Lennon Terry

UWRT-1101-005

Professor Agosta

2/17/17
Literacy Reflection

This assignment was difficult to get my mind flowing on but I

eventually achieved a stable topic which I could write about fluently.

My first influence for my Literacy Memoir topic was thinking about the

examples that were provided to us in order to start thinking of topics. The

example that particularly stuck in my head was the If You Are What You

Eat, Then What Am I?.

MyparentswereafraidmysisterandIwouldlearntodespisethefoodstheyloved,replace

themwithbolognaandbaconandloseourtasteformasala.Formymother,givingupher

disgustoflobster,withitshardexteriorandforeignsmell,wouldmeanrenouncingsome

essentialdifference.Itwouldmeanbecoming,decidedly,definitely,Americanunafraidof

meatinallitsforms,abletoconsumelargequantitiesofproteinatanygivenmeal.My

willingnesstotossalivingbeingintoboilingwaterandthengetpastitsuglyappearanceto

therichmeatinsidemustmeantomymotherthatIam,somehow,someonesheisnot.

This paragraph from the example I related to very well. I took this and

applied it to how I moved around a lot when I was younger. Also, how

moving around affected my way of thinking as well as it did for these

kids and their eating habits.

 Lennon Terry

UWRT-1101-005

Professor Agosta

2/17/17
While the topic came from the examples that were given to us,

my process of actually writing my assignment came from looking back

at my life and wondering how I got to where I am today. I started out

with describing my life before all the moving so that the readers could

see the changes that occurred to me as each relocation came.

I grew up in the suburbs of Indiana from birth until around age 9. Fishers, Indiana was

the start of my parents trying to establish a life for themselves away from

their hometowns of Mitchell and Bedford, Indiana. I had a small group of

friends and our extended family visited often to help my parents take care of

us. Most of my friend group, came from either sports teams, church, or

family. So as you can tell, there wasnt much diversity among my friend

group. Indiana kept me and my family in this small bubble of how things

should go. Meaning not a lot of change happens, and everything moves in

one direction, so to speak.

Then from this point on I was able to chronologically talk about the events

that occurred afterwards. This made the rest of the essay very smooth to

write and the words were flowing out as I recollected over my past

experiences.

Another struggle I encountered was the question of: What is a literacy?

As I searched google for my answer I came upon this excerpt

 Lennon Terry

UWRT-1101-005

Professor Agosta

2/17/17

Literacy is control of secondary use of language (i.e., uses of language in secondary

discourses) Thus there re as many applications of the word literacy as these are secondary

discourses, which is many. We can define various types of literacy as follows:

Dominant literacy is control of a secondary use of language used in what I called above

a dominant discourse

Powerful literacy is control as a secondary use of language used in a secondary

discourse that can serve as a meta-discourse to critique the primary discourse of other

secondary discourses, including dominant discourses

What do I mean by control in the above definitions? I mean some degree of being able to

use to function with, so control is a matter of degree. Mastery I define, as full and

effortless control In these terms I will state a principle having to do with acquisition which I

believe is true:

Any discourse, primary or secondary, is for most people most of the time only mastered

through acquisition, not learning. Thus, literacy is mastered through acquisition, not learning,

that is, it requires exposure to models in natural meaningful, and functional settings, and

teaching is not liable to be very successful-it may even initially get in the way. Time spent on

learning and not acquisition is time not well spent if the goal is mastery in performance.

This definition was the best thing I could find among various internet

sources. Luckily, during the next class day we had I was able to realize
 Lennon Terry

UWRT-1101-005

Professor Agosta

2/17/17
during our peer editing that the literacy we were defining in our essay

could be defined as skills, morals, or traits we have learned. This

made things much more clear, which drew the path that was needed to

complete this essay.