learning to read

we used to have a very traditional view of reading.  words were printed on a page, we learned phonics to sound out words, site recognition to understand words, we were tested on our comprehension of paragraphs, but reading was relegated to the world of print.  black ink on white pages in bound books.  that was reading.  this type of reading was high tech.  the creation of the guttenburg press introduced the world, civilization, culture to reading.  cultures learned to read the bible. stories once orally recorded in tiny villages now became available to large cities.  men and women in large metropolises like new york read the stories of hunters and gatherers crossing the dessert with limited food and oil.  they were taught to read the words on the page, they were taught to value the words on the page for the message being conveyed.  but how does a desert context of hunters and gatherers apply to a business man or woman, a homemaker, a secretary, a school teacher . . . in a metropolis. the context of the story no longer mattered, or could be imagined based on other printed words.  we learned to read again.  instead of just reading words on a page we learned to cross-reference, to ignore some context and pay attention to other context.  our local stories became important to global markets and our reality of reading changed, but our idea of reading stayed the same.  we continued to see reading as understanding the words on the printed page.  then along came computers.  no longer reading printed text, computers and videogames allow us to read words on a screen, words in a virtual world, words in various sizes, colors, words in various languages mixing.  to understand how the words functioned, to make sense of them reading had to become something more than just understanding words on a page, it had to become understanding words in a situation, and how they were being used in that situation.  so for many (especially elementary education) reading is still understanding printed words on a white paper.  for others reading is making meaning in a context, and reading is no longer just words.  why did it take the invention and widespread use of the internet for us to realize reading has never been just decoding black letters on a white page?

what can we learn from the novel

With cheesy titles and even cheesier covers the Southern Vampire series (recently made into the TV show True Blood), the Sookie Stackhouse novels, incorporates little cultural artifacts that require the reader to know something about the world to participate with the character. In Sookie’s world her co-worker Arlene gifts her a “word a day” calendar every year. This ridiculously simple gift does a lot to the reader. First it simply measures time, as days pass and new words are introduced, the reader knows that time is passing. The words also, conveniently, foreshadow events that are coming up. Most important, this calendar humanizes the main character. As a telepathic part fairy who dates vampires and wereanimals it is probably a bit hard for readers to identify with Sookie and her everyday life. However, the everydayness is more poignant when little daily reminders of our everyday life are dropped into the story as a way to recognize the humanness of Sookie. We read her reading the word of the day calendar and know what they look like, how they work, why people have them. We see the purpose they serve in her life, we understand the character that gifts them better. We get a human glimpse into the life of a fictional character through something as simple as a daily calendar. It is little quirks like this that we overlook in our daily lives that help us understand each other, and little quirks that we don’t think about while reading that endear characters to us.

GSEA Spring 2009 conference proposal

Identity and Identification as Literacy Training in the Daily Kos Interface Design

In learning to navigate and participate on a website, users develop literacy skills. Expanding the definition of literacy developed by Gee, literacy in web spaces becomes an active process of learning to make meaning while participating in spaces. A part of this process includes developing an understanding of identity, and what identity means within the space. As users become more comfortable in their literacy, in their meaning making in the space, they can create identities within the space that demonstrate their identification with the community using the space. Drawing on Burke’s theories of identification, identity and literacy within a space become a way a web user signals their understanding and membership to other users. This mixing of identity, literacy and identification make recognized identification as a member of a space a motivating factor for learning the space. To better understand created identities in virtual spaces, the site design of Daily Kos (dailykos.com) will be discussed to show how it trains new members in the literacy practices of the site, allowing members time and space to develop their literacy. As literacy develops, users can become members, and begin participating and communicating with other members of the site. Through this communication a conversation about politics forms, but more importantly members are able to demonstrate their identification as a member of the Daily Kos community through their conversations on the site. The site is specifically designed to foster literacy by providing a space for users to work toward members through designed training in how communication within the community works. Members then demonstrate their identity as Daily Kos members by participating in the conversation in a way that demonstrates their understanding of group identification. This site design will be discussed as a very common way web spaces provide literacy training to web users.

what do videogames have to teach us?

Since initial publication scholars have looked to Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us as a way to incorporate things kids are already doing into classroom space. Gee’s theories ultimately argue for re-imagining literacy and how it functions in education and everyday life, but many still see Gee as arguing for the incorporation of games into classes. Some scholars discussed have argued for specific games, other scholars have continued Gee’s work by pointing out how new media literacy can function in a classroom if a teacher is critically aware of their own assignments and requirements. Ultimately Gee is trying to move educational understanding of literacy beyond reading and writing skills, and scholars who take up Gee’s work argue the same thing. Each has a slightly different use of the term literacy, but all are moving toward seeing literacy as a meaning making practice in a specific space that involves ways of being in addition to reading and writing skills as they relate to the space. This re-imagining of literacy allows composition classrooms to become more meaningful to students when new media literacy skills are also worked into the curriculum as a way to blatantly demonstrate literacy skills students are already using.

reclaiming agency beyond procedural rhetoric

In an essay often cited by rhetoric and composition scholars and students, Ian Bogost defines procedural rhetoric as the way a video game argues based on the coding system of the game. A videogame develops a world that a player learns to read, and successful reading of the game leads to success in the game. Learning how to play as lara croft, to explore the levels to find hidden weapons and treasures makes a player more successful at beating the game. Finding hidden coins and mushrooms helps Mario rescue the princess faster. In these types of video games, the agency of he game (and therefore the power) according to Bogost lies in the coding of the game. The player has no agency, no power, they simply learn to read the domain and then to defeat the game.

The same would hold true of a game like SimCity 4. The player learns to read the game, they learn what the symbols mean, they learn how to zone different sections, and how to grow their cities. They learn to read the coding of the game to work toward beating it. However, SimCity players don’t stop at that point, instead, some participate in online forums, creating mods, help guides and fanfiction surrounding the SimCity games (and their ability to play/manipulate the game). In these cases, the player is in possession of the agency of the game, the player learns to read the game on their PC playing by themselves, then moves their play to virtual community spaces where they can reclaim their agency by participating outside the game. In this case procedural rhetoric does not limit the players, it does not help explain game play. In these cases, players have not read the game as agency on their computer screen that they simply learn to read. They see the game as extending beyond the boundaries of the coding sequence developed by the game developers, and they have reclaimed their agency through fandom. Fandom is agency, and fandom is outside procedural rhetoric. It makes use of the game structure in things like fanfiction, but it reallocates the agency to the players who manipulate the coding to meet their own needs. In this way, in a game like SimCity, players demonstrate their agency through a site like simtropolis.com. they demonstrate their agency through their participation, their creation of mods, and their creation of fanfiction.

sight and mind

jamais vu - never seen
deja vu - already seen
linguistic cousins

we claim deja vu as our memory playing tricks on us, a past life trying to peak through our consciousness, our consciouness remembers. we claim jamais vu when we can't remember conversations, they never happened our consciousness doesn't remember them. both are tricks of the mind, tricks of the sense of sight, but attributed to the mind. linguistically they both refer to sight as the culprit, but mean the mind. we make so many connections between our consciousmind and the sense of sight, especially in the language we use to describe what we experience.

not much of a post

This isn't much of a post, but i thought this image was very fitting for this blog. so i'm adding it here.