Week 6: Be Careful With What You Say

I’ve noticed that when I’m in a college class I tend to focus on using bigger words to express my ideas. Mostly it’s due to the fact that in some classes you need to use specific terms to express you idea but then that leads me to using them in other classes. I never thought that I would use “discourse community” to say “a group of people” but I’ve had at least two classes where I’ve seen and used the vocabulary in.

I work in a high school so I’m constantly surrounded by teenage idioms and it does affect the way I approach the students. I wouldn’t go to a student and try to have a big discussion about something that they’ve never heard of because they would be confused. When I do get a chance to do critical analysis with the students I feed of from the terms that they know and I try to broaden their ideas slowly by making sure they understand what I’m talking about. When I interact with the students, we make jokes but since they are younger than me I have to make sure I don’t make any jokes that aren’t appropriate. Once in a while I have to remind myself that they’re high school students because I might go off in some monologue that the students would get lost in.

With my friends I seem to mix the college style with the working style because we all do the same thing. As a group we’re all have gone or are still in college and we all work at the high school. With them we joke around making references to things that only we would know about. When I’m around them I don’t hesitate and think about what I’m going to say because we already have the comfort to say anything to each other.

Week 3: Books that affected my life

The book that really affected me in some way was The Great Kapok Tree, and I’ve mentioned before how it was very beneficial to my literacy. The book was a main focus in my second grade class so a lot of activities were based around it and it helped out if you enjoyed the book. When I first read the book I loved it because of all the animals that are seen and the message the story was trying to give to kids. It was so interesting to see animals asking a human to save nature and that’s one thing that I never forget about that book. The book brought all the students together because of all the projects that were created based on the book. As a class we worked on making the book into a play that we performed to our parents and some other classes. Then we all worked on letters that were mailed to the President about saving the rainforest and everyone was happy to share with each other what they made. I remember making a letter that when you open it, a jaguar’s face is in the middle and the mouth was popping out. This book helped me with reading and writing in English so it’s tough to forget this book on the list of things that helped me become a better student. I remember trying to read this huge collection book of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. I remember that I would have so much trouble understanding the jokes but I loved looking at the things the characters would do. It did help me in trying to read English because I would struggle a lot but once in awhile I would figure out the joke.

When I was younger I remember that in my house we didn’t have that many books when I was only speaking Spanish. But when I started to read in English as well as my brother, my mother would take us to the library very often and we would check out almost three books each. When our school would have book fairs my mother would always buy me as many books as she could. I started to collect Goosebumps novels all throughout elementary (I still have all the books in toy briefcases in the garage). It was mostly the children who would do a lot of reading in the house but I think we started to read so much more because my parents understood how important education was and they wanted to see us have success. I did notice that my family would get the newspaper but the only things that I would read were the comic strips.

There are two books that I’ve read and they’re very opposite of each other. During Spring Break I read The Watchmen and Where The Wild Things Are. I read The Watchmen because I took a course on adolescent literature and this was so much hype build around this graphic novel with the movie coming out. In the class I didn’t get a chance to read it but watching the group report on the graphic novel it sucked me in. To me, The Watchmen is just an amazing novel that’s filled with so many philosophical ideas and the story is frightening to me. It reminds me of a dystopia and I love reading those kinds of books. Judging it as a comic would not be sufficient because it gives so much more than what a comic gives a reader. I read Where The Wild Things Are because I heard that they made it into a movie and I wanted to read what it was about. I remember very little about the book so when I read it was like I was having a childhood moment as an adult. It’s such a short story but I thought I was so amazing and I loved overanalyzing the small book. I loved the concept of imagination in that book.

The Nineteenth- Century Origins of Our Times by Harvey J. Graff

In this critical essay Graff gives a historical context on how literacy and the formal teachings of literacy came about in the 19th century. Graff depicted literacy as having non liberating influences. Those few who were literate in early America in the 19th century were limited in their use literacy and the majority of the country was illiterate. He states that “Literacy was used for order, cultural, hegemony, work preparation, assimilation and adaptation, and instillation of a pan-Protestant morality; in addition it contributed to work and wealth.” Early on education was used for moral and religious development and the most important thing taught in school were moral and civic duty. Mass education was seen as salvation to maintain social stability and progress. There were two schools of thoughts when it came to providing education for the poor. There were the “Optimists” who believed in educating the poor so that they can have a chance to rise up from their situation and enhance their opportunities to participate politically in society. Then we have the “Pessimists” who also wanted to educate the poor, but not in the way the “optimist” would. They wanted to keep the poor in their present status and educate them in accepting their inferiority. In the mid 19th century literacy was viewed as a skill it “was and advantage but not a requirement for life and for learning the ways of society.
Education as a whole was seen as a way to teach mortality. Moral bases of literacy were a way for young people to assimilate “to the hegemony of the dominant culture.” The ideology of public education was driven toward order, discipline, rationality, and specialization. Although people were becoming literate reading was not done often and what little that people did read was not “approved” literature mainly consisting of fiction, cheap books, and street literature. Graff touches base on how reading was a social exercise, even when people did solitary reading they were expected to share what they read. There were some problems in the acquisition of literacy in the school institution for children. These included “problems of physical conditions, attendance, teacher ability, and instructional method often militated against effective early learning and the development of proficiency in literacy. The problem in teaching was that in basic reading some teachers were all for teaching the alphabet first and some were for teaching words first. This in turn confused the students they were reading but not understanding what it was that they were reading so reading comprehension was thrown out the window.
Graff points out that there was a mass amount of illiteracy in African Americans in the 19th century. This is a result of slavery, oppression and discrimination. It was illegal to teach African American slaves how to read and write. A handful out of the plantation will know some form of reading or writing and these were usually the slaves that worked in the house and were close to their owners. These literate slaves were highly regarded in their community and were sought after to teach what little they knew to others secretly. To African Americans literacy was a form of freedom and freed slaves sought to gain education. Blacks struggled the most in their quest to acquire literacy; whites opposed them getting an education. There were many impediments that included white resistance, shortage of teachers, of funds and facilities and some could not afford the loss of a child’s labor. Many African Americans continued to fight on and “continue to maintain their faith in education… [and] their commitment to the ideology of improvement and advancement in American society.” The “new immigration” of the late 19th and early 20th century brought about a whole new wave of European immigrants to the United States. Europe had gone through education reform and the majority of immigrants that immigrated to the Stated were literate. Literacy was viewed instrumentally as a way of economic gain. Education for immigrants was targeted so that the newcomers would be part of the melting pot. Some resisted and educated themselves in their own ways and traditions. “In their educational strategies, immigrant groups responded differently, and in the process they shaped their own accommodations to the dominant culture.

Out with the Old in with the New

Sponsors of Literacy: Claudia

How is literacy successful on its own? Can we separate evaluate literacy as an individual rather than seeing it as an economical development? How does literacy differ from individual to individual? Does socio economic standing affect the way we attain literacy? There are many factors as to how we individually develop literacy. Due to, the variety of our backgrounds no one person learns literacy in the same way. We all acquire it differently and when we all come together into society, we are in different levels and have different attributes to offer.

In order, to individualize literacy we need to explore what factors play a fact into it. One is the influence of sponsors. Sponsors “are a tangible reminder that literacy learning throughout history has always required permission, sanction, assistance, and coercion, at minimum, contact with existing trade routes. Sponsors are delivery systems for the economies of literacy, the means, by which these forces present themselves to and though individual learners” (556). Hence, through sponsorship we can witness how the equilibrium of literacy is unbalanced.

Protean Shapes in Literacy Events: Ever-Shifting Oral and Literate Traditions by Shirley Brice Heath

As people turn to literacy, oral tradition habits are lost. Oral tradition is said to tell meaning without starting it. On the other end of the spectrum language in the literate tradition tells the meaning explicitly. The expository essay is a great example of the literate tradition. Formal education, scholarship, is what has driven us in the countinuous direction of oral tradition to literate tradition. To examine where a particular community lies in the oral or literate traditions one must look at the literacy event. “A literacy event is any occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of participants’ interactions and their interpretive processes ”. Heath observes how literacy events are very different in context, from filling job applications to handing out handouts as a girl scouts do. She goes on to say that “There are more literacy events which call for appropriate knowledge of forms and uses of speech events than there are actual occasions for extended reading or writing.”
The community of Trackton was observed in their language use. In this community all adults can read and write and hold respectability for literacy. Literacy events in the written language uses were observed here. The adults did not explicitly read to the children but answered questions that the children asked about messages in writing. The children told stories modeled on the oral tradition of the adults. Storytelling is an integral part of the children’s lives and are triggered by the stimuli in their environment. Heath gives the example of a two year old boy who tells about a day at church. He was inspired to tell his story by a distant bell sound. The sound of the bell works as the stimulus to his spontaneous storytelling.
Adults in this community read and write socially. These literary events took place in many purposes; they were instrumental, interactional, news-related, confirmation based, for provision of permanent records, memory supportive and as substitutes for oral messages. Literacy events were also observed in church at the community and showed how messages are said differently orally and written out. A prayer delivered by a school teacher was observed, the written out one was very simple in writing and formal. The oral delivered speech was very informal and more elaborate. Heath notes the differences in both events in their use of formulaic vocatives, in the expression of Personal Involvement. She notes the difference in the expression of sentence structuring and the informality of the oral delivery. Heath points out that the “… meaning of words people carry with them depends on the integration of those words into personal experience.” At the workplace adults in the community are not required to practice their literary skills as well as in formal institutions such as a bank. In the end Trackton community members show their understanding of written materials through oral means. They do not solely fall within the literate or oral traditions, but in both.
Posted by Isabel

From Outside In

What constitutes “correct” language from “improper” language?

As we have learned through personal experience or through classroom exposure written and oral language differs in a multitude of contexts. According to Barbara Mellix, “a complicated relationship between language and power may require a new awareness of what is proper in each community”. Hence, the type of social surrounding us at any specific moment constitutes and shapes the language for that specific time. For instance, if I am at school I will use adequate language however, when I am in my comfort zone with my peers, I can relax and use a less scholarly type of language. Many people face this specific type of predicament. The difference in proper and improper language makes it hard for many to communicate thus, creating a gap between communitites. It almost seems that ebonics and such types of communication is dominating up to the point of Mellix, "teachers teaching standard English but used black English to do it." It seems almost amazing what teachers have to do to teach proper English, but this is the only way to get the students to understand what the teacher is trying to explain.

Richard Rodriguez Reading

The reading is an excerpt from Richard Rodriguez book and he starts talking about his education. When people would ask him how he was able to get so far in life, Richard would say it was because of the school he went to and the support he had at his house. But at home Richard would have trouble getting help from his parents because of the language barrier. When he would just focus on reading everyone would make jokes about how he doesn’t play outside. Richard says that the reason he was so successful in school was because he couldn’t forget how school was separating him from the life he use to love. Leaving the life that he enjoyed for a successful education was “the loss” for Richard.

Richard goes on to reference Hoggart’s writing and how similar it was to his own life. In Hoggart’s writing there’s an explanation to how the school and home life are culturally opposites. For the child to understand the school culture they have to be more alone and let go of some of the family’s ethos, and the students who do this are called “scholarship boys.” It would be easier for a child doing this at a young age but when the child is a “working class child” it would be difficult because the classroom would make the child discourage their parents. To the working-class children everything their parents do will be perceived differently than how the scholarship boys see their parents. Scholarship children will feel embarrassed about their parents and try to make a teacher a father figure.

In the reading, Richard Rodriguez understands that he’s a scholarship boy and talks about how he didn’t like how his relationship with his family was disappearing because of his education. He started to get embarrassed by the lack of education that his parents had and never noticed their “enormous native intelligence.” He felt that everything he was reading was only for the ability to say that he’s read that book. Rodriguez says that the scholarship boy only looks at life as “unromantic and plain” and all his ideas are “clearly borrowed.” He says that the scholarship student is a bad student, a mimic, and that they only reach nostalgia at the end of their schooling.

Autobiography #6

Daily routines and circumstances guide me in certain situations. As I go through my daily rituals my language changes automatically. There are many cultures, which I am involved with that effect, my communications skills. Cultures like texting, emails, school, work, friends, all require different verbal and written skills. As I tested my self through the week, I realized that when I encountered a different setting my language changed intuitively and at other times automatically. For instance, when I am at home I have to be respectful towards my parents and set a good example for my younger sibling, hence I am careful as to what words to use. However, other times when I’m having lunch with my friends right before class or work my language use is “non-proper” and when I arrive at school or work my language changes intuitively. The same process occurs over written communication. The time where I find it most difficult is when I’m texting a friend and then I try to type and email or essay. Why? Well because most of my communications is done over text messages that when I try to transcend into professional mode it’s hard at times. I usually have to go back and check my work due to me using “u” (texting lingo) instead of “you” (proper English). Despite the daily rituals in which I am involved in I always successfully manage to switch from one mode to the next whether it be automatically or intuitively.

Autobiiography #3

Autobiography by Claudia Villalobos

Literacy has a riveting way of affecting its audience. Music, poetry, and novels influence many people. The one specific book, which influenced me, is Raisin in the Sun. This book in particular, focuses on the diversity among the Americans regarding racial and ethnic backgrounds. Despite, the novel focusing on racial issues, the book also hints at being able to fit into the American society. This book is crucial for adolescent classes to read because it helps students relate to certain themes in the book, like trying to fit in with their peers at school. As a high school student, many try to figure their identity in order to fit “in” with the crowd. I can remember many students trying to be someone else in order to have others approve of them as individuals, however, the book emphasizes on standing up for what you believe is right for you and your individuality. What will help you grow within your self? And ones you have figured out your voice it will be hard to break you down. Through this book, I realized that everyone counts as an individual and individuality is important despite what anyone says. When you stand firmly by what you believe not only do you become stronger, but are also less afraid of expressing your point of view.

Books did not really fit in my childhood until I was about in fourth grade. When I was in fourth grade, I started requesting more books to read. My favorite part of the week at school was when the scholastic order forms came in. I seriously wanted to get all the books, and progressively I began to build my own little library of books in my room. From then on, my parents realized that reading was vital to my education and they soon began an SSR time within the household. I was fortunate enough to have my parents push me as a child and we kept the tradition of SSR for my younger sibling. Aside from reading books, my dad used to read the newspaper to us in Spanish and English. Not only did we read the newspaper for the literature part of it, but it also helped us keep up to date with daily events.

The last book I read with real enjoyment was the Black Dahlia. I enjoy reading books that involve me resolving a mystery. I love mystery and murder books. I’m completely normal I promise, I’m just simply drawn to books that have to do with people blowing each other up. I’m more inclined to those books because they hold truth in them, however, in romantic books like Jayne Ere (even though I love the novel), the scenarios are ridiculous. Perhaps because all of the scenes within the novel seem to be overly dramatic.

Autobiographical Blog #5

The first time that my language skills made me feel important was during my fifth grade year at Woodworth Elementary. I had to deliver a speech during the promotional ceremony because my teacher had made me valedictorian of the class. The theme of the promotional ceremony was “Wonderful World,” so I tried to center my speech around that theme. I don’t quite remember what I wrote but I remember that the year was 1999 and the new millennium was approaching. I based my speech in how we should build a wonderful world into the new millennium or something around those lines. My fifth grade teacher helped me with editing but mostly the speech was of my own making. Not only did I write the speech in English, but I also translated it into Spanish and that made me feel powerful. At that moment I was glad that I was well educated in both languages. The circumstances in which I was picked to give the speech also made me feel good. I was an English learner through most of my elementary years. Graduating at the top of my class and delivering a speech that I had written in two languages was a gratifying experience. The day that I gave the speech and was applauded by my parents, classmates, and teachers was one of the best days of my life and I felt elated. I no longer felt disabled as I had through most of my elementary years because of my lack of language skills. My hard work had paid off and I felt like I belonged.
Posted by Isabel.

Autobiography week 4

Memory Lane

By: Claudia Villalobos

Seventh grade in junior high was a difficult transition for me. It became difficult to assimilate into the norms and expectations of a Junior High student. My most difficult class was English; I detested grammar with a passion. Due, to disliking my seventh grade, specifically my English class I had a negative connotation about the upcoming school year. As I entered my eight grade year at Upland Junior High, I was not enamored with English, hence I began class with a bad attitude towards it. I will never forget my first day of class, Ms. Pimentel was my English teacher. She was very encouraging, fun, and positive towards all of us. I felt as though she cared about our learning and she was the type of teacher to stay late in order to help her students progress. She helped me open myself up to literacy throughout the school year. A specific proud moment was during a competition the teacher held. The competition was an essay competition. This was turning point for me in my English career. At the specific moment when trying to compose my essay, I realized the beauty of writing. The many ways I can express my ideas appealed to me. Right then I knew English was for me. I was so excited when I finished my essay I went back to my seventh grade teacher to tell her about it. She was very proud of the hard work I have put into English over the past year. English became a beautiful way of inner expression filling the empty lines of a piece of paper.

Week 5: Look Out For The Hormigas!

The first time that I felt good about my language abilities was when I was transferred to a bilingual class in my first grade. I’ve mentioned before that when I started off first grade I was placed in a class that only used in English so I was struggling. I remember being in that classroom and not having a clue of what was going on or how to do any of the work. I would start to freak out because I would see that everyone in the class was doing the work just fine and I was the only one looking at other people’s paper or asking them questions. Being in that class and believing that I was the only one struggling made me feel like I was stupid. Even when I would hang out with the kids from the class I couldn’t communicate with them clearly. There was a moment when I saw a lot of red ants next to me I said out loud “Look out for the hormigas.” All the kids were looking at me like I was crazy but when I pointed at the ants they all understood me. One day when the class was watching a Pinocchio movie (that wasn’t made by Disney) the teacher took me outside with all of my stuff and walked me to another classroom. I was told that I was being placed in the new class because it would be better for me.

At first I was mad because I wasn’t going to be with my friends anymore and because I wasn’t going to finish watching the weird Pinocchio movie. So in my first day of class I noticed that the teacher was talking in Spanish and English and so were all the other kids. When we would do activities in the classroom I had no problem understanding what we were doing and I was participating a lot. When we would focus on the English aspect of the classroom activities, it felt like everything was going at my pace. I started to become really close to all of the kids in the classroom because we were all in the same situation and had a lot of things in common.

In this class my language abilities were used to their full potential and they were being improved. I was learning more about Spanish and improving my English with a lot of kids that were just like me. That class made me feel important because I had the knowledge of two different languages. It helped me believe that I can put two different things together and that they can coexist.

The New Literacy Studies By Brian Street

Brian Street sheds new light in the way that literacy is studied. Street begins by giving a definition of literacy; as the social practices and conceptions of reading and writing. He explains how one can be biased when we think about literacy because we have different views on literacy that we have derived from our own culture. This assumptions make us impose our own “cultural practice into other people’s literacies”. Street seeks to show how literacy is an ideological term. In doing so he notes two different models in which literacy is viewed. The first is the “Autonomous” Model, which treats literacy as independent of social context. The second model is the “Ideological” Model which recognizes the cultural practices that are associated with reading and writing in different contexts.

The autonomous model of literacy shows that social development and progress in individual cognitive processes are a result of literacy. Meaning that written thought gives literacy its distinctive properties namely that it is used as a neutral tool. Increased autonomy in literacy has led to radical change. Street points out that this model creates a problem because it pins what he calls a “great divide” between modern and traditional societies. This made Street to look for a new model and this is where the “Ideological” Model emerged from. In the Ideological model, the ethnographer has to interpret power, authority, and social differentiation in literacy. Street says that an ethnographic study is biased and it’s better to show what ideologies are hidden behind them. He points out that it ideologies remain hidden behind the observation it will be difficult for that observation to be Scrutinized, challenged and refined. Street offers a definition of ideology as, “ the site of tension between authority and power on one side and resistance and creativity on the other.” This tension is observed in different cultural practices, this includes language and literacy. The ideological model understands literacy as it is practiced within the culture and does not deny technical skill or cognitive aspects of reading or writing. The model enables one to think about the concept of oral and literate practices as a cross-cultural unit rather than comparing literacy and orality in another divide.

Street derived the Ideological Model from linguistics and anthropology, showing that these two forms of methodologies replace the concept of the “great divide” with discourse analyses. From these emerges new approaches to literacy. These approaches are “literacy events,” “literacy practices,” and “communicative practices.” Literacy events are occasions in which writing is an essential part of the participant’s interactions and interpretive processes. Literacy practices refer to both behavior and concepts related to reading and writing. Communicative Practices are seen in social activities where language or communication is produced. The discourse in anthropology and linguistics then refers to “the complex of conceptions, classifications, and language use that characterize a sub-set of an ideological formation.” In observing discourses it is crucial to show what is correct and what is meaningless. To do this there is a need for a method that can be sensitive language better than ethnography has been. With this Street concludes that when the ethnographic method is intertwined with an emphasis on ideological and power processes it can be successful in being sensitive to social context.

Posted by Isabel

Califronia Standards

In the start of the reading we are giving some background as to why the students have to take standardize testing. It was created from the Leroy Greene California Assessment of Academic Achievement Act and the tests are suppose to show “the level of competence at each grade level.” These standardize tests are seen as a “framework” that teachers, school administrators, and parents could follow together. Since all of them want to support the student’s progress the standards are a way for all of them to come to a consensus. The framework of the standards also brings the curriculum to students who have special-need, disabilities, English language learners, and students who are at risk at failing.

For the standards to work there needs to be a discipline in four different categories: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. To the standards, language skills are used for the human spirit to be “enriched and preserve the collective memory of a nation.” They don’t believe that language skills are just for learning and career development so it has to come together in the classroom. To broaden the students range in reading, the standards suggest that students should read a wide range of quality texts. Doing this will develop their proficiency and will help with writing. Having reading and writing working together seems to be a central idea of the standards and they see it as being very important. In the reading they state that “in an emergency, reading and writing with speed and accuracy may literally mean the difference between life and death.”

The standards make it clear that reading and writing is their “principal goal” when they say that literature helps students experience history and encounter different cultures. When the students have a good form of literacy, the standards wants the students to be able to express their ideas clearly. This all comes back to the idea that the four main categories “exist in relation to each other.” But to make sure that the students don’t get affected in trying to achieve all the goals of the standards there aren’t any alterations for anyone. They don’t want to “deny these students the opportunity to reach them.” So if a school has a certain number of English language learners then the schools “must seize the chance to align special programs to make everyone work toward the same goal.”

Autobiographical: Week 5

My childhood experience with language was easily defined by my ability and willingness to participate in activities that helped shape my language skills; it has eventually led me to an educational career in English. One of the first real experiences that empowered me and intrinsically catalyzed my creativity was a writing assignment that my fifth grade class participated in which asked of us to create a poem about the worst lunch ever, and our teacher gave us creative freedom over the content that we would be writing about. I remember that it took a little bit to figure out what I wanted to write about until I had the first few lines written down, and then my imagination and my hand took over and finished the rest of my interpretation of the worst lunch ever as a 9 year old kid. The lines felt like they were writing themselves and I was merely writing them down, paying close attention to rhyme scheme and content. The most enjoyable part of the assignment was trying to think of the most putrid and grotesque things that could fit inside a small brown lunch bag. Turning the assignment in later, I remembered I was proud of how well I personally thought that my poem had turned out, and how rewarding it was for me to write a whole poem on my own; it made me feel like a true writer to actually get something published at such a young age. Later in that week, it was announced that the top three poems were to be selected out of our class to be published in a book, and I learned that my poem was one of the pieces selected, that feeling and connection with my language and writing abilities deepened and my confidence built up enough from it that it reflected in the quality of my school work and my willingness to learn throughout my public school experience. I feel that this experience has translated into a sustained connection to writing and stories throughout my childhood, and has benefited me through fostering and celebrating my own imagination, and my ability to connect to it creatively.

Ethnography and Literacy

One of the most basic elements of any functioning society is the ability for its members to read and write. Throughout modern times, both reading and writing have been commonly thought of as skills necessary to participate and interact with others so that a person could earn and sustain a suitable living. In this case, Szwed describes literacy as something commonly mistaken as something that is black and white, “either one reads and writes or one doesn’t.” The concept of illiteracy currently carries a highly stigmatized notion of an unskilled poverty class unable to transcend and progress, but Szwed encourages all of us to take a closer look at what exactly it means to be literate, and how those skills translate into social contexts and functional purposes. He also contends that most societies have produced specialists that “handle many of the necessities of literacy” through his example of the countless immigrant neighborhood where many of these specialists function as “interpreters of law, as well as readers and writers of letters and public documents.”
With the example of our public school system, Szwed highlights the importance of taking social context into account when determining if a student is capable of reading and writing. He points out that “non standard” forms of reading and writing are also acquired skills, such as a student that might have considerable skill reading and interpreting comics that shows little interest for assigned reading content. These discrepancies between literate and illiterate are merely different “configurations” of literacy, or by what level literacy is functioning, rather than imagining the concept of literacy being on a single, collective, and absolute measure. Continuing this notion of what makes a person literate, Szwed wishes to look closer at what exactly do people read and why, beyond the conventional mediums, such as novels, books, and other mass printed media for society to consume, but to break reading and writing down further into functional or artistic purposes. He wishes to include other forms of reading and writing such as “handbills, signs, graffiti, sheet music, junk mail, cereal boxes, captions on television, and even pornography.”
Szwed also sees the significance in differences amongst public and private literacy, between what is read at school or work and what is read at home in a private setting outside the public sphere. His example of the ability of a person being able to read and comprehend street signs outside in the public is requiring a different set of skills that are used than private reading, and reflects the importance of recognizing the distinct types of reading and writing involved with a variety of tasks and contexts. Szwed continues to look at this relationship through a variety of cases, such as in advertising, where non-standard text is used to invoke specific emotions towards a product, or the process by which an author’s book is published through a collaborative effort, rather than mastered by one single person; Szwed is interested in studying and observing the relationship between school and the outside world.


I believe that Szwed brings up several different concepts that are important to take note of, most importantly by which the levels that literacy operates within us and a society as a whole. Academically speaking, literacy is a skill needed to enter into a professional, specialized workforce, we acquire through formal education and earned credentials, but it should be thought of as a form or an example of literacy, rather than being thought of as literacy itself. At multiple levels I think that we all function as being literate, but it is unfair to declare one’s ability to demonstrate their skills of reading and writing through one absolute set of conventions, and we should work to understand how literacy works within our own social context to better understand just what it means to be literate, and what literacy itself means. More often than not, we are surrounded with “non-standard” texts that we habitually assess and interpret without much reflection and thought of what and why we are reading it, but either way we are demonstrating our ability to acquire meaning through written graphics, just in a different context than the student who is assigned to read out of his textbook for homework. I view Literacy as a multifaceted skill that is determined by function and context in the relationship between the reader and writer.

Week Four: A Tree Is Following Me

I think the moment where my language abilities made me feel important was when I was in the second grade. In the class our teacher focused a lot of time in making projects based on a book that we read in class. The book we read was The Great Kapok Tree, and that book has been involved in my life so many times after I read it in the second grade. The book was essentially about trying to stop a lumberjack from cutting down a tree in the rain forest by having the animals talk to him while he sleeps. The animals would each tell them how important the tree was to them, when the man woke up he saw all the animals and decided not to cut down the tree. I loved this as a kid because of the animals so it got my attention. But the teacher was also making learn about how we should save the rain forest and be good to the environment.

After we read the story, the teacher made us turn the book into a play for our parents. Since it was a bilingual class we got to read both versions of the text. We understood it when we read the Spanish version but the play helped us understand it in the English version. It gave us a chance to get a perspective on why the rain forest was so important. And in the play I was the porcupine which sucked because I wanted to be the jaguar. As a class we started to learn about how the rain forest was being destroyed by reading small articles, looking at pictures and watching videos. Our literacy about the background of the story was expanding every time. Most of our writing was centered on the rain forest and the animals so I was really enjoying what we were doing in class. The most important project we did was sending President Clinton cards, that we made ourselves, telling to stop cutting down the trees in the rain forest. I designed my card with a jaguar pop-up with both Spanish and English writing. This project was helping us understand how to write in English and in Spanish. It was fun taking a stand about something that the whole class was passionate about and it felt great when we got a letter back saying that our cards have been read. Our teacher was passionate about this and her passion was transfer to all of us in that class.

What we did in that class will always stay with me because it always finds a way to come back when it slips my mind. In fifth grade we read the book again and did another play about the book and this time I was able to be the jaguar. Another moment came when I was working in the Literacy center in CSUSB. I was tutoring a boy in the second grade and we always start off by reading which ever book he finds in the library. The boy found The Great Kapok Tree which was surprising to me because I’ve been working there for a year now and I’ve never seen that book in the shelves. It was a joy watching the second grader read the book and start to comprehend what the book was about, took a stand for something you think is important.

Ethnography and Composition

· How is research conducted in the most effective way?
· Will the ethnographic research have more validation if researcher is from the same community?

Ethnography is a subject in which can derail many researchers from their primary focal point. Thus, as a researcher it is vital to understand and be clear about your hypothesis/ main point of research. In order to understand ethnography and its components, we need to understand, what the goal of ethnography is. According to Beverly Moss in Ethnography and Composition: Studying Language at Home, “the goal of ethnographer is to study, explore, and describe a groups’ culture. Ethnographers tend to focus on the daily routines in the everyday lives of the communities being studied” (Moss 389). Ethnography is a study with various compositions that complete it. It contains three different types of ethnography:

1. comprehensive-oriented ethnography
2. topic oriented ethnography
3. hypothesis-oriented ethnography


When conducting research within a classified group in which we are from it can be either good or bad. As researchers with similar background to the one we are studying can hinder our research. It can contaminate out work due to our preconceived knowledge in that specific group. Nevertheless, despite, the many obstacles a researcher encounters the single most important factor when concluding ethnography is the emic perspective.

Autobiographical Blog # 2

The first book that really affected me in some way was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. It’s a story about a tree that loves a little boy and gives in to his needs as he grows up. The tree shows unconditional motherly love to the boy and it reminded me how my parents love me. I was in first grade when Mr. Oakway read it to the class. The storyline really made me sad because I felt that the boy grew up to be selfish and never thanked the tree for everything that she provided him. I think what really made me sad was that I saw myself in the little boy and I did not want to be like him. This book mattered to me because it made me change the way I viewed what my parents did for me and I never appreciated that. The Giving Tree was an eye opener for me and it made me change my ungrateful ways. In my childhood books did not have a big role in the family; my parents never read me bedtime stories in the traditional sense. They always told me stories about their childhood and about our family from memory. They did take me to the library once a week to check out whatever books I wanted and that was as much as they contributed to me reading. Something that my father always read daily was the newspaper and he would always give me the comics section, my favorites were Garfield and Dennis the Menace. Sometimes my father would put me on his lap and read the comics section with me that was always fun. The most recent book that I read with real enjoyment was Betrayed by PC and Kristin Cast, it’s the second book in the House of Night Series, I am currently reading the third and I find the series very entertaining. I started reading the series because thanks to Stephenie Meyer I now have an infatuation for vampires so I was curious as to what the House of Night Series’ take of them was like.

Posted by Isabel

Precise for 4/23

The reading was trying to express how the a stronger involvement of teachers with the students social environment would help student achieve more in the classrooms. All the teachers in the stud participated in a project that had them be very involve with the students life that was outside of school. Having the teacher do this help “debunk ideas of the working class.” They interpreted the actions of the students outside of school as “funds of knowledge” which can be seen as the knowledge and skills that are essential to the well-being of the students. Not only did this project help the teachers gain a different perspective of how the students lives really are but the teachers were able to use all that they learn coincide with lesson plans.

In Boston a teacher saw that many students were struggling in understanding how to use the scientific method and it was due to the lack of experience the kids receive by just reading about it. The teacher made the students do an outside project that made the students use the scientific method and it changed everything for the students. The students wanted to participate more in what they were trying to do with their project by making it beneficial to the community. We saw the same thing with a school were the parent that was never involve with the school was helping the class with their projects and later became the leader of the school PTA.

What this study was trying to show was that having the teachers trying to connect the lesson with the students, either by understanding the students or letting them get involve, is greater than just trying to teach a standard curriculum. This study wants the teachers to challenge the status quo and by having the students getting involve, it could help change the way that schools create curriculums.

Literacy: Crayons Are Delicious

When I was younger I only knew how to speak Spanish and never really understood how I learned to speak English. I guess it was all the cartoons and Disney movies that helped me out. My parents didn’t speak English that well and only used Spanish when we were home so I wasn’t fluent in English when I started going to school.

When I look back at my first years of elementary school I can’t remember a lot of it. But when I do look back at a clear memory I realize that it’s like I’m watching a silent picture film without the descriptions of what’s going on. I can see everything that’s going on but when I see the students and teacher talking I don’t know what they’re saying. I remember for kindergarten just writing down letters and looking at the other student’s papers to see if I was doing it correctly. I don’t think it made a different if I knew a lot of English in kindergarten because the other kids didn’t know that much either. As a class, all we knew was that crayons were delicious.

In one moment when I was in my first grade class, all the students were drawing on a blank piece of paper. We didn’t get to draw whatever we wanted because the teacher was instructing us what we needed to do on the paper. I remember seeing the teacher next the board talking and then drawing and the students drew what she wanted them to draw. I had to wait and see what the kid next to me was doing and copied what he did. I didn’t last long in that class, the teacher decided to have me moved into a class that was for bilingual students. In that class I understood everything and my memories for that class have sound. I remember practicing writing my first full sentence in English, it was about a mouse. I remember telling my brother in English not to call me my nickname around my friends. I would practice a lot of English with my brother since we were a year apart we had almost identical knowledge of the English language. I started to learn more English but maybe that was due to the Power Rangers blessing me with their presence on Saturday mornings on my television screen. In my second and third grade I was still in bilingual classes but I was getting more comfortable with my English. The second grade was great for me because that’s where I read one of favorite books and reenact it in a small play. A lot of our time was spent around the topics the books discussed so every time I was willing to do class work. I remember that my best friend and I were the first to check out an English book from the school library from our third grade class.

For the remainder of my elementary grades I had to go to a new school and I was placed in normal classes. My fourth grade year was full of memories playing with toys while the teacher was looking away and not understanding some of the class work. Halfway through the fifth grade I was placed in a program that was helping me with my writing and comprehension. It helped me out a lot because sixth grade went by great and I realized that the science project I did in the fourth grade was a disaster. I think the only reason I got credit for the project was because everyone liked the mess the volcano made.

It seems that school played a large part in my literacy because that was the only place where I was learning and using the English language. Outside of school a lot of my resources were limited to entertainment stuff. Television isn’t bad in helping out but I don’t think that the teachers want you to write about why Tommy was the best Power Ranger since he beat up Jason in the karate tournament.

The development of Initial literacy

How do we acquire language? Where does language come from as we grow up? As we get older, how do we develop the skills necessary to defend our points of views either written or spoken? Does language affect us all in the same way weather we’re deaf, mute, or neither? These are all questions that arise when I think of the development of initial literacy.

The development of language occurs in various steps, unnoticed when we are growing up, but noticed by the adults around us. As Goodman explained “…literacy learning is the idea that leaning language is leaning how to mean. The child leans how to mean through written as well as spoken language.” (317) This takes place sporadically as we are young. As we get older literacy transcends into daily rituals of simple tasks that involve reading and writing.

What plays a role in our development of literacy?

As children we don’t realize what literacy is, but we develop it progressively. There are many influences as to how we learn how to be literate. According to Goodman, factors such as our personal experiences are immense aspects on how we approach literacy: reading and writing. Due, to our dynamic backgrounds, we each individually view things in different perspectives. Thus, because of our different point of views we approach the art of literacy in a different way than the person next to us. Hence, our environment is a great factor as to how we approach reading, writing, and comprehension.

As many subjects have a “root” so does literacy. The place where our literacy is fostered from plays a vital role as to the future development of language. Goodman points out that there are three important factors when it comes to literacy.

1. “The functions and forms that the literacy event serve,

2. The use of oral language about written language, which is part of the literacy event and reflects society’s values and attitudes towards literacy,

3. Conscious awareness about literacy, including its functions, forms, and context” (318).

Since, we are young before we learn to talk we begin developing pictorial language. For instance, when a child wants something they begin to point at it and when they lean the name of the thing they want they begin to sound it out, which soon turns into speaking it out. As we slowly develop speaking, by the time we begin head start we already know how to speak and some what write. At this point we slowly develop written language, which will eventually lead us to progress in literacy.

Don't Walk.

It was sometime in March, early morning on a busy weekday when I was holding the hand of my great aunt, whom I was very close with at a very young age. Much of the sun was concealed in rolling cloud cover, but there came a moment or two where the warmness of energy sank deeper than the lulling breeze. Much of the walk consisted of a stroll around systematically colored stucco houses. People all around me crossed paths from every direction while the roar of yellow school buses waxed and waned through the grid of roads. When we would come up on an intersection, I would fix my eyes on the different traffic signs, trying to visualize what the flashing lights and pattern were trying to say to me. One sign in particular I would continue to remember to this very moment was the flashing lights pulsating in vibrant color of red that read “DONT WALK.” The first time I came across this sign, I remember trying to discern what it was trying to say and coming up with the simple phrase of “Don’t Milk” due a developing imagination and an expanding vocabulary. Along with these invigorating walks, Sesame Street played a huge factor in how much signs and visual learning helped me develop a vocabulary and ascribe meaning to the world around me. My mother and father noticed my heightened sense of fondness to reading traffic signs, railroad markers, and other vibrant markers throughout the suburban landscape of my childhood; that same year, Santa brought me a train set with large, self standing traffic signs carved out of wood.
By the time I was ready for kindergarten, I was beginning to read simpler books, and was beginning to write. One assignment in particular that stood out to me the most was the second assignment (which was a comprehensive follow up assignment to my first one) that asked me to spell out my first and last name, along with my address this time. Instead of completing the assignment, I threw a seemingly uncontrollable tantrum and cried myself to sleep because my last name was far too complicated for me to write and spell out compared to single syllable words like cat. Instead of still wishing that I had a different last name, I managed to complete the assignment with relative ease the following morning before I left for my third day of class. That same school year towards the end of it and my graduation into first grade, I wrote and mailed a letter to the President of the United States of America, Bill Clinton. I owe much of my positive academic experience to my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Nagel.

Literacy:crayons are delicious

When I was younger I only knew how to speak Spanish and never really understood how I learned to speak English. I guess it was all the cartoons and Disney movies that helped me out. My parents didn’t speak English that well and only used Spanish when we were home so I wasn’t fluent in English when I started going to school.

When I look back at my first years of elementary school I can’t remember a lot of it. But when I do look back at a clear memory I realize that it’s like I’m watching a silent picture film without the descriptions of what’s going on. I can see everything that’s going on but when I see the students and teacher talking I don’t know what they’re saying. I remember for kindergarten just writing down letters and looking at the other student’s papers to see if I was doing it correctly. I don’t think it made a different if I knew a lot of English in kindergarten because the other kids didn’t know that much either. As a class, all we knew was that crayons were delicious.

In one moment when I was in my first grade class, all the students were drawing on a blank piece of paper. We didn’t get to draw whatever we wanted because the teacher was instructing us what we needed to do on the paper. I remember seeing the teacher next the board talking and then drawing and the students drew what she wanted them to draw. I had to wait and see what the kid next to me was doing and copied what he did. I didn’t last long in that class, the teacher decided to have me moved into a class that was for bilingual students. In that class I understood everything and my memories for that class have sound. I remember practicing writing my first full sentence in English, it was about a mouse. I remember telling my brother in English not to call me my nickname around my friends. I would practice a lot of English with my brother since we were a year apart we had almost identical knowledge of the English language. I started to learn more English but maybe that was due to the Power Rangers blessing me with their presence on Saturday mornings on my television screen. In my second and third grade I was still in bilingual classes but I was getting more comfortable with my English. The second grade was great for me because that’s where I read one of favorite books and reenact it in a small play. A lot of our time was spent around the topics the books discussed so every time I was willing to do class work. I remember that my best friend and I were the first to check out an English book from the school library from our third grade class.

For the remainder of my elementary grades I had to go to a new school and I was placed in normal classes. My fourth grade year was full of memories playing with toys while the teacher was looking away and not understanding some of the class work. Halfway through the fifth grade I was placed in a program that was helping me with my writing and comprehension. It helped me out a lot because sixth grade went by great and I realized that the science project I did in the fourth grade was a disaster. I think the only reason I got credit for the project was because everyone liked the mess the volcano made.

It seems that school played a large part in my literacy because that was the only place where I was learning and using the English language. Outside of school a lot of my resources were limited to entertainment stuff. Television isn’t bad in helping out but I don’t think that the teachers want you to write about why Tommy was the best Power Ranger since he beat up Jason in the karate tournament.

Posted by Ruben

Literacy is ...a big cloud of emotions

Language was always confusing to me from the beginning. My parents only spoke to me in Spanish, my native language. I had heard my father speaking in fragmented English here and there, but it was never a concrete idea to me as a four year old. That’s when I started preschool, and I interacted with English speaking people. The language sounded alien to me, but I was fascinated by it and I wanted to know it all. It was hard for me to acquire the new language, (well new to me), because my parents didn’t speak it and the school I attended was not fully English speaking. My kindergarten teacher was Hispanic and she taught us mostly in Spanish. In the middle of my kindergarten school year we moved to Chicago from Los Angeles and I started in a school where English was the only language taught, it was one of the most confusing experiences of my life. My teacher was Caucasian and did not know a word of Spanish, it was hard for me to express myself , to communicate, I remember the frustration I felt because I so much wanted to ask questions and I could not get anything out, I mostly expressed myself in gestures, I felt like a total failure. I did eventually grasp some things like the alphabet, counting (I loved the “Little Indians” song she used to teach us how to count); I even read a short story once and felt really proud of myself. My family lived in Chicago for about 3 months, during the winter my infant brother caught influenza which was accelerated with the inclement weather so we came back to the California sun in December of 1993. Again, I started Kindergarten for the third time at Woodworth Elementary School in Inglewood. This school separated students who were English learners and integrated both Spanish and English in the classrooms. Here I was comfortable and I learned how to read and write in two languages, Spanish was easier for me because of my family background and I struggled with my English but I learned it. When I was in second grade the school completely switched to English and it was a really hard time for me, but time passes and with time, patience and the help of my teachers (who I am forever grateful to) I became literate in English. When graduating from Woodworth I was in the top of my class and went onto the magnet program in middle school. So when I was asked what literacy was to me I said that literacy is a big cloud of emotions, because for me acquiring literacy was and still is an emotional experience. Posted by Isabel

Memory Lane

Being bilingual became a formula, which obligated students to be placed into ESL. Only because I knew two languages it did not mean I needed that extra help. When I was placed in ESL, the teachers made me feel as if I were handicap. It almost became impossible to try to argue otherwise, so I took matters into my own hands and began excelling in English. It was my goal to be the best in reading, writing, and composition.

As I slowly began proving my case, I was excited and no longer felt like an alien among the other students. As time went on, I realized that I actually enjoyed reading specially writing. One specific incident I remember is in eight grade my teacher had us write an essay and first place would win a free lunch. I knew I had to do my best, not for the lunch, but for the reputation of having first place (I can be very competitive). Hence, when the teacher finished grading the essays she handed them back to us. Even though I got second place it never discouraged me from writing. At this specific moment, I definitely knew that I no longer saw literacy as a challenge to prove the acquired abilities that I developed. I simply realized that I have an immense passion for writing and reading.

Posted by Claudia