1) When I first learned how to drive. How it was a big deal toward becoming more independent.
2) When I first started to learn how to read and write.
3) When I had to read novels in 4th grade and I hated it.
4) My literacy in music when I was in band.
5) My literacy of math was always easy and fun to me.
1) People ages 15 and a half and up would be the ideal audience because they have some experience with the driving situation or have friends that are starting to drive. It might help the teens from 15 and a half to 17 realize what a big responsibility driving really is and how alert one must be at all times behind the wheel. They may figure it’s a right for them to have their licence when it’s really a privilege.
2) Little kids who are still learning how to write but can read for the most part would be ideal. They would recently remember the process of reading and writing, and would understand where I was coming from. They may still not like to read and will find out through the article that it is really a good thing that’ll help one in the future.
3) People about my age and older who never liked reading a lot or wasn’t very good at it when they were younger would appreciate this narrative. They may feel sympathetic for why I hated reading when I was younger and will understand the difficulties of reading when growing up.
4) People in music majors or have learned music before would be the ideal audience here. They may feel like music is one of the best things on Earth and that it helped me throughout my life in many different ways. They would understand the knowledge of learning music can bring to someone and how important it is.
5) People who like math would be the ideal audience. They will think math was always fun to learn also and can see where I was coming from.
Ethos is the audience’s perception ofthe rhetor’scredibility. Google shows its credibility on the search page. Douglass tells the story of how he was taught to read and write. He is credible because he went through this experience first hand.
What it means for literacy development in general, that language has been in someone else’s mouth before it’s been in ours, is that people best learn by imitation. As a baby our parents and others talk to us and around us constantly, then we start trying to imitate them by saying something, then something else, until we are using whole sentences to communicate. Developing literacy’s are easily done by imitating others, because before we even use some words we already know what they mean and how to say them.
I think blogs are a unique way of reflecting on our class work and progress. That being said I didn’t like all the class time wasted on blogs. They don’t help enough to the point where we should have to write them everyday, maybe once a week or even once a month. Once a week would be fine to touch base on the main topic and see how everyone understands it and reading others may help them develop better ideas, but there is too much work in the class to be spending the whole time blogging. We had to spend all our time out of class to write our papers and that cut into my other class time too much. Like I said blogging is an original idea for a class but like all good things it should only be used in moderation.
The value of this activity is to help us take one of our literacy’s and show what we know about it. This will demonstrate not only our knowledge of this literacy but also it will reflect on what we’ve learned on literacy in class. This will also helop us out in the future by looking and evaluating our skills and how they will truly help us in the professional world.
Final Project Proposal
Eng 207
Spring 2009
Options 1 & 2 Focus
1. For my final project I am going to focus on my Microsoft Office
literacy because: I am recently enrolled in a class about this so the information is fresh in my head, so I am very literate on this subject matter.
2. This is a literacy because:
It is a technology literacy, which will demonstrate my knowledge on this computer program.
3. Explain how you use/practice/demonstrate this literacy right now in your life right now (in other words, what role does the literacy in question one play in your life)?
I use Microsoft Word to type papers for my classes. I use MS Excel to help keep track of my finances and help me project what I can and can’t spend my money on. I use MS PowerPoint to setup presentations for classes in a professional and fashionable manner.
4. Explain how this literacy might be used by others in their personal lives. Explain how this literacy might be used by others in their professional lives.
This literacy is growing in our technological advancing world right now. Microsoft Office provides a few programs for people to utilize in helping them organize personal and professional parts of their life. For personal purposes people can use Excel to help keep track of finances, Word to help write letters, make fliers, etc. This literacy particularly helps people in the field of business to keep track of business finances in Excel, to write letters or memos in a professional manner in Word, and present information to other businesses, investors, etc in a professional manner in Power Point.
5. How do you see yourself using this literacy professionally? What need does this literacy meet that others cannot? In other words, what will this literacy do that others do not?
Same as how others do which is listed above.
6. How do you plan to demonstrate your literacy?
With option one, I will write a paper describing how I use it and will use it in the future.
7. What questions do you have about this project?
None thus far
8. Create a chronological list of the steps you will need to take to complete this project. Then, set a time-line of when each step will be completed. This will be a tentative contract between you and me to assure you’re making progress on this project.
1) Write down ideas about this literacy in an unorganized web or outline. (Done by Mon 4/20)
2) Put ideas together in a rough draft. (Done by Weds 4/22)
3) Get feedback and make final revisions for final draft. (Done by 4/27)
I first though literacy was all about the ability the comprehend what you read for academic purposes. It is much more than that. I now know that literacy deals with every text message and email received, driving instructions, music, and everything in between. My view on literacy has change drastically since the beginning of the semester and I am more aware of it in my everyday life.