Visual Essay

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So I had originally planned to do this assignment exactly as the Selfe article had suggested, which was to reflect and represent the ranger of literacies I have developed in my lifetime, both online and in-print.  However, as I got around to compiling the images (pretty much a visual representation of the assignment we were asked to do for Kristen's class last fall), I got to thinking (of course, as if i can think about anything else these days) about my 5th period English 11 class.  Last week, my cooperating teacher was handing out the graphic novel Persepolis.  While I'm enjoying every minute of their first exposure to this genre, thinking how thrilled they must be to do something different, to get to read a "comic book" in novel form!  "This is a little kids book," they said.  "I don't get why we're reading this."  THAT, I actually was prepared for.  "I don't get why we read at all," the perpetual rule-breaker/teacher-hater/ general badass student (we'll call her Jane) said.  "Reading is stupid.  I hate it."  That I wasn't prepared for.  But she got me thinking.  When did reading become so awful for high school students?  Why is that?  And why was I seriously the same way?  So lo and behold, I came up with a sort of hybrid "My Journey Towards Literacy"/ "When Did Reading Awful?"/ "How Can I Make My Students Enjoy This" visual essay.  

1.  Reading is seriously fun!  My favorite book as a child.  Reading was a social act and play time all in one.  I loved nothing more than sitting on my mom or dad's lap and reading a picture book.  Although I didn't understand why my mom cried EVERY time she read it to me, I did remember I loved the story.  

2.  Writing is seriously fun!  Although it probably wasn't the best decision my parents ever made, I loved everything about having my own giant Macintosh computer in 2nd grade.  I spent hours upon hours typing to my friends on AOL version 1.0.  Playing games like Amazon Trail, Storybook Weaver, and PaintShop.  

3.  The closest to LARPing I might ever get.  And probably the most fun I've ever had with books.  See that blue frock/pink apron and bonnet combo?  I had one.  I had the doll.  Her bed.  Her desk.  I then got four other dolls.  And with them, all their books.  Because you couldn't just have the doll without knowing her story.  Genius!  Though I can't quite put my finger on why I loved them so much.  They were historical novels, after all.  But I couldn't get enough through 5th grade.  How can I use this passion you have when you're younger and use it in high school?  Isn't it basically the same thing when we have them read Catcher In The Rye, To Kill A Mockingbird, A Separate Peace or any other novel in the canon about an adolescent?  Or what about young adult novels?  hmmm...

4.  The turning point.  I began to love Shakespeare.  The movie.  Sure the story was fine, but mostly because Leonardo DiCaprio was the hottest boy I had ever seen.  I remember seeing that movie in theaters and literally not being able to understand what was going on.  The language was too hard, my interests began to change, and soon I hated reading all together.  How did that happen in three short years?  Dance team, prom, and friends became more important than books.  I'm not entirely sure I did the assigned reading for class.  It would be years until I started to read for fun again.  So how can I change this at such a crucial learning stage for my students?  How can I help them to have the experience with reading that I never had and never wanted to have?

5.  The English major.  Perhaps simultaneously the low and high point of my relationship with books.  You might be wondering how this could happen to someone who hated reading in high school.  Well, my first attempt at a nursing major was a failure and you could just sort of say I fell into it.  I never really got huge enjoyment out of reading The Norton Anthology, The Tempest, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, The Aeneid, or The Fairy Queene.  But apparently I was good at it.  It wasn't until junior year that I really started to appreciate reading for the stories, the language, and the history of it all.  It was in London, taking a course on Medieval Literature, and was finally able to see first hand artifacts and places I'd only read about in Chaucer and Shakespeare.  The whole thing was fascinating to me.  Something changed, as I began to see how to find value in what I was reading, not just reading it so I could ace my blue-book final exam in my survey course.  I returned home after that semester with a renewed interest in British literature, canonical texts, my love of the classics, and the English major in general that has stuck with me to this day.

6.  Reading for fun...again?  While I admit Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert isn't the most remarkable piece of literature I've ever read (In fact, I recommend reading only the first third, "Eat"), but when it came out, it was the first book I picked up to read for pleasure in a really long time.  It was refreshing to read a story without struggling with the language, without wondering about historical context or implied meaning, or trying to remember key facts for a test.  Although, at this point, my efferent and aesthetic reading methods were kind of a two for one deal.  So for that, I thank you Eat Pray Love for making me love reading again.

7.  The Young Adult novel.  What an eye opening experience it was to take Beth Brendler's Adolescent Literature course last fall.  I had no idea such a genre existed (do kids still read The Babysitter's Club?) and was very pleasantly surprised with what I learned.  I found a way (I hope) for students to get engaged with reading again, to find pleasure in good stories and relatable experiences.  As wonderful choices for pairing or as stand-alone texts, I hope to incorporate YA novels frequently in my own classroom, as well as a tool to use for encouraging outside and independent reading for my students.

8.  Making writing fun.  Giving it a purpose!  As we know in the cohort all too well, there are an unlimited amount of opportunities and purposes for student writing these days.  With information quite literally at their fingertips, students don't really have to know things so much as know how to look them up on google.  We know all too well that there are huge downfalls to this, but there are also a lot of opportunities to embrace this fact.  Students can literally blog on their phones if they want.  What a great way to encourage writing!  And making a wiki.  As annoying as this is, it creates a public space to showcase student work.  While I firmly believe that access to this sort of technology at the present moment is a huge hinderance to these kinds of activities in every classroom, I have no doubt that that will be changing in the next couple of years.  I do though, believe we should seize any opportunity to encourage instant, 24-hour a day, published, and PUBLIC discourse among our students if we can.