2.8 Becoming literate in the information age

We started class with a discussion of the literacy narratives co-authored by Hawisher, Selfe, Pearson & Moraski.  Melissa & Brittney's life stories provided us examples of how literacies are situated within complex cultural ecologies.

In order to explore some of the complex, inter-related factors that "shape and are shaped by" literacy learning and practice in these stories - you worked in groups to analyze the two narratives.  You identified important events, situations, sponsors and experiences; "situated" them within their cultural, material, educational and familial circumstances, and identified cultural stories associatd with these events.

I collected your analysis and wrote it up - unfortunately I lost the notes (complicated story about having "drafts" for this blog post on two different computers).  I am hoping you have good notes from this discussion.  I do remember some of our summing up comments about the different cultural stories the two narratives connected to.

For Melissa - it was a kind of a "bootstrap" - success through individual, hard work; with literacy skills as a foundation for that success.

Brittney's story also connected to a literacy myth kind of version of success, but also connected to "small town girl makes good - goes to big (digital) city" kinds of stories.

Digital portfolio.
We spent the second part of class creating the digital portfolio and talking through how to work up the draft for next week.  You used the model portfolio to create your portfolios (through your kean email).  For now - you only created the the introduction page and page 6 - the literacy narrative page.  You posted your brainstorming writing, and we talked about how to turn the brainstorming into a "narrative" => through a back and forth process where you look at your stories, identify themes, turning points, or etc (listed on page 2 of the assignment sheet) as a way to identify your focus.

In-class writing prompts:
Journal prompt: who owns your literacy practices?  you and who else?
Journal prompt: What themes or patterns are you noticing in your literacy narrative?  How does your narrative connect to what we have been reading?


For next week:
Read: Mike Rose, "Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist's Analysis of Writers' Block"   
Write: draft literacy narratives- sent as an attachment and posted to portfolio
As discussed in class, your narrative should be the whole 5 pages, it should have a focus (or be working on one) and be working on meeting criteria for development & organization.  Don't slave over the language/spelling at this point = think about the how the essay fits and works as a whole.


Also - jot some notes about your writing process.  We will post them to the portfolio next week.