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Advanced Essay #2 - Ethan Larrabee
Literacy, specifically in terms of the ability to read and write, is an essential part of one’s education. Reading is especially important as without being able able to read, one cannot hope to be able to write. One’s ability to read determines one’s ability to better perceive the world around them as the vast majority of our information is presented in a written format. Thus, the sooner one learns to read, the sooner one can begin to truly learn about the world they live in.
I was a rather fortunate child in this regard as I learned to read at a notably early age compared to most children. From as early as I could remember, my parents had been reading me stories which I would listen to with a sort of obsessive focus, which says a lot as I can rarely focus on any one thing for an extended period of time. By the time I was three years old, I was attending a preschool at which I was being taught how to read and write. We started with basic subjects like pronouncing letters and writing our names. While the teaching was effective, it seemed to move too slowly for young me as I craved more. As I was an ambitious child, I decided to teach myself to read. First, I had to find the right book. It had to have enough words to be challenging, while still being a relatively light read. I settled on one of my favorite dinosaur books. It was quite large with full page illustrations and a few sentences per page. It was perfect.
I set about my task in secret, not wanting to risk my parents offering their assistance. This was something that I knew had to be done entirely on my own. Each night, after going to bed, I would stay up for several minutes attempting to decipher the pages. I sat hunched over the book under my covers with a flashlight as to not disturb my brother nearby. The process was slow and arduous as each page took me several minutes to complete and I was constantly sidetracked by the illustrations. Still, I pressed onward, each page becoming slightly easier than the last. By the end of the fourth night, the book was finished. From then on, my reading quickly improved as I seemed to outpace the rest of the class. While others would play, I would find a spot to sit and read. Since then, I have always been at an advanced reading level. I don’t mean to brag, but this was extremely helpful in the earlier years of school.
Literacy is one of, if not the most valuable forms of cultural capital. The ability to read is necessary in society for finding and absorbing information. It allows one to learn independently as they can seek out information without the need for someone to explain it to them. However, if one is deprived of this ability, than they lose a great deal of their independence and makes them much easier to control. For example, slaves were absolutely forbidden from reading or writing as keeping them illiterate made them incapable of arguing for their rights. While a slave could find evidence of the wrongfulness and immorality of their enslavement, they would never be able to because they weren’t capable of obtaining that information. All they knew was what was told to them by their masters, who used this to better control them. This is how Frederick Douglas managed to escape slavery because he taught himself how to read and write. Similarly, in the segregation era, black schools were deprived of resources in order to better control the students. Without being told about the importance of literacy, many of these children never pursued it later in life and so never developed the skill further. In The Apartheid of Children’s Literature, Christopher Myers states “As for children of color, they recognize the boundaries being imposed upon their imaginations, and are certain to imagine themselves well within the borders they are offered, to color themselves inside the lines.” When it comes to children’s literature, books for children of color simply aren’t published. This indirectly deprives them of a way to improve their own literacy skills and, by extension, their knowledge of the world around them.
While literacy has always been an essential life skill, its importance hasn’t been stressed until quite recently. People are only just beginning to realize how much one’s literacy skill determines and what they can do to improve. Hopefully, people can have more access to literacy instruction in order to close a gap that has existed in society for centuries.
Works Cited
Meyers, Christopher. "The Apartheid of Children’s Literature." New York Times. N.p., 15 Mar. 2014. Web.Advanced Essay #2: Women and Visual Literature
Introduction:
My goals for this paper is to share how visual literature changed how I viewed myself. I’m most proud of the flow of my writing. I could improve in making my thoughts on literature more clear
Women and Visual Literature:
I was sitting on the bed in my mom’s room. She was folding and putting away laundry while the T.V. was on. The T.V. screen was playing some sort of crime show. In the show, there was a man and a woman standing in a gritty city. The man offered a bouquet of roses to the woman. The woman laughed and walked away from the man, refusing his proposal. The woman didn’t get too far before the man shot her to death despite her pleas for him to stop. The woman’s body was left in the streets while the man drove away from the crime scene with his unwanted bouquet of flowers.
That scene gave me a fear of rejecting people and saying no. I grew more cautious of how much authority people have over me and how quickly and drastically I would be punished if I didn’t do what was expected of me. An article by UNICEF states that, “... exposure to media among youth creates the potential for massive exposure to portrayals that sexualize women and girls and teach girls that women are objects.” Although the media I was exposed to was not sexual, the effect was the same. That scene gave me the idea that I should be afraid of men as well as the power that they had and I lacked. I had the expectation that when I would enter my teen and adult years I had to make the men around me pleased with my answers and behavior even if I would not be comfortable with the outcome. Without even knowing it at the time I was beginning to understand my role in society was to be objectified. Visual literature helped me realize how I was expected to behave and perceive myself. My perspective on what I could be as a woman narrowed down to one option; an object designed to please men.
When I was in elementary school I would spend my time during recess playing make believe on the playground. At times I was the only girl in a group of boys, making me have to take on the more feminine characters in our made up adventures. One recess we decided that we would play in the world of Star Wars. Despite the fact that I hadn’t seen any of the movies at the time, I would always get assigned the role of Princess Leia. The obvious reason was because I was the only girl that would play this game with them. However, my friends claimed it was because of the curly buns I had on the sides of my head. They would pretend to be Jedis and use “the force” to move things as well as have fierce fights with imaginary lightsabers. My job was to mostly sit and watch. On more eventful days I could pretend to be in danger until it was time for me to be saved by my friends.
Looking back on my times spent in the playground I realize that my roles have always been passive. The nature of the characters I would play did not matter. My male friends and I did not care if the women I pretended to be were strong leaders or highly intelligent. In our eyes, these characters were only girls and nothing more. Often times in the media, shows will have a singular female character in a group of men. In an article titled “Hers; The Smurfette Principle” Katha Pollitt defines the Smurfette principle as, “a group of male buddies will be accented by a lone female, stereotypically defined.” Pollitt also gives examples of female characters who only have one singular personality trait. Kanga from Winnie the Pooh is the mother of the group while Miss Piggy from The Muppets only exists as a “glamour queen”. Pollitt comes to an understanding and begins to see that, “Boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral; boys are individuals, girls types. Boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys.” Visual literature has shown me that women are seen as singular traited individuals that exist only to levitate the qualities of men. This representation of woman in visual literature has caused children, like me and my friends, to dismiss the idea of women having larger roles. Women are put in a position where they must prove that they are too complex to just be accessories to the characteristics of men.
Eventually, I realized that I am too multifaceted to be reduced to an object. Despite visual literature introducing harmful stereotypes in the past I believe it’s steadily improving. Every day I see better representations of gender and I hope children today are gaining higher perceptions of themselves.
Works Cited:
“Not An Object: On Sexualization and Exploitation of Women and Girls.” UNICEF USA, 9 May 2016, www.unicefusa.org/stories/not-object-sexualization-and-exploitation-women-and-girls/30361.
Pollitt, Katha. “Hers; The Smurfette Principle.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Apr. 1991, www.nytimes.com/1991/04/07/magazine/hers-the-smurfette-principle.html.
Design Slide 2.0
I ended up missing my designated presentation time but that doesn’t mean that the criticism I received was any revered.
The main point of criticism for my slide was the fact that there was a lack of font and the photo was not as front-and-center as it should have been. In order to fix this I played around with fonts until I found the font, “Bungee Hairline” which is what I chose to be my final font due to its bold yet thin lettering and minimalistic aesthetic. I also cropped the photo and eliminated the section of the paper that had a bit of pencil scribble on it as that was distracting and took away from the overall clean look of the slide.
The reason why I aimed for an overall simple look was due to the fact that most of my research said to take advantage of large font and open space as well as the lines of focus. So I thought that the best way to achieve all three of those goals was to one, place my drawing in the center of the slide, two, make sure that it had equal borders on all sides, and three, only place bold font on the left side of the slide therefore taking advantage of one of the horizontal lines of focus while also leaving open space. In conclusion, the goal of my slide is to both simply and effectively convey the change that I have gone through both physically and emotionally throughout the course of my life and I believe, thanks to the power of design, I have been able to achieve this.
Advanced Essay #2: A Mother's Voice
People believe that our school environment has the largest impact on our speech development and interpretation of literacy. This effect on our speech happens much earlier on in life. Our parents are this early effect. A parent who instills the importance of reading in a child's life gives that child an interest in learning, which will blossom into a dominant cultural capital. A parent who is not involved in a child’s life reading wise places this child at a disadvantage. Recently, I recalled when I went to my mother’s house and remembered a conversation we had about our childhoods. I was about 13.
I sat on the sofa and pulled out my book that I had been reading. Animal Farm, by George Orwell.
“Animal Farm. That’s a good book.” my mom said.
“You read Animal Farm?” I said.
“Of course, I read it a few years ago. Do you like it so far?”
“Yeah, I’m really enjoying it...in a strange way. But I wouldn’t peg you as someone who’d read something like this.”
“Why do you think that?” my mother said, confused.
“You read romance novels and I doubt that Nani would’ve asked you to read something like this.”
“Why does my mother care about what I should and shouldn’t read?”
“You were sort of… for lack of a better word, poor as a child. I was raised reading books and craving to read more books.
“I had to work for my education, and sure, maybe I wasn’t as proper spoken as you as a child but I’m smart, Eric.” I stood up and grabbed my book not saying anything. I went to my room and fell asleep quickly. It was as if the night went by with a blink.
This memory is like an essay we read in class, The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children by Lisa D. Delpit. “I am also suggesting that appropriate education for poor children and children of color can only be devised in consultation with adults who share their culture. Black parents, teachers of color, and members of poor communities must be allowed to participate fully in the discussion of what kind of instruction is in their children’s best interest.” (296).
As a society, people neglect poor children no matter how much they need help, but the moment a child with money has an issue they get all the necessary help. When Delpit states, “instruction in their children’s best interest,” she believes that as a society need to put our differences of privilege aside and help the poor, using our privilege because that is a part of our culture. My mother as a child wanted help and my grandmother never got my mom any help at all.
The next morning, after my “discussion” with my mom, I heard her voice from downstairs in the kitchen. I walked downstairs, making a slight noise and saw my mom drinking coffee in the kitchen, her phone was on the table. On the phone was her mom.
“Never heard of Animal Farm, sounds fancy.” my grandmother said.
“Yeah it’s pretty advanced for his age, guess all that reading at night with him helped.” my mom said.
“ I loved reading to you.”
“ You never read to me, Ma!” my mother snapped back
“ Yeah I did, I read you….”
“You can’t even think of a book, you were never there for me!” There was a moment of silence, my mother burst into tears and hung up the phone, putting her head on the table in shame.
As Mike Rose wrote in his essay, I Just Want to be Average, “You're defined by your school as "slow"; you're placed in a curriculum that isn't designed to liberate you but to occupy you, or, if you're lucky, train you, through the training is for work the society does not esteem; other students are picking up the cues from your school and your curriculum and interacting with you in particular ways.” (3).
We separate kids into two groups, smart and slow and we do this at a young age but old enough so that child understands that their behind. Instead of allowing “slower” kids to integrate their ideas with “smarter” kids so that both groups benefit schools put you in classes that just fill up your time, rather than giving you a purpose.
Literacy is a tool used to understand words and people, some people understand these messages better than others. Our parents are meant to lead us, the amount of guidance are parents give us varies.
Works Cited:
I Just Wanna Be Average by Mike Rose
Rose, Mike. "I Just Want to Be Average." Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America's Underprepared. New York: Free Press, 1989. 162-67. Print.
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. A Place to Stand: the Making of a Poet. Grove Press, 2001. [This is the book…]
Lisa Delpit (1988) The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children. Harvard Educational Review: September 1988, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 280-299
Advanced Essay #2: The Language of Masculinity
Introduction:
The goal of this paper was to explain how I view code switching, especially in concern to masculinity, as a language.I am proud of the connections I made about how men view being feminine as a bad thing along with how I connect to the grand scheme of masculinity. I could improve more on being concise with my words.
The Language of Masculinity:
When I was fourteen I entered the workforce with my first job, which was anything but glamorous. I was condemned to spend a little more than a month of my summer trapped in a very old and hot gym with a gaggle of small children. While the children were annoying, it was my fellow coworkers who I found to be the most unbearable.
I have this complex when it comes to interacting with guys my own age. I do not consider myself to be overly masculine in the slightest, so I find myself feeling lost and mildly annoyed at the behavior of my fellow men. Not all men, but just the majority of them who flaunt their masculinity and force it onto others. The ones who find ways to insult not only each other but different groups of people as well.
The camp in which I worked seemed to reinforce stereotypical gender norms much to my dismay. Me and the rest of the boys were in the gym playing sports with the older kids while the girls were confined to the “tot room” watching over the smaller campers.
Lunches, where all of us guys would sit in the break room, were the worst for me. Conversation would buzz around me, but it was as if the guys were speaking a foreign language that I barely had a grasp of. I had mastered the art of nodding along and laughing in order to pass as just another guy, but every now and then though one of them would say something that snapped me to my senses.
“Dude stop being such a faggot,” I had heard one of them yell.
“Shut up, you’re the faggot,” another had retorted, his mouth full of sandwich. They all laughed except me. I always hoped that no one would notice my flinch when they said certain words like faggot or retard. Those were words of their language that I had refused to speak.
It had always fascinated me that men use the term faggot as an insult, as if being gay would suddenly strip a man of what makes him a man. It seems as though men are obsessed with the concept of a fag, which is to say an overly feminine and flamboyant man who likes men. It must make them feel better about their own fragile masculinity.
To me, masculinity is a language in itself. It is one born from years of privilege and entitlement, of aggression and hate. It not only harms those who are not men, but it also harms the men who use it.
As Steve Almond wrote in his article What I Learned in the Locker Room, “We look to pro sports as a reminder that it is our duty to conceal the parts of ourselves that feel vulnerable, the parts we associate — erroneously, but inextricably — with the feminine.”
Hypermasculinity not only harms those who are not men, but it also harms the men who perpetuate it. The fear of being feminine or the fear of being a “fag” is what drives men to act the way in which they do.
Men conceal their feelings, their vulnerabilities, and repress them until there is no other choice but to push those negative feelings onto others. It makes sense then, that they would attack the so-called “faggots” because they are jealous of a man who can take ownership of who he is and who can take responsibility for his emotions and actions. “Faggots” are a threat to their way of life.
Towards the end of my first summer of work, I found myself exhausted keeping up the charade of masculinity. I think the facade that I had put up began to fade because one boy reached out to me during my last week of work. We were in the gym, and he had stopped me in the middle of my weak attempt at shooting some baskets.
“I just wanted to tell you that I notice how uncomfortable you seem around some of the other guys, I get it,” he admitted. “I just don’t want you to think that I’m a horrible person because of how I act around them. I’m not like this really, I just do it to fit in,” he had told me.
I think I replied with something along the lines of, “Yeah don’t worry about it, it’s no big deal,” but in reality I was confused. Why did this boy care so much about what I thought of him?
The answer didn’t come to me until much later, after I had become more comfortable in my own skin. He was trying to reassure me that he was not a “horrible” person, but in reality it seemed as though he was trying to reassure himself, which makes me think about what Gloria Anzaldúa emphasizes in her work How to Tame a Wild Tongue, “Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out.”
This boy had given up who he was in order to fit into the male archetype. He took the parts of himself that were against the norm and cut them out in order to become what every man is expected to be. While he may have found comfort in the conformity, he had lost himself in the process of doing so. I came to realize that you cannot bargain with society, you either speak the language it wants you to or you risk becoming a social pariah.
Works Cited:
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands = La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1999. Print.
Almond, Steve. What I Learned in the Locker Room. The New York Times Company, 11 Sept. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/opinion/sunday/what-i-learned-in-the-locker-room.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.
Advanced Essay #2: Language in furthering cultural literacy
Advanced Essay
I entered my kindergarten classroom literate in English, and left literate in two languages. This was a phenomenon I couldn’t fully process as a five year old. My brain swirled in circles, as a child does, and learning two languages at once just became custom. I started by learning Spanish the way I had learned English years before, Maestra Maricarmen would point to a grape and we would all respond in unison, “uva.” I spoke Spanish all day long, to the point where it felt weird when I would go home and have to speak English. I ate dinner and went to bed like the usual kindergartener, with the thoughts off all of the things I had learned and had yet to learn. My eyes slowly started to drift into dreamland. My mind began to swirl into a scene where I was doing my homework and my mom was standing above me. She was speaking and speaking in a way I had never realized her do before.
“¿Qué dice la pregunta 5? Creo que la maestra equivocó.”
Through my dream I slowly started to realize what was off, my dream was in Spanish. My body jerked up in shock. What just happened? The sun was slowly rising through the shades on my window. I could feel my eyes droop back into dreamland and I fell back asleep.
As my literacy in two languages was growing, I realized parts of my learning experience that were changing. I was becoming more culturally aware solely through the ability to communicate with others and connect through a common factor. When we went to the Mexican market on the corner, me, the 7-year-old, was the one who would talk to the owner. When I read books, I was able to read about Latin American culture in the language they speak. When I went to class, I was able to communicate with students who didn’t speak any Spanish. When I travelled with my family, I was the one who got us around. These experiences made me realize this great power that I possessed. It was an ability to communicate with others who had very different backgrounds than myself.
Sixth grade began with a huge influx of new students, most of whom were Mexican immigrants who arrived in Philadelphia a few months before. One of these students, Brenda, was seated right next to me in Maestra Antonia’s class. I looked to her and asked, “¿Hola, cómo estás?” She looked at me with a smile and responded, “Bien, eres la primera Americana que ha hablado en Español a mi.” In translation she was saying that I was the first American who had spoken in Spanish to her. Over the years she would always look at me during class and smile, realizing she was in a community that accepted her culture. The school was full of diversity in language, and we were all learning more Spanish together. This power of multiple literacies helped with the ability to communicate with people comfortably in their own language, instead of the much too common story of other language speakers having to adapt to English for the comfort of others.
The immersion school environment that I had become used to and loved went completely against the idea that “If you want to be American, speak ‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong” (Anzaldúa, How to Tame a Wild Tongue, 34). Culture and language was celebrated in every course. The ideology was led through further understanding from communication and adaptation.
People are so often limited to their world by the language they speak. They lack perspective on culture because of the vast majority of people they can’t communicate with. This creates ignorant conflict of the oppressor versus the one being oppressed by the lack of ability to express their full culture. This comes into play in the oppressive manner that America treats language and diversity, where it backplays in the constitution itself, “Attacks on one’s form of expression with the intent to censor are a violation of the First Amendment” (Anzaldúa, How to Tame a Wild Tongue, 34).
Other countries treat bilingual education as a vital element in the education system where kids leave bilingual or even trilingual. The American school system sees literacy in two languages as a waste of resources and laughs at that vital element. In result, children aren’t given enough language courses, of which are treated as extra instead of a main course. This limits the ability of students to acknowledge changing diversity and see the broad places that the world has to offer, because of the lack of a diversity in literacy. This in turn changes the way that students of diverse backgrounds are treated, their languages are seen as less and a waste of time to deal with. Those students are treated as dumb and not brought to their full potential because of the way the school system places them in a, “dumping ground for the disaffected” (Rose, I Just Wanna Be Average, 2). Diverse versions of literacy create a more culturally literate and accepting society.
Works Cited
Rose, Mike. “I Just Want to be Average .” Google Drive, Google, drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Cvq7ioloJpN2JmMDk3ZWQtYmI5OS00OTM3LTk5MDctZWMzZTViNGVhNjBi/view.
Anzaldua, Gloria. “How to tame a wild tongue .” Everettsd, www.everettsd.org/cms/lib07/WA01920133/Centricity/Domain/965/Anzaldua-Wild-Tongue.pdf.
Spanish Video
Advanced Essay #2: Curious George Pt. 2
Almost every child goes through the phase of curiosity, and I was no different. At the age of 7, I wanted travel around the world with my best friend, Julie. Julie and I were inseparable,--physically and mentally--she was imaginary friend, even though she was a purple sprinkle. I sought advice from Julie everyday because she was always right, ever since she popped in my head a year before.This joyous time came to an end, when a fateful Saturday afternoon ruined our relationship.
“Mommy are we gonna get ice cream?” I questioned.
My mother swiftly turned around and gave my the death stare as if to say: ‘Don’t you dare ask me that question again’. My brain immediately registered the look and I slumped back into my car seat, staying silent.
We arrived at a place full of people. My mother, Julie, and I walked through a gate, leading to rows of golf clubs hanging, all different colors. My mother handed me one.
‘What is this, a bat?’
‘I don’t know maybe mommy wants us to play’
‘Play what?’
‘I don’t know Julie!’
‘Stop yelling at me! That’s not nice’
‘Alright, I am very sorry. I’ll ask mommy what it is’
My eyes trailed up to my mother, who was handing the man at the booth money. I tugged on her shirt. She ignored me, didn’t even bother to look down at me. I grabbed her shirt again, with a better grip, and pulled it again. She rotated. Her demeanor changed, and her face looked as though it was caving inwards, with her nose scrunched up.
My curiosity is just like building up a skill or habit, it’s something I was proud of, didn’t get ashamed or embarrassed by it. Although my mother constantly wondered why I was like this, it just came naturally to me, I couldn’t control it. It was like my brain needed to learn and understand what is going on, how everything works, and how to make sense of it all. Like Ta-Nehisi Coates said in the biography, Between the World and Me: “You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to construct yourself to make other people comfortable.” Coates explains that people who use creativity or any other way that is different to interpret the world is inspiring, and nobody should make fun of it; instead let it be an example to aspire to.
We went through a lot of different golf courses, and I went skipping along with my club swinging around in circles. I was singing my favorite song: Leave Me Alone, by Michael Jackson. Right away, Julie started singing along.
‘So just leave me alone’
‘Leave me alone, leave me alone’
‘Leave me alone, stop it!’
‘Just stop doggin me around’
Our duet came to a stop, as the screech of my mother’s voice was heard. I stopped my music video and ran back towards her, realizing I sang my way past the pretty fountain. The fountain had a humongous gold golf ball on top, with four holes in the sides of the ball. In these holes, water poured out gracefully into a pool. Intrigued with the whole thing, my body moved towards the fountain on its own.
Next thing I knew I was standing right in front of the fountain, as I climbed up into the wall and looked over the rail and into the fountain water.
This gorgeous purple golf ball was staring directly at me.
‘You know you want it, just go get it’
‘No I can’t go in the water’
‘Then put ya hand in and get the ball’
‘But…’
‘Do it, you know we want it’
With an evil grin, I let curiosity take over me. I crawled under the rail and stood up. I stretched my arm out, to where the purple ball was, and wiggled my fingers to move closer. Without thinking, I leaned forward some more, way past my limit of balance. I fell head first into the fountain, making a huge commotion.
‘Julie, this is all your fault! We are not friends anymore.’
I grabbed my purple ball and got out of the fountain, and walked a couple of feet to where my mother was standing. She looked down at me and started laughing.
Many people people saw me as a bad little girl playing around, other than my mother. My curiosity lead me to a tool to learn and grow from my mistakes. Without curiosity, there would be nothing to try, therefore nothing to learn from in my life. Learning makes me intelligent, only a fool does not learn from his mistakes. My mother understood this about me, she knew my curiosity would get me in trouble.
“You did all of that to get a purple ball?” She said, with a puzzled look on her face.
I nodded my head and raised the ball to her face.
“You are so cute, let’s go get ice cream and sit in the sun.”
Even in The Giver, by Lois Lowry, everything is so plain and boring city and everyone has to follow the rules with no exceptions, but Jonas is different. When Jonas’s eyes are unusual, he is able to see color, when most people in the community cannot. He has an exceptional gift that allows him to see and interpret things different than everyone else; he is able to see “deeper” into the world that is around him, giving him the advantage of understanding and seeing life.
Jonas and I are just the same, the same glow in the eyes that say: extraordinary. We both are anxious about the world we live in, and we learn the exact same way.
Advanced Essay #2: Keeping thoughts
As my friends and I were talking about the class reading that we had to do for Mr. Kay's class. We were talking about the main character in the book and what we thought about her. As we walked, we were talking about the character choices in the book. I was telling them that I thought that the character actions were too impulsive to make any sense. As I told them that they gave me a look of confusion and giggles. I asked what happened. And all they said was what is the character name. ¨Why her name is Dane¨” everyone laughed with the laughter filling the halls ¨ẅhat did I say, that's her name¨. ¨Her name is Dana, You know that right¨ I looked at them thinking that they're crazy because I knew that I said. ¨You said Diane you know that right¨ as I looked at them I said ¨ Ya I guess¨. I went through that day not truly know what I said wrong but I know that the reason why they didn't fully understand me was that of my speech and dyslexia. The knowledge of know that your being affected by something that you can't change about yourself. I know that I am not the only one effect by a speech in their everyday lives. The short story Mother Tongue It illustrates the struggle of a mother who is trying to live her everyday life with working, finances and raising a child, and dealing with the knowledge that she will not be fully understood and taken seriously because of her ability to speak English. “I knew from a four fact because when I was growing up, my mother’s ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her”(2). This ideal of speech impacts someone's ability of taken seriously is something that many people have to face in their everyday life with people with speech people are being less likely to be hired over other people. This practice can not only affect business body with them not hiring the best person for the job because they don't speak perfectly but instead picking people that might not be qualified and cause them to lose financially.
Cultures around the world have dictated their version of success in their society with people who ability took and speech a certain part leads them to be more successful in their society. Thru their eyes they cherry picking people that will be able to compete in the world to make them look more smart and intelligent. The Idea of only picking people that looks and sound like the part cause them to overlook smarter and brighter people because they are different. This Practice not only limits the society as a whole by not putting their best foot forward in the areas of ideas, jobs, and knowledge. But it's also limit the society in another way. Its limit people experience and culture with them suppressing there difference and accents it fixes the average way people speak. As a society, we need to think and talk about if we want this to be the process of people being accepted into a job. If as a society we are comfortable with that we need to ask why. Why are we comfortable with allowing a part of our population that percentage numbers in the double-digit not being able to be heard or taken seriously. That the real question that everyone should be asking themselves and that will people with claim different causes are more moral the ideals that anyone forms any background cannot listen be the cause of the way that they speak is something that we all need to acknowledge and do something about because for more people it´s unchangeable.
Advance Essay #2 - David Roberts
This is an essay about my love for literacy stems from my earlier love for books. Because of my exposure to books, I have learned to love literacy.
Literacy is a part of life that many people underestimate. When any form of literacy is left out of the curriculum, people forget it. It becomes something they no longer pay attention to, and when mentioned, its gets degraded into oblivion. But literacy is really something great. It does in fact play a huge part in our lives, and no matter what people say about, it will always be there. Whether literacy takes the form of social media, news, writing a paper, or other things, it will remain a major part of life. This is why we cannot forget it. And I, from experience, can say that books don’t give me the chance to forget literacy.
“Let’s go bud, time for bed,” my mom called to me.
I put down my pencil and ran up the stairs to get ready for bed. I always loved reading; it would make my imagination run wild. I didn’t know how yet to read, but with everyday I got a little bit closer to understanding.
“Alright son, tonight, we’re going to finish The Horse and His Boy.”
“Nice,” I replied. “Finally the ending!”
As soon as I was born, my parents were reading to me, or so I was told. My parents to me so often, that they still today tell me about all the books I read during my childhood. Granted, they have given a significant portion of those away, but there still exists a small collection of children’s books in the house. My parents say those are their favorites. has left me with a true love for reading and literature.I have learned to love all different kinds of books, whether that was a biography about some famous person, or a nonfiction novel about a kid’s experience growing up with no parents, or even a science fiction novel about life on another planet. I’ve learned to truly appreciate books
As I got older, and learned how to read, I would do it constantly. I would read anything I could get my hands on, whether it was a nonfiction book, magazine, or even an essay online about something I was interested in. I think it is acceptable to say that there was never a time in my early childhood when I wasn’t currently reading something. Nowadays, this is no longer true, but I distinctly remember reading all the time, even if that meant re-reading a series once or even twice because I loved it so much. Sherman Alexie described my situation perfectly in her essay titled, The Joy of Reading and Writing, “I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open.” She, like myself, remember reading whenever she could, even when she wasn’t supposed to be.
Jimmy Santiago Baca put how I felt about books into words in the film A Place to Stand. “I didn’t want to the guy to hit my eyes so I could read the story.” I was so deeply in love with reading that if something happened to me that rendered me unable to read, part of me would die. Reading was such a big part of my childhood, that if I didn’t have books, I don’t think I would be same person I am today. I would not have the same imagination, the same creativity that I have today. And those things are such a part of me that I would indeed be a different person.
Looking back on these things, I can easily see how books and literacy helped me grow. Reading helped me to understand and appreciate forms of writing from a very early age.. I’ve learned to value books and whatever wisdom they held within their two covers. I learned to see the meaning or reason why a certain part of a book was written. I can very easily read what is happening “between the lines,” as some people say. Reading gave me this ability, which I cherish with all my heart.
Now that I am closing on my seventeenth birthday, I still read every now and then, but I’m no longer that little kid that was obsessed with books. Other things occupy my time, and some days I don’t even touch a book. I still retain my love for books and literacy though. If I find a book I haven’t read I’ll be busy until I read the last word. I also can still look at things in life and appreciate the literacy held within it. I doubt anything could happen that would take away my love for books and literacy.
Advanced Essay #2- Autumn Lor
Advanced Essay 2 - Educational Equality
Media Fluency Remix Slide
Remix 1 Google Slide
Remix slide-Mawusse Akohouegnon
Remix of All About Me Slide
Design Slides
Tech slide remix
The From the presentation zen I learned a lot about making good slides.From the research that I did, I learned that having big text would help the text stand out so I decided to make the font bigger.I also learned that bolding the text makes it easier for the audience to see.I colored my text black because I wanted my text to contrast from the background.Presentation zen showed me a lot of ways to make a good slide.
In conclusion, I learned a lot about what makes a slide good. Using all of the sources I was able to create a good slide.I also found ways to improve on my old slide and make it better. I believe made a good slide but, I still could learn more things to improve my slide.
ANDREW BOWERS Remix 1 Google Slide
One Slide About Londyn:Remix
From the critique of my slide, I learned that since I am the creator, only I know what I want to grab the audience’s attention. I also learned that images get distorted sometimes when being shown on a projector in comparison to a computer screen so I should be careful when enlarging or minimizing images and text because it may make things be grainy or go unseen by the audience.
To remake this slide, I first remade a version that had my original background and text color but with more paint splatters as a border. I then decided to completely remix my slide so, I inverted the colors making the background black and the words white. It was suggested that, to catch the eye, I should make my name multicolored so, I did so. It was also suggested that I make my quote bigger so that the audience can read it since it was put on the slide for a reason.
I think the research helped me make a better slide because it showed that there are many different ways to interpret information and in order to convey the message you want, you have to catch the eye of the audience. I would also consider my classmates’ presentations research because I could see the things I liked about a slide and the things I didn’t like about a slide and I could see common mistakes that were present in my slide as well as theirs. For the most part, I used the given resources, google and advice from my friends to create a good slide. I used the ideas of eye catching colors, the rule of thirds and other advice from classmates/friends to formulate a new and improved idea for my slide remix.
Slide Remix: Nile Shareef-Trudeau
At first my slide was just a word and design with a hidden meaning. You weren’t able to understand how it connected or expressed the essence of “Nile” without a thorough explanation from me. When critiquing my slide my classmates informed me that I could maybe add a definition of the word in my slide but it wasn't needed since I explained it.
I made the changes to my slide so that it could speak more so for itself. Although it still is simple, it looks a tad more special and I added the changes that were advised to me by my classmates plus a few extra changes that I thought would spice it up.Think these changes enace my slide greatly.
The research I did from all the source provided, really helped me to better understand the elements of a good slide design. I used space and the spacing of the different things to allow the presentation to look clear rather than cluttered. I used lines to draw the eye to the focal point of my presentation. The color I used changed to a slightly lighter purple than before, so that the text was still seen. Some shapes to go with my “Special Person” theme, and a small shadow behind the focal point to make it bounce out and shine brighter than the rest. I think I made a lot of good changes to my slide and like it much better overall.
JUSTINE
I didn't know what to do for my slide so I chose to do something different. I haven found my way yet so I chose to put a blank canvas because I still have my whole life ahead of me. My canvas is just waiting to be painted. The title is Pristine Justine because thatś how I view myself.
I didn't get a lot of critiques, I heard that there was weird empty spaces everywhere and too many pictures. I decided to change the whole idea because I wanted it to reflect more on me and how I see myself. I did something simpler and decided not to do a picture because I wanted it to be new and just something I made and not just get it from the internet.
I still use the video about the ikea sign because I used a bright color blue. I think the font color compliments the background. There's a perfect amount of empty space I don't know if my slide will be seen from 5k away like the Ikea sign, but I think i did a lot better on this side.
google slide recreation.
Slide Remix
From the critiques on my slide, I learned that color and font is a very important factor in design. Through color, we can catch people’s eyes, and changing the font up will make the slide less bland and boring. Furthermore, I removed my name from the slide because I wanted the viewer to focus more on the background picture, and not get distracted by my name being there. In addition, I changed the color, font, and placement of my slide because I learned that color plays a strong role in design and eye-catchers. Moreover, I used the clouds as a natural resource to put my quote on. By doing this, I allowed eyes to focus more on the quote and background, opposed to focusing on my name.
The research I did helped polish my slide because I used natural lines in the image to direct audiences’ eyes where I want them. In addition, I changed up the font to make a less bland slide, and color to catch eyes. I used presentation Zen, and other desgin websites to make my slide better. By studying how to make a good slide, I found a new interest in design and edit.
In conclusion, I enjoyed working on this project. It helped me learn a lot about design and where to place things. There is a lot of things I need to work on and this project has pointed that out. Some things I could have worked on are choosing a better font, and using better color.