Reflective Blog: Where I'm From

I really liked George Ella Lyon's Where I'm From poem, so I decided to google it just to see what I would get(I google a lot, it's a weird obsession...).

This is the first link I clicked on:
http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html

I thought this was interesting, because it shows different ways of interpreting the poem and how you can use it as an outline to make your own Where I'm From poem. I also thought it was cool how some people made it into a video.  It's interesting to see the different ways people interpret the same thing and how they can borrow an idea from someone else and make it their own. It makes me think about how everyone sees the world differently based around their experiences and how they view the world, and how all of that relates to how we choose to express ourselves.

Literacy Dig Reflection

For my literacy dig assignment I chose 5 different forms of literacy to write about:
1. My yearbooks
-14 years of my life in one stack of books. It's weird to look back through them.
2. A poem on my mirror
-I got this during an art exhibit at my school. I read it almost every day as I get ready in the morning. I love it.
3. My CD's
-I have so many CD's. From Aaron Carter(my 1st grade obsession) to Smashing Pumpkins. I love music and my favorite thing use to be going to target to get new CD's haha now I just buy off itunes or illegally download(shhh don't tell anyone!)
4. My diploma
-I don't even remember graduating. It went by so fast...it's like it never happened. The only reason I know it did is because I have a diploma.
5. My Membox
-My membox is just a box where I put things I want to remember/keep. I have receipts, pamphlets, pictures, bracelets, ect. If my house were on fire and I could only grab one thing it would be my membox.

These 'things' aren't what most people would normally consider to be literacy, but I think they are because they tell a story and can be used to communicate something about myself to someone else.

My Membox

 My Yearbooks

My Writing Timeline

My writing has changed a lot over time, and I attribute most of that to the teachers I had. They helped me develop my writing skills and find my 'voice'.

This is my timeline:

I think the most notable points on my timeline would be the one's toward the end. My high school English teachers not only taught me how to write good essays, but they taught me how to enjoy writing. My Junior and Senior years I had a teacher named Ian Kutner. He is, and probably always will be, one of the best teachers I have ever had. And I'm not the only student from my school that feels this way. He made learning grammar fun. And he taught us how to express ourselves through writing. He also taught us how to write an essay in two hours and still get an A.

Reflection: Words become us/Mother tongue

I wasn't originally going to write my reflective blog on these two readings, but I had a lot of interesting thoughts while reading them so I decided to change it.

A common theme I got from both of these readings, was how words can define or influence us and how other people perceive us. In Words Become Us, the focus seems to be mainly on how words can influence our lives. Imbrie was influenced by the words of poets that Gordan introduced her to. That influence shaped her life. She speaks of how words helped her define herself as a person and grow. They also influenced Gordan and his life; in school he loved literature, but when he left school, he seemed to loose that love and the person he once was. I thought the connections Imbrie made between self discovery and literature were great and can be connected back to everyone in some way or another. While my history with literature isn't anything close to Imbrie's, I can honestly say that some of the literature I read in middle and high school, and even some of the kids books from elementary school, have had lasting impressions on me.

In Mother Tongue I saw similar examples of how words can influence our definitions of ourselves, but I was more focused on the idea that words can influence how others define us. I think this is why I found this piece so interesting. It made me think of the influence language has on perception. I guess it should have been obvious, but I never really thought about how a persons language influences how I judge or perceive them. In Mother Tongue, Amy talks about how people would degrade her mother just because she didn't speak perfect english. This really made me think about all the times when I might have done the same thing to someone. Just because Amy's mother spoke in 'broken' english that didn't mean she was any less intelligent than any else. The whole piece just really made me think about how native speakers of a language use their knowledge of that particular language to make themselves seem superior. After reading this, I started to realize all the different ways a person's knowledge of language can affect how others perceive them.