Author: jleja

I thought the Newsweek article was very interesting. Although it was written in 1975, it echoes many of the complaints about today’s youth and their literacy abilities. The complaints of then seem to point the blame to the modern technology of their time just like the complaints today blame technology like video games and social media. In 1975 teachers of literacy pointed to Television and the simple literacy found on it as a source for the declining literacy seen in the youth. The article also suggested the only way to better one’s writing was by reading. The “correct” literacy that these professors push towards is standard english and it seems to me that any literacy other than standard english is seen in a negative light.

The fact that the argument is basically the same then as it is today raises some interesting questions. First and foremost, is the literacy rate really declining at the rates suggested in the article? To me if they were actually declining at the rates claimed, then we should be a practically illiterate generation by now. We know that this is not the case though. A more interesting question is why does this argument still exist in today’s society? Is it because the older generation fails to recognize and or adapt to the newer literacies of the younger generations? Or that maybe the standards of literacy have changed through the years?

This article was very interesting to me. I have long considered myself to be very tech savvy and many of the things in this article resonated with me. While I was never big into social media such as Facebook or twitter, I have had a long interest in gaming and it’s surrounding communities. The world of gaming has allowed me to build and maintain friendships with people, not only locally, but with people from around the country and even in other countries. Most of these people I have never met in real life, yet I feel close connection to them. This is an aspect that many people of an older generation do not understand and I think it is particularly interesting.

Besides forming new friendships with people from all over, my interest in gaming and other forms of social media has allowed me to maintain contact with friends from my original school district. In 7th grade I transferred from the Moon School District to the South Fayette School District. Through social media, I was able to maintain and reconnect with childhood friends that I might have not been able to in previous generations.

Being the “tech” expert in my household, I also felt a connection to the reading. In my family if there is a tech problem, I am usually the one who gets consulted. The majority of the technical knowledge that I have gained comes from my own outside research and interests beyond standard academics.  In this way I felt a connection with the “Geeking Out” connection of the article. A recent example is how i built my own pc. I did this entirely with the help of the internet and tutorials found on YouTube.

Do any of you have similar experiences to mine and would you care to elaborate? I’m interested in other people’s thoughts on how the traditional age hierarchy of knowledge has broken down with the advancement of the digital age. Something that just came to mind was how the digital age has brought about new career opportunities. This might be a long shot question but, are any of you content creators on YouTube or other websites similar that or do you know anyone that is? I know that some people have been able to make full careers out of their content creation and only now are they starting to be considered as legitimate forms of employment.

I’m particularly interested in the extracurricular writing groups. I read Mints post on this where the question posed was “Do writing groups exist?”. I myself have not had much exposure to writing groups per say. Maybe it is due to my ignorance, but I don’t recall even hearing about writing groups at the University of Pittsburgh that focus on writing for fun. The Gere article as initially written in 1992 and then revised and re-released in 1994 if I am correct. I am interested anyone is or has participated in a writing group? If not, has there been a disappearance of writing groups that Gere discussed?

In response to the disappearance of writing groups, I have my own hypothesis. I wonder if the rise of the internet and social media could be a cause for the disappearance of these organized extracurricular writing groups. We live in a society were it is very easy to go online and write anything you want on any number of forums. Social media is on of those forums, although the writing on social media is usually much less constructive. Also on the internet anyone can critique anyone else regardless of their background or qualifications. So in some ways there might not be so much of a disappearance of extracurricular writing such as a shift to less formalized groups. I think this can be seen as both a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because more people can participate in easier ways but also a bad thing because writing on the internet usually receives less constructive criticism from qualified peers.

Do you think that extracurricular writing groups have disappeared and if so why?

I was particularly interested in the Lisa Delpit reading, “Other People’s Children” and the power of literacy, particularly the effect of the language and dialect used in teaching. I was not aware how much of an impact language diversity could have on an individuals learning experience. It is striking how a change in dialect can result an individual’s better comprehension of the same material.

I could make a particular connection with the teacher who was able to better teach his students through the use of real world examples. I too have had a similar learning experience. In some of my engineering classes, I struggled particularly with material that I could not relate to a real world example. For example I consider calculus 2 and 3 to be some of the hardest classes that I have taken.  The problems were purely theoretical and they did not click for me. However, when more complicated material was placed in front of me, in which I was able to associate real world meaning to the numbers, I was able to grasp it much easier.

I am curious as to whether anyone else has had learning experiences similar to mine or the ones we read about?

For my blog post, I am drawing from the Deborah Brandt reading, Sponsors of Literacy. I was particularly interested in the case of Dwayne Lowery. This man, who had no formal education beyond high school, went from a floor laborer in an automobile factory to a field staff representative in his local labor union only to be forced into early retirement when his job was replaced by a young college educated person.

This case is interesting to me because during this man’s career, a transformation of  important literacy skills occurred. The bargaining skills that were part of Mr. Lowery’s success as a union representative began to be outweighed by the  “essayist literacy” skills of the college graduates who replaced him and people like him. This change of literacy was a result of the increasingly levels of literacy, and the competitive advantage this brought, between union reps and the attorneys those reps negotiated with

In the state of the modern union, the years of experience and literacy skills developed by Mr. Lowery were not enough to for him to keep his job. I would like to for discussion, the perceived value of Mr. Lowery’s literacy skills. Would, by today’s standards, Mr. Lowery’s skills still be considered useful? I would also like to explore what brought upon those literary transformations. In the same vain, what kind of lessons can be learned from Mr. Lowery’s experience. Are there ways to predict and better prepare for literacy transformations like those experienced by Mr. Lowery?

 

When I was in elementary school, I began to read what would become an endearing series of books. These were The Series of Unfortunate Events, written by Lemony Snicket. These were my favorite books as a kid. I liked them so much that I started to collect the entire series. Eventually I had all of the 13 hardcover books. Until a year ago, they were sitting on a book self collecting dust.

About a year ago I introduced my, then 8 year old, sister Sydney to The Bad Beginning, the first book in the series. From then on she was hooked. With the help of my mom, my sister was able to recently finish the entire series. My fondest memories of literature are of my sister and I talking about the books and all of the nostalgia I felt during those moments.