Intro etc.

Umm, hi.

My name’s Elisa and I don’t really like talking about myself because it feels awkward, so this is going to be rough. Sooo, I’m originally from Riverside, CA. I have a really spoiled cat and I play a lot of video games. I’ve travelled a bit and I guess I eat a lot of tofu. I’m an English Studies major, Linguistics minor, TESOL cert person (like many of the people in this class, I’m sure). I don’t really want to do anything job-wise, but since I have to, here I am on this path. I’m hoping that this class will help me to be a competent and confident tutor.

I was pretty into books until becoming an English major. Now I only read what I have to for classes, plus a forced novel every break… plus a bunch of mangas/graphic novels that might not be high enough literature for some people. This brings me to “a day in my literate life.” On an average day I wake up and accidentally check my phone after its horrible alarm goes off… or my neighbor’s unhappy dog goes off. Once a week or so, I get to wake up to some drunk texts from my old high school pen pal, lately about Donald Trump (PLEASE ARTHUR STOP SAYING “YOU AMERICANS”!!). Typically, I have some sort of extensive message from an online game friend (lol) and I skim over it before responding manyyyy hours later, almost as extensively.  [I just realized that I write an essay’s worth of script every day via text or message/email.] After reading for classes, I guess I look up a lot of random shit online. This goes on pretty much all day. After all of that school and internetting stuff, if I go to get groceries (which I do way too often as I always seem to forget something), I read every ingredient on every unfamiliar package because I’m picky as hell and hate milk etc. When I get home, I usually watch/play something that has subtitles (yay, more reading). Insert more internetting. Finally, I read manga in bed hoping that the light from my tablet will make me really tired. That’s a day in my literate life… wow it sounds really… basic. But like Szwed said, “a school might not consider all of this reading to be reading, but it’s fucking reading, ok” (423). It’s not academic dishonesty if it’s clearly a joke, right?

Through some of those painful (come on, you know they kind of were) modern literacy and teaching theory readings, as well as Peter Kittle’s 478, I’ve come to see reading and literacy a bit differently. Literacy comes in various shapes and reading isn’t a book-exclusive activity; reading is something that people from all walks of life do every day, everywhere, and teachers should encourage it in more than one form.