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Language, literature and literacy
Language, literature and literacy
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Terence Mckenna, a American well-known botanist, philosopher, mystic, and lecturer and writer on many subjects, such as human consciousness, language, psychedelic substances, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and end of the universe, alchemy, and extraterrestrial beings. I have known of him since I was 15 years old, and teachings transcended my interest in literacy to depths that were previously unimaginable. Researching, reading, and writing for a Meeting of the Minds division I am involved in, which religiously discusses Mckenna and his teachings, also is certainly the catalyst for my radically improved literacy skills. These experiences provided me with ample opportunities to converse with numerous amounts of like-minded people. …show more content…
My adventure began discovering Mckenna from YouTube, and I instantly fell in love with his ideologies, philosophies, and his overall thought patterns. He had opened my eyes making me undergo a realization that everything I had been indoctrinated into could be wrong. His lectures taught me to question everything. This experience made me research, discover, and learn new endeavors to enhance my intellectual side. Before I discovered Mckenna along with other philosophers such as Carl Sagan, Karl Marx, and Alan Watts, I was borderline illiterate. I did not care to read or write, and I was horrible at writing. I always became nervous witnessing teacher’s grotesque looks on their faces when reading my paper. When I came across these people, the way they were articulating their sentences so beautifully caused me to become automatically captivated. I essentially aspired to develop my literacy skills because of how intriguing I found their word structures to
...r the inspiration he requires to learn more about himself. Finally, McCandless follows his own intuition to the point of death. These ideas presented by McCandless not only demonstrate transcendental ideals, but the fathers of transcendentalism themselves lives closely resembling that of Christopher Johnson McCandless, a man who desired to live as close to nature as possible; however, volition alone could not save him from his unintentionally self-inflicted demise.
As I read this article by John Guillory, I thought he sounded like a pompous, condescending know it all, but when I read the article again it made me begin to think about reading skills. In elementary school, we read books about faraway lands of make b...
Malcolm X, writer of Literacy behind Bars, wrote an autobiography about how he taught himself to read. He starts off by saying that all his success is from his “prison studies”. He talks of how he could barely understand sentences and how he tried reading books but he couldn’t. His thoughts then went to studying out of a dictionary. He didn’t know how to write in a straight line. That made him strive to do better and learn from the dictionary as well as writing. He was amazed by how many words were in the dictionary. He then started copying all the words from the dictionary and practicing over and over again. He then started reading books and understanding them since he knew the vocabulary
To become literate it is important for the person to have a role-model for them to look up too and strive to be like. Having a role-model or mentor in their life will make them feel supported but it also gives them strength and shows them that someone else did it and so can they. Role-models can be a support system but they can also be a teacher and help
Writing Lessons by Stanley Fish was a reading I found myself dreading to start. Before actually beginning, my thoughts were that this reading would be extremely mundane. I then realized that it needed to be done and that the sooner I begun, the sooner I would finish. After finishing the first paragraph, I then found myself grasped and fully engaged in the reading - not just because I was interested in the content and story but because I actually was able to sit back and learn from it. Writing is something I feel comfortable and capable of doing, but this reading gave me a better grip on the actual structure of sentences.
During adolescence, I began reading and writing through a fundamental learning program called, "Hooked on Phonics." This program consisted of long hours spent reading short novels and writing elementary phrases which were commonly taught in the second and third grade. With the motto, "Improve your child's reading and writing skills in just four weeks!" I was bound to become the next Mark Twain. The method of this course specialized in the improvements of word acquisition rates as well as reading speed; however, it lacked in the area of teaching comprehension. At a young age, I was instilled with the dire need to be highly educated and although I was unable to experience a fun and adventurous childhood like many other children, I am grateful for being raised with a greater knowledge and wisdom than that ingrained in many.
Growing up I have never found myself a connoisseur of reading, writing, or just the subject of English. Matter of fact I could consider my appeal to be quiet irritated at the matter altogether. It was not something I had found any solace or escape in. Going through school like every other student, I’m forced to take it. I have had to write paper after paper, every time the same effect happens to me. I can’t seem to find the words that are requested of me to put down on paper. I have a problem explaining the things that run through my head. Its better if I just get my hands in it and take care of it myself. That is one of the problems with writing is that you cannot put you hand on it; it is verbal, it is inspirational,
Ever since I became literate, literacy relied on as an important life skill to the point where I would challenge other kids to see who appeared smarter. But I've grown up to learn that obsessing over intelligence has not and will not make me any smarter. This relates similarly to one scholar, Cathleen Schine, who claims she is an illiterate to the world due to her poor choices of obsessing how smart she is, but she learned to control and outgrow the phase while she had the chance to in her article “I was A Teenage Illiterate”. Cathleen would carry intelligent and authentic books, but she only understood 10% of a classic novel and ended up developing into the 90% as she grew up (“I was a Teenage Illiterate”). This goes with the fact that as
Sherman Alexie discusses throughout his article that reading saved his life. He was fascinated with books at a young age and this assisted him being jump started in his education. As and Indian child on a reservation, he was expected to not be very unintelligent because of the stereotype that
A very interesting piece I took very seriously was the one by Ermine, Willie. Aboriginal Esptimology, First Nations Education in Canada. As it began to introduce me into a whole new world of the insight and knowledge of aboriginals, it just amazed me. It helped me understand the thoughts and how in depth and real the believes and rituals are. “Philosophers among Aboriginal people have explored and analyzed the process of self-actualization. The being in relation to the cosmos possessed intriguing and mysterious qualities that provided insights into existence. In their quest to find meaning in the outer space. Aboriginal people turned into the inner space. This inner space is that universe of being within each person that is synonymous with the soul, the spirit, the self.” Wow. To me that quotation was intense I had to read it over a few times to understand the in depth meaning and message it was giving me. I found it so meaningful and in lighting how the thoughts would come to a person like that. When I read that I was greatly interested in the inner self and honestly looked many examples up on Google for a longer period of time than I thought. But as I read on in Willie’s writings I noticed this quote. “No one could dictate the path that must be followed. There was reconition that every individual had the capacity to make headway into knowledge that comes from the inner space in the individual gives rise to a subjective world-view out onto the external world. The in-depth and analysis of this reading I cant even explain how this took me, I am sorry if I’m carrying this one reading on to far but I have one more quote I took that I would like to share.
Excelling in an area of literacy gives us the ability to comprehend or execute a task effectively and devotedly. Even those who start with nothing are capable of earning life time opportunities in order to better themselves. Despite coming from a Vietnamese family, I was unable to speak, read or write in my own native language. The devastation and shame I went through put me over my head, rendering me saddened since I was unable to even speak to my parents. If I was unable to speak to my parents now, how could I get along with them in the future? However, after enrolling in four years of Vietnamese classes in high school, I learned how to communicate and interact with others, making me literate in another field of language. From this experience,
My literacy experience more than likely differs from my peers greatly, in the first grade I was diagnosed with dyslexia. From that point going forward I was not confident at all in my reading and writing ability. My parents spent very little time working with me to better my learning disabilities. I struggled with writing and reading all throughout grade school; I felt as if I was falling behind and would never catch up. I developed a lazy mentality with reading because I never felt as if I would excel because I was always wrong. I am thankful that against my risk factors of failing I also had protective factors such as sports. In school the only thing I felt like I excelled at in school was athletics; I bonded with my gym teachers and coaches more than I did with any other teacher throughout my school years.
A moment of recognition that I have had growing into literacy was when I first started college. In college I realized that there was a lot of reading that had to be done in a short amount of time unlike high school. There are also a lot of book reports and essays that have to be done. Until I got into college, I have never completed a book report. I never realized that there was so much work that had to go into writing an essay or book report. There are so many steps, such as drafting and revising it repeatedly to get the grade you want. Since I was never a person that liked to read, I had a difficult time even picking up the book and starting to read it. It was difficult for me
Literacy as by definition is the knowledge or competency one knows in a specific area. Using this I interpret Literacy as how to understand situation and unexpected circumstances. Until very recently, maybe within the past year in a half, I never had to apply how I understood Literacy in a manner in which others could understand it. I failed to realize at that time that not everybody felt or thought the same way I did. It was especially difficult during this time as I began to possess a leadership role in many of the extracurricular activities I was apart of such as band and in my UIL events as the upper classmen I had known and who held some of those responsibilities were suddenly gone. This reality was immensely crushing losing those I had
Literacy has always played a big part in my life. My mom is an ESOL teacher, so she as amazing when it came to teaching me. She taught me the alphabet and during my whole lifetime, she has helped me with my grammar. As a child, I used to watch a Sesame Street and use a program called “Baily’s Book House.” Sesame Street and Baily’s Book house both helped me learn the alphabet and other vocabulary words. When I was two, I started preschool at my synagogue. In preschool, I continued to learn the alphabet and I learned to recognize my name.