News

If we're being honest, as much as I'm embarrassed to admit it, I get most of my news from Facebook. Back in my younger years when my mom drove me to school, I got my news by listening to NPR on the drive to and from school, everyday. Now that my wings have spread and I'm living by myself, I've stopped looking at reliable news sources. I used to get the Christian Science Monitor and I would always read about international stories but never so much in the USA. 
Honestly, I don't think Facebook is the worst source of information. I have so many friends of so many different age groups and socioeconomic classes that someone is bound to post something about everything. Whether it's a sport event, weather, shooting, and anything in-between. Someone will post about it. Once someone posts about it I can google it and read about it on a more reliable news source which is what I usually do. 
I also get a lot of my information from my friends. When we're talking things come up in conversation about what's going on in the world. 
A lot of my classes this quarter, including this one, are about news especially technology and communication so in my classes I've been learning a lot. Since at college I don't have a radio or a television I don't get any information through those sources. 
I don't really know what's going on in reality. Whenever I go on the New York Times website, which I've been going on more frequently because of this class, there's a ton of stuff going on that I had no idea about. Especially political stuff. On Facebook my friends talk about political stuff the least and when they do they are usually long rants that I just glance over because they are usually very opinionated. I know it's a bad thing that I'm not a very informed citizen and I didn't really realize how bad I was until writing this paper. 

Unit 1 essay

Dina Grossman

1/25/2013

Unit 1 essay

Get With The Century

Four score and seven years ago, just kidding, no one talks like that anymore. How much quicker is it just to say 87 years ago?  The fact of the matter is no one talks that way and we can’t measure literacy based on how we spoke many years ago. The definition of literate is: 1) “educated, cultured.” 2) “Having knowledge or competence.” according to Merriam Webster.  Competence is “a sufficiency of means for the necessities and conveniences of life.”  People from 1904 would have just as much trouble using the conveniences of life that we have today as people born in 1994 would have in 1904. While those from the early 1900’s wouldn’t know how to use a computer, I don’t know how to use a typewriter. Now, instead of having to wait for a newspaper to be dropped off at our house by a horse-drawn-carriage or kid on a bicycle, we can get instant notifications on our phones. Once we get these notifications we don’t need to read through 20 pages to find out what’s going on, we have access to instant headlines. Information is instantaneous now 24 hours a day, (though sometimes in an effort to be in front of a story, the facts are a little off, the gist is there).  If I want to tell my parents where I am, one quick text beats having a ten-minute phone conversation.  In these quicker conversations there’s less fluff; there is just the distillation of what is most essential of what needs to be conveyed. Through social network interactions, people are becoming more literacy efficient because of their constant involvement with reading and writing.

            Forty million views in four days would have been impossible before social media. But, with social media this is exactly what happened with the Kony 2012 video. A twitter post consists of a maximum of 140 characters. In a matter of days, Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, and more major modern day public figures had posted about him in their tweets and in days millions and millions of people knew exactly who Joseph Kony was.  9.45 million people tweeted about him! With just 140 characters people were able to get such an emotional and widespread response. Are we illiterate because our attention span has shrunk to 140 characters? I would say the complete opposite. Literacy is about being educated and I don’t think anyone can argue that this way for people getting educated this fast is a negative thing. The New York Times is a highly respected newspaper in the United States. If you look at the cover of the New York Times from Tuesday April 16, 1912, it is all about the titanic sinking. The only thing on the cover is about the Titanic. Now compare this to the cover of the New York Times on September 12^th, the day after one of the most horrible things that has happened to this country. The whole cover is about September 11^th, but it includes nine different articles about what happened that day.  The headline reads “U.S. ATTACKED HIJACKED JETS DESTROY TWIN TOWERS AND HIT PENTAGON IN DAY OF TERROR”.  With reading nothing more than just this, I can tell you what happened compared to the Titanic article which headlines "TITANIC SINKS FOUR HOURS AFTER HITTING ICEBERG; 866 RESCUED BY CARPATHIA, PROBABLY 1250 PERISH; ISMAY SAFE, MRS. ASTOR MAYBE, NOTED NAMES MISSING.” While this gives you the gist with just reading the headlines it’s not as straight forward, to the point. It is easy to get kind of lost in all the words of it, which then takes away from the seriousness. Getting lost in the words doesn’t just happen in headlines. Shakespeare is known to be one of the greatest authors of all time, however, using the definition of competence from earlier, he wouldn’t get through the modern day necessities and conveniences of life without struggling because his speech is simply dated and cumbersome to use. People today demand communication, especially mass communication to be simple, short and easy to understand.

      Chris Hedges, a Journalist who focuses on politics, wrote a very negative article about the United States becoming illiterate.  In it he states, “This is why serious film and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey Mouse.”  He puts this in such a negative context whereas in reality this may not be a bad thing. Mickey Mouse is popular among younger people.  People might have been reading Voltaire in the 18^th century but it was only for those that were educated and had the time as they also lived a lot shorter and didn’t have time to enjoy childhood. Now that we live longer and are able to be teenagers, and are expected to spend more time in school learning an ever growing amount of information to then be given back on tests, we find we need to have time to appreciate the little things, and not spend too much time worrying about in depth literature. Not only did the news about 9/11 spread fast with people being able to blog about it and post their real feelings as it happened in real time, as information is updated, the story is able to become accurate quickly and allows people to share their reactions with each other making. This makes it a communal event and not one that happens somewhere else to someone unknown and tell peoples exact emotions as they happened. No need for editors to try to make it fit the press and its deadlines. People were able to voice their opinions as it happened. With this were able to look back at 9/11 twelve years later and still get the same emotional response. Andrew Sullivan, a blogger and journalist, wrote an article about why he chooses to blog.  He blogged during 9/11 and in his article writes, “I can look back and see not just how I responded to the event, but how I responded to it at 3:47 that afternoon. And again at 9:46 that night. There is a vividness to this immediacy that cannot be rivaled by print.” The true value of  the emotions of blogs and instant news is that it’s not sugar coated. You don’t have time to think of the best way to word it. It’s how you feel in that moment. And those real thoughts are irreplaceable.

            Not only has the way we read things changed, we’ve also changed the way we write. There’s nothing more terrifying then checking my cell phone and seeing 5 missed calls from my parents. Maybe I’m at a friends and I left my phone in the car, maybe I lied about where I’m going, maybe I’m in a movie and can’t talk. Whatever the case may be, one quick text of “hey I’m okay, don’t worry” and it’s okay. I’ve been in a fair share of car accidents and without having a cell phone I wouldn’t have been able to call for help. I know it is really comforting for my parents knowing that I’m a young drive that I have a cell phone and they can reach me should they need me.  In previous decades it’s was a safer place for kids to run around outside and play. But, the sad truth is, the world is getting more dangerous. Between stories about and the fear of kidnappings, shootings, rape stories, etc. there is plenty to make parents remain hyper vigilant and worried. I read this article called, The Razorblade In the Apple, which was about Halloween Sadism. The summary of the article is; Halloween sadism isn’t a real thing. It’s an urban legend built upon our biggest fears, which is why we believe in it.  Three of our biggest fears are; mistrust of others, fear of crime, and threats to children. All three of these fears are put to ease with the use of cell phones. Parents are able to keep in constant contact with their children; some phones can even have trackers put in them.

      While there is a downside to us being constantly plugged in to these social networks I think the pros outweigh the cons. All this goes to show that just because we are writing more shorthand, we’re not becoming less literate. We’re more used to reading short headlines so we’re able to write short headlines. We’re able to get our points across faster and easier. This helps a lot with keeping long distance friends. I go to college out of state and it’s really nice being able to get a quick “Hope you’re doing well” text from my parents. With all these constant distractions in our lives of news notifications, texts, and worrying about what our next Facebook status will say, we’re constantly writing and thinking which, if anything, is a good thing.   It does not mean we have lost the ability to write in a more formal manner when needed, but demonstrates our ability to condense our thoughts and be concise in our language and communications when needed.  “In the thousands of pieces of student writing we examined,” Andrea Lunsford, an English professor at Stanford University, writes about her study of college writers, “we see students moving with relative ease across levels of style (from the most informal to the most formal)…and they make the adjustments necessary to address them effectively.” Even though we are used to writing short hand, slang ridden messages, according to Lunsfords study of college students, we’re able to adjusting our writing to write formal essays and such.

            With all this being said, everything is so much more to the point. We don’t need to read through pages and pages of information to find what we’re looking for. As a student, I’ve had to write a decent amount of research papers and they can be a pain! With the help of Google, I can type in exactly what I’m looking for and instantly I have access to thousands or millions of articles on my topic. I can even narrow down those searches to make it that much easier. Decades ago I would have had to go to the library or maybe more than one library and find the books I need, search through those books, hope when I do find the volumes which might contain the information I am looking for they have what I’m looking for, pulling bits of information from various sources in a random manner that I may or may not be able to go back to at a later date and then write down the book information, go back and type it up. This is so much more of a tedious and time consuming process then it need be in this day of information in the palm of your hand, literally. of a hassle. Not only is this easily accessible information beneficial for me in my research, it helps us all stay connected to the rest of the world and the latest information.  Suppressed countries, like North Korea where they are being run by a dictatorship, are in no way better off than free countries like the United States where we can learn almost everything about anything.  Again with the Kony 2012 campaign, we were able to learn all about things going on in parts of Central Africa over night because of this quickly spread global information. All this information enhances our culture, literacy, and knowledge. Therefore we’re becoming more educated readers and writers. With all this freedom to information we can get both sides of a story and make our own educated personal opinions.

            While it’s true that all this instant access can make some lazy, there is so much information readily available that we have the ability in becoming more aware citizens.  Literacy being defined by education and culture would show that we’re actually becoming more literate. We’re more globally educated and have access to so much culture whether it’s googling new fashion trends or looking up old recipes or researching our family history.  All this technology is making us more efficient in our lifestyles.  We have a question about something we just heard, or are just curious about something just seen, we can look it up and learn more almost instantaneously, thereby becoming more literate on that topic. Some may argue that all this technology is bad; to them I say they need to open their eyes to the new possibilities. The future holds so many wondrous things if we just are open minded to all the new technologies.

Works Cited

Bennett, Gillian, and Paul Smith. Contemporary legend: a folklore bibliography. New

 York: Garland, 1993. Print.

Hedges, Chris . "America the Illiterate." Truthdig. N.p., 8 Nov. 2010. Web. 25 Jan. 2013.

<http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate/>.

Lincoln, Abraham, and Michael McCurdy. The Gettysburg address. Boston: Houghton

 Mifflin, 1995. Print.

Lunsford, Andrea. "Our Semi-Illterate Youth: Not So Fast." Stanford. N.p., n.d. Web. 25

 Jan. 2013. <www.stanford.edu/group/ssw/cgi-bin/materials/OPED_Our_Semi-

Literate_Youth.pdf>.

Preston, Jennifer, and David  Goodman. "How the Kony Video Went Viral  -

NYTimes.com."  The Lede Blog . The New York Times, n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2013.

 <http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/how-the-kony-video-went-viral/>.

Sullivan, Andrew. "Why I Blog ." The Atlantic. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2013.

<http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/why-i-blog/307060/>.

"TimesMachine ." Times Machine. The New York Times , n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2013.

 <http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser>.

Webster, Noah. Webster's new international dictionary of the English language. 2d ed. Springfield, Mass.: Mirriam, 1950. Print.

Reflection.

I've actually really enjoyed blogging. I think it's fun to write my feelings about the readings without it being in a classroom discussion. While I do like participating in classroom discussion posting it on a blog seems more judgement free. Like it's just me and my computer and I don't need to worry about any body elses opinion because chances are they won't read this. It's a lot less intimidating and it's easier to get my words out on paper because I have time to think everything through before saying it. I can also delete and rethink things.
The most challenging part I think is comparing two authors. When we have to compare two authors opinions I can find this challenging when there isn't a prompt. In class a teacher asks a question which gets the thoughts flowing but when it's just me and I need to come up with a topic all on my own it can be kind of tough. I've kind of liked this challenge though and I think it's kind of fun.
The most surprising is how much I've enjoyed it. I really didn't think I would like it so much because at first it seemed like a lot of work. But it's really easy once I get started. I think it's interesting reading every one elses because often times I have the same thoughts as other people which is interesting because in class not everyone shares their opinions because maybe they're shy or something so reading it I find interesting.
During this process, my writing has changed in the sense that I've become more open with my thoughts. At first I would say less controversial things but the more posts I've done the easier it is to say anything I want.  It feels really free to write on blogs and I like being able to say whatever without worry about sounding dumb or anything in front of the class.

p5

Defining literacy is hard. From what I got from Sylvias article literacy varies in definition from culture to culture where as in Lunsfords article he talks more about literacy in America. I liked Lunsfords article more because I thought it was more relatable since he was talking about people our age and how we can adapt our writing based on the situation. I thought it was very relatable because I know the way I text and the way I write scholastic papers is very different. Sylvia's article was interesting. "Although literacy is a problem of pressing national concern, we have yet to discover its boundaries" I liked this line because it's true that there isn't a very good definition of what literacy is.  Her 3 metaphors (Literacy as adaptions, literacy as power, literacy as a state of grace) talk about the public functions- getting through basic needs, the power is people being able to make decisions, a state of grace understanding gives us knowledge.
Hedges would disagree with both of them. He thinks google is making us stupid where as Lunsford thinks we can keep using google because we can adapt our ways. Sylvia would say that literacy has many definitions depending on the situation where Hedges is very narrow minded and couldn't see it that way. Carr, while still negative, I think has a more open mind and would be able to see Sylvia and Lunsfords points about literacy.
To me, I would define literacy basically the same as Lunsford. I think it's all about adaptability. This is kind of the point Sylvia is making. You need to adapt to the situation to get through life. Being able to get food at the grocery store you need to adapt your vocabulary to come off as more approachable.
I think the most pressing literacy concern is that so many people are losing the ability to adapt their skills. With such large high school drop out rates all people are learning is slang and they can't come off as approachable and seem friendly. All they know how to do is talk to their friends and can't talk in a civilized way nevermind write a scholastic paper.

Skimmin it

What's the first thing I do after downloading the article? I look how long it is a let out a deep sigh. I then reluctantly started reading the article and realized it was talking about me. Checking Facebook every couple paragraphs, checking my phone, and basically just not staying focused. But! 30 minutes later I have successfully finished reading the entire 8 page article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" By Nicholas Carr. I don't think Nicholas Carr thinks Google is making us stupid, what I believe he's trying to say is that it's changing the way we think. The best way to describe why I think this is his example about when books first became widely available. People feared that they would lead to "intellectual laziness" but instead they led to so many positive things. His evidence doesn't say google is making us stupid rather it says that it's changing the way we think which isn't necessarily a negative thing.
My favorite part of the article is when he talks about reading not being an instinctive skill. I found it really interesting how Chinese people reading symbols develop different mental circuitry the same way reading short sentences instead of books will give alphabet readers a different mental circuitry.
On the other hand Chris Hedge could not disagree more. His article "America the Illiterate," while very well written, doesn't see any positives in people reading less books and more internet. He defines literacy as being able to read complex books like Voltaire. I found it troubling that Chris Hedge has absolutely nothing positive to say. His whole article is just bashing on modern America. It's basically calling Americans dumb because they would rather be entertained by the Lion King than watch Hamlet. He can't see this as a difference rather than a negative. The only connection I really saw between Carr and Hedge is they both acknowledge that there is a change in the way we read. But I think their positions on the matter are very different. While Carr doesn't really say it's positive he isn't as completely opposed to it as Hedge is.

Reading & Writing

I would define reading as looking and understanding words. There's different levels of reading, you can just glance over something or you can analyze it. Reading can be used for all sorts of things. From reading a recipe to understanding the bible we use it all the time.
Writing is putting words on a page. It can be something as simple as "Hi" or as complex as a whole theory. Writing is important in not only expressing ourselves but also keeping a record of what's happening for future generations.
Rewriting, as we learned about in Harris's writing,  is combining the two on a more complex level. To rewrite something you need to read it while understanding it and then to write it you need to put it into your own words and prove that you really do understand what it said.

Response, Reuse, Rewrite

In the first two chapters of "Rewriting" by Joseph Harris, we learn how to respond to other authors work. At least once everyone has disagreed with something they've read, writing a paper on something you don't like can easily turn into a paper full of complaints with little credibility. By not summarizing but describing the authors "aims and strategies," we can seem knowledgable enough of the topic to accurately form an opinion against it. The main points I saw were, 1) don't summarize and 2) don't use too many quotes.
Summarizing is basically the same as copying the authors paper and using too many quotes is having the author do all the work for you. Instead, when picking which thing to quote we ask, "What aspects of the text stand out for me as a reader?" To avoid summarizing we express what we understood from the readings. To write credibly we don't say one thing is good and one's bad we use two positives the example in the book is "generous and assertive."
I think what Joseph Harris is saying the purpose of rewriting is, is to show an understanding of what we read and also add our own spin on it. To rewrite something, we use it for our own purposes. If we're using it for our own purpose, it wouldn't do us any good to copy someone else's work.
Blogging is about writing our own opinion about anything and everything, rewriting is about writing our own opinion about something we read. I see a connection between the two in the sense that both of them are super easy to plagiarize, in a blog you can just easily just reword someone else's post as you can plagiarize an essay, but that's not the point of either of them. Neither of them would benefit anyone if it was just a copy of someone else's work. It's all about bringing our personality and ideas on a topic.

P2

Blogging is real and I think that's what Andrew Sullivan is talking about in his blog "Why I Blog." You can't hide behind your editor when someone gets mad at what you said, the blame is all on you. "They provided accountability to a ship’s owners and traders. They were designed to be as immune to faking as possible." While in this quote Sullivan is talking about logs on ships before radio and satellites I understand the resemblance that he is portraying. This comparison I thought summed it up perfectly. He talks a lot about how blogging is in the moment. He doesn't have to get it read by people before getting it published. It's what he was thinking at that exact moment. He doesn't sit there and reflect on what happened he writes it.  When he was talking about 9/11 and saying he can go back to the exact time and see what he wrote, that's when I really understood just how real it is. There's no time to cover up emotions he just exposes himself. He compares blogging to narcotics. You're so free to say whatever you desire. With freedom comes the vulnerability that Sullivan also talks about. The "willingness to fall off the trapeze rather than fail to make the leap." The realness of it. The connection with the readers. I found it interesting that his blog readers in the street call him Andrew while print readers call him Mr. Sullivan. Blogging is getting to know the real person and what they really feel. He says blogging is the "spontaneous expression of thought" and it's "borders are extremely porous and its truth inherently transitory."
My favorite part about his blog was when he talked about reading on a monitor versus reading print because it was so accurate. I was reading the blog on my computer and every few paragraphs or so I found myself checking my phone and, as always, I did have Facebook open in the background while also listening to music.  

P1

The most difficult part about writing this blog was writing the first line. I've never written a blog before and the only one I've read before was Sullivans "why I blog" so I'm not really sure how this goes. I never really saw myself as much of a blogger. I'm very opinionated and like to talk but I've never really been one to write about my thoughts. Blogging to me reminds me of those annoying kids on Facebook. You know, the ones who think they need to post their life stories as statuses. The people who think they need to fit it all in one status so they end up typng lke ths. No vowels needed I suppose. I usually just glance over them but on the rare occasion that I do read them I just laugh.
I don't know if you're supposed to put paragraphs in blogs but I can't indent so I'm just going to assume that's a no.  I guess the most surprising thing about writing this is how easy it is. I'm already at 175 words and I've only been typing for like 2 minutes!  Before creating this I thought blogging was kind of lame. Just picturing some person sitting behind their computer. I would always think of blogs as blogs people would post on myspace. Of course, i had myspace in middle school so my friends posts consisted of why their parents suck for not letting them go out to the movies at 10 o'clock on a school night. Therefore my opinion on blogs was kind of skewed to think they are for depressed people venting out their emotions about why life sucks. While I knew people used blogs to talk about real issues in my mind I always just pictured them to be used for over emotional teenagers to vent.
One thing I've noticed to be really challenging about this is NO AUTOCORRECT. Texting with autocorrect has spoiled me, I actually need to capitalize my I's it doesn't do it for me nor does it auto put the apostrophe in doesn't.