London's Group's Theory of Multiliteracies

This is the link to my final research paper on the theory of Multiliteracies.

Essay #1 Writing Systems

This is the link to my essay on Writing Systems

Response to Other People's Words: The Cycle of Low Literacy

What struck me most about the book was the school’s inability to overlook their own biases in order to do what was best for Donny. Not only did they ignore Jenny’s pleas in favor of holding him back a grade, they completely dismissed her as an unfit mother just because of her Appalachian background. It was the school that was hindering Donny’s education. It showed how deep prejudices can go when people have certain stereotypes and ideas about others without even getting to know them but on the basis of their culture and community. Jenny realizes the impact low literacy was having on her family and she didn’t want her children to go through the same hardships in school and socially the way she and Big Donny did. In so doing she was breaking the “cycle of low literacy” that was prevalent in her home. Purcell-Gates navigates through the book in a manner that really illustrates the struggles Jenny and Donny were going through in order to become literate so that Donny could legitimately move on to the next grade and Jenny wouldn’t have to rely on others to read her mail or guide her through other aspects of her everyday life.

Essay #2 Butler Library Visit

My response to the Butler Library visit.

Response to Chapter 2 Adult Biliteracy and Language Diversity

Chapter 2 Adult Biliteracy and Language Diversity

“The more accurate conclusion can be reached that, rather than educational attainment being a function of English ability, English ability is a function of educational attainment that was obtained under English or bilingual instruction” (45).

When we see results from data collected we tend to take it as it is and that’s why I found this chapter to be so interesting because it takes that data and actually shows what those results represent and mean beyond the assumption already made. The U.S. Census Bureau’s national language data “provides government agencies with the information for programs that serve the needs of the people who have difficulty speaking English” (38), yet these results are used to further pushes the assumption that English is the “desirable” language to speak in the U.S. As this chapter explains, not only does this conclusion perpetuate the notion that only by learning English will people prosper in this society but it neglects their education. There are subject matters that are difficult enough for English speakers to grasp but imposing that on non-English speakers makes it a very frustrating learning experience, “the forced use of only one language is stressful and unnatural” (18). How do we break from that cycle? How do can we move away from the ideology of English-only? There are Americans who feel very strongly against bilingualism in the classroom even with the amount of research and information that show the benefits of a person continuing their education in their primary language while learning English. “The more relevant fact is that the census does not collect the information necessary to assess language use in languages other than English” (40), and that is where it starts, with the information itself; formatting it so the data collected reflects a society where hundreds of different languages are spoken. There are communities where the majority of the signs in the neighborhood are in a different language, whether you go to Chinatown or Washington Heights, you can see places that do not reflect an English-only society. 

Response to "Printing, Bookselling, Readers, and Writers in Eighteenth-Century London" by Alvin Kernan

“The ‘logic’ of a technology, an idea, or an institution is its tendency consistently to shape whatever it affects in a limited number of definite forms or directions” (49). 

In the chapter “Printing, Bookselling, Readers, and Writers in Eighteenth-Century London”, Alvin Kernan states how “print logic”, multiplicity, systematization, and fixity, became ingrained in the structure of not only the printing process but also of the writers' process. The need to mass produce books created a demand for writers; as Kernan differentiated, “print logic” transformed writers into laborers instead of workers. The writers were another piece in the book making business whose value correlated with that of the sales. That mentality was adopted by the writers as Kernan points to the few “hacks” on Grub Street who were driven either to madness or lying to try to make it in the writing industry. In a way this changed the preprinting ideals of writing where the work was based on quality into an industry of quantity, “print’s logical tendencies toward system and numbers objectified in the social world” (62). People were operating under this logic that didn't account for human nature, the emotions, creative process, or even time, but placed people under a structure in order to function and operate to meet the needs of "print logic". 

This reflects back to Peter Berger’s quote Kernan uses to describe logic’s influence on social aspects in which man made tools whether material objects or not take on a system that although humans created they still had to work within the parameters of that system. This is an interesting point Kernan focused on because he then shows how the printers, booksellers, and writers have used the “print logic” to navigate their way around this new printing culture. Kernan also compares the print culture to the rise of films and in a new culture some components lose their meaning in “translation” as seen by the way the authors took a back seat to actors, directors, and other writers on a film. In a circle that began with anonymity of authors through oral traditions, with the author being brought to the forefront with the mass production of books, to eventually taking the back seat with the emergence of film. Oral, print, and digital all are comprised of their own form of function with everything else trying to fit into it.

Response to "A History of Reading" by Alberto Manguel (1996)

The idea of an endless cycle came to mind while reading Alberto Manguel’s chapter “The Silent Readers”, both actions of reading orally and writing words continuously were dependent on each other. “Because books were mainly read out loud, the letters that composed them did not need to be separated into phonetic unities, but were strung together in continuous sentences” (47). In cycles, one component tends to perpetuate the other and vice versa and at times seems unbreakable. This cycle, however, was broken. Many small changes added up to major changes in reading and writing as in Christian monks dividing text into lines in order to help readers or Irish scribes dividing sentences into parts of speech. As gradually as these changes occurred so did the way readers interacted with the text; it put a spotlight on the action of reading.

Before reading this chapter, it was hard to understand why that system of reading and writing continued for as long as it did. I realized it remained for so long because it was part of their socially and culturally accepted practices. The methods readers use are the ones society consider the norm and some of the reading and writing practices we use now might not be acceptable in the future. (An example of a current shift in reading practices is among those who prefer reading old fashioned books rather than books on e-readers.) Silent reading having become the norm changed how society viewed the practice of reading, “But with silent reading the reader was at last able to establish an unrestricted relationship with the book and the words” (50). Instead of the reader bringing the words to life when reading orally, the read was brought to life by the words when reading in silence. Because it was an internal process not available for the world to hear, silent reading profoundly changed now the content in the text was individually interpreted.

Withtheknowledgewehavenowofindividualwordsisitieasiertoreadwithoutanyseparations

Did you read this sentence out loud or silently? It was hard to even write this sentence because not only did I automatically hit the space bar but even when trying to correct the sentence I found it difficult to tell the words apart, especially without any punctuation. And I wrote the sentence! My handwritten version of this continuous sentence was less comprehensible than the typed form.