Entry 2:

To me, the purpose of reading and writing is a way to release yourself into another world, another time, another way of life. It is allowing yourself to let loose, and express yourself. it is freedom, it is tranquility. Throughout history, writing has been a way to express an opinion, to declare how some one feels, to share knowledge. Reading is a way of absorbing this information, taking in how someone else thinks, to put yourself in that unfamiliar place.

What reading and writing does for me is gives me that safe place, knowing that there is no judgment as to what I might say on paper, or what I may read to myself. It lets me be true to myself, raw with my emotions, letting me speak and think without the filters of everyday. I love to read and write. I find myself writing songs  and short stories all the time. I read whatever is near me, including the cereal box that I have just finished. I can say I have no idea where I would be if I did not practice my reading and writing every day. A childhood without those is so intangible for me that I can not begin to try to grasp the thought of it.

What I took away from the article is that there is so much more to reading and writing than I've ever thought before. There are so many types of readers, and classes of people who read in all different ways for all different purposes. This brings me peace.  Knowing this, as a future teacher will be an everyday reminder that everyone has their special talents and their own way of doing something. One student may be a fast talented reader of fiction books, while another may pick up on the tiniest of details out of a manual for building a piece of technology. When parents come to me worried that their son or daughter is failing at reading, it will be my task as the teacher to find something that they can read well, whatever that may be.

One thing I found interesting is that we still do not completely know what literacy is. After so many years, and millions of people reading and writing as part of their everyday life, it is still hard to define. How can this be? We live in a world where everyone can get an answer to every question at their fingertips. The fast speed of technology and the need to know as soon as possible. Better yet, how can we test something that we do not fully understand? If we do not know fully what literacy is, then we also do not fully understand it enough to test it. Yet we do. Star tests are a stressful time for many students nation wide. Is that really the best method for testing a thing called literacy that we are still trying to define?

Szwed's article on the Ethnography of Literacy is eye opening and thought provoking. It has lead me to look deeper into my literary practices. I find myself taking a step back, looking deeper into how I read, and what I  read.