Living That Dandy Literate Life

 

Jazmin Gomez

 

My name is Jazmin, and I’m a sophomore majoring in English Literature. I wanted an excuse to read and write a lot, so I majored in the most write-y major of them all. I was questioned by a few people as to how the hell I was planning on getting into a career of English Lit if I don’t want to be a teacher. Oh yes, and that’s one thing that irks me: being asked immediately if I am majoring in English to become a teacher. I believe teachers are the most amazing, wonderful beings in this universe, however, I don’t see myself teaching. It’s not something that I think I was made for. Anyways, I’m majoring in English because I see myself as an editor or a publisher in the book industry.

I’d say I’m a good editor, though the funny thing is that I can’t edit my crap, which constitutes a mess. No, I love reading everyone’s stuff, and I say, “Well you could use a different word here, or eliminate this entire sentence because it’s a disgrace to the human race”. But if you’re thinking that this blog isn’t grammar-correct, or that I use too many run-on sentences, please know that I cannot edit my own stuff. Just like how a hairstylist can’t fully cut all of her hair on her own. Boom.

What I’m hoping to take from this class is experience. While my focus isn’t to become a teacher, I do love the idea of tutoring and mentoring someone, because I know that the mentors in my life have aided me in the best way. I hope that my internternship teaches me many great thing, and I hope that I can also say influential things to the students that I’ll be with.

My life is always literate. My parents joke that I was born with a book. I have always been a bookworm, and I will always be a bookworm. In high school, I loved reading Shakespreare, though I hate classical litertaure. I don’t like it. But, my usual day of reading consists of a lot of reading. For my own leaisure, I like to read Young Adult books- they’re the best genre out there! But I read homework assingments and it’s not bad if I take something from it. I’m a writer. I’ve been writing my own short stories since I was little, and when I was 15, I wrote a 300+ page book…That I plan to rewrite comeplelty and hopefully publish one day. I write that story every now and then. Now my daily writing consists of text messages and blogs for school. Fun stuff.

Szwed’s text in, “The Ethnograpgy of Literacy” was actually a very interesting article and I found myself agreeing with many points that he said:

1. “We do not fully know what literacy is”- Yes! As someone who reads and analyzes everything, I can most definetly agree that we won’t comprehend literacy. Times change. Literacy was something different 200 years ago as it is now.
2. Schools have expecatations of certain reading levels for the different grades. However, the schools underestimate the students that are not at the “correct level” where they’re supposed to be at. I am starting to believe that we should probaby get rid of this assigned reading list. It holds no value if it doesn’t include hope for the kids. What a nerd, I know.
3. Perhaps not something that I can totally agree with, but something that uttelry suprised me was when Szwed mentioned that the richest countries in the world suffer from low skills in literacy. That was unexpected, because I would think that the kids would be smart as hell, and eventually rule the earth. However, I began to speculate that it would make sense if these kids don’t grasp the idea of education quite toughly as we do. These kids are given everything- they have money, they were born into a good family. However, perhaps it’s believed that the monetary situation will be taken care of for the rest of their lives, and so it won’t be neccesary for them to study quite rigourously.

 

From what I understood is that my way of reading and writing has been influenced to be in a certain style and in a certain manner. I grew up to be formal in my essays, and my AP teachers in high school were always so very threatning about how our essays in college must be in ultimate perfection. As an English major, I was frightened with the thought that I had to be perfect in my writing. I’m so not. I value the way I write because it is my way of communicating with the reader on an easier, yet fun way.

The surprise of my college career was finding out that English professors not always want what we were taught. God, I was so stressed when my first English professor told me that there really wasn’t a style she wanted other than MLA. But when I found my voice without the mix of other voices trying to tell me how to write, I realized that I finally found my freedom, and because of this, I thoroughly hope everyone in school -elementary, middle and high school- will find theirs too.