Literacy Reflection: Possibilities

1. Literacy Reflection: Possibilities Beth Towle

2. #1: Process • Guiding Questions: • How has my writing process changed over time? • What is my writing process now? • How does my writing process compare to others? • What technologies do I use in my process? • Do I use a different process depending on what I’m writing

3. #1: Process • Ideas – Paper or Phone • Research – Online or Paper/Book • Notes – Paper, then typed in Word • Outlining – Word • Writing - Word • 1. Ideas • 2. Research • 3. Ideas/Research • 4. Rough Draft • 5. Rewrite • Research? • Feedback? • 6. Final Draft

4. #1: process • Possible conclusions: • My writing process is recursive, meaning it often repeats steps throughout and steps constantly feed into each other. • Not a linear process. • Multi-modal process. • Messy process • Not as detailed or as revision-based as other people’s. • What else: • How does this compare to the past, when I did not have access to computers or internet? How does that effect what I do now? • Why is this the process I use? What is hard or easy about it? How should it evolve in the future?

5. #2: Writing for an audience • Guiding Questions: • What audiences do I generally write for? • How does what I’m writing affect my audience decisions? • What considerations do I take into account about my audience? • What might be my audience’s possible reactions to my work? • Who is my “dream” audience? • In what ways is an editor a type of audience? • What is the difference between my internet audience, my academic audience, and my poetry audience?

6. #2 Writing for an audience • What venues do I write for? Who is their audience? • Poetry – people who like and enjoy poetry, people interested in history, teachers, writer friends, myself • Fan fiction – other fans, friends, myself • Twitter – other writers, small presses or blogs (networking), friends • Poetry reviews – poetry readers and writers, other small presses, other poetry blogs, myself • Pop culture essays – fans of those media products, other pop culture writers, friends, people interested in cultural issues, myself • First-Generation PhD Blog – other graduate students, undergrads interested in become grad students, people interested in rhet/comp field, friends, teachers, myself • Rhet/Comp Papers – people interested in the field of rhet/comp, people interested in my subfield, publication reviewers or conference participants, faculty, classmates, etc.

7. #2: writing for an audience • Possible Conclusions: • I am always one of my own audience members. • I write for many different venues, each with a unique audience. • What I write depends on what I want an audience to get out of it. • I write based on how I want people to “look at me,” how I present myself to different public groups. • Some of these involve an in-between party: editor, reviewers, teacher, etc.

8. #3: Sponsors of literacy • Guiding Questions: • Who are the people who have helped me gain literacy skills? • Why did those people help me? • How exactly did they help me? • What are the institutions/organizations that have helped me gain literacy skills? • What do they gain out of my literacy? What do I gain from learning literacy from them? • What are the power dynamics in my literacy acquistion? • What technologies have affected my literacy? Are those sponsors? • How can I relate this to Deborah Brandt’s “Sponsors of Literacy” article?

9. #3: Sponsors of literacy • Institutions: • Public school – taught me to read and write; benefited from my high test scores and helped to prevent “Indiana brain drain.” • College – made me a better reader/writer/thinker; benefited from my later reputation, from my tuition money, etc. • Jobs – made me a more skilled writer or teacher; benefited from my labor, my time, and various writing projects to use in the future • People: • Grandfather – helped me learn to read, was passionate about reading, was a writer and printer. • Mother – artist, showed me how to read and write creatively • Mrs. Wiegand – taught me that writing could be fun and open • Mr. Hernandez – helped make me a better writer in multiple genres • Dr. Heithaus – made me into a poet • Judy Blume – first writer I ever loved • Theodore Roethke – showed me how to be a “Midwestern poet”

10. #3: sponsors of literacy • Other: • Socioeconomic difficulties in childhood • Public library • Writing communities • Online communities • Fandoms/Media • Technologies: • Pen/paper • Phone • Social media • Blogging platforms • Kindle • Computers • Internet • Audio equipment

11. #3: sponsors of literacy • Possible Conclusions: • My literacy has been affected by many different people, institutions, technologies, and power structures. • The way I grew up is perhaps the single biggest influence on my literacy. • College and graduate school has greatly changed my literacy and how I think of it. • Teachers have been an incredibly important part of my literate life. • My literacy acquisition is unique, although it shares common features with the literacy acquisition of others. • Technologies have changed the way I’ve learned literacy AND how others have taught me literacy skills. • I believe that one’s place in larger institutional or social structures greatly affects their literacy.

12. Questions to guide your reflections • What major skills or events have contributed to your abilities to read, write, and understand different modes of communication? • Can you think of any genres that are particularly meaningful for you? • How has technology impacted these processes for you? • What readings or ideas discussed in class could be applied to your own experiences with communication? • How have all of these different moments, processes, and ideas merged and built upon one another in order to produce you as a reader, writer, and communicator?