Advanced Essay # 2- The Welcome Week

Introduction- When writing this essay, I gained even more knowledge about exactly what literacy is, and how it can effect how you portray anything from an environment to people, and also how it important when building relationships with others and getting to know them. My goal for this essay was to show, how literacy impacted my action and my identity in temporary short time period when on a college campus. I am proud of my scene of memory in this piece, I did a good job using descriptive wording and think I portrayed and structured my essay in a great way. Hope you enjoy!!

Literacy is the knowledge obtained by the observance of someone or something either physically, socially or emotionally. By observing, something or someone in these ways, we are then able to obtain cultural and educational literacy. We use literacy is the main component of most of our everyday lives. Whether we are the ones providing or taking it in. Literacy is often seen and thought of, to  simply  knowledge gained by reading a book or some other form of literature. However, real literacy can come  from analyzing a person or place as well. It is allows for you to determine what kind of person someone may be, the state of emotion they are feeling at the time, or even the content of a new book you picked up.  With all the information we may take in about the things and those around usIt is important that we do not let the literacy in which we take in, affect us negatively,  and shape our identities and how we view both ourselves and them.  This may cause for stereotypes and even tension, depending on the situation around us.

I know this from experience, because this is what I had done. It was during the week of my sister’s welcome week onto Drexel University. All families had been told to meet, in one of the campus’s halls. As I stepped into the crowded hall, close to my mom’s heels,  I looked around and a sea of white faces greeted me. We had arrived. We were at Drexel University. As I scanned the room I saw my sister and my dad, who were already there. I breathed a sigh of relief when I spotted her cocoa brown hair sticking out from the mass of blondes and brunettes. As I realized that there were few African- Americans families I immediately switched my speech unconsciously. I talked more proper and spoke even more politely than usual. I maintained a calmer demeanor. This was not me, my usual bubbly loud voice, and energetic demeanor had somehow vanished, thanks to the new environment and the people that surrounded me. As the day drew on, and we met other families, majority white with a sprinkle of African-American  my entire posture had changed. I sat up straighter, trying to blend in as much as possible. I could tell most of these white families had come from money, it showed in everything from their speech and the expectant proud look in their eyes as they acknowledged that they would be able to pay off their child’s tuition with or without help. I began to assume that they came from neighbors, commonly known for their large houses and educated schools. Suburbans, houses that one can only dream of living in. Upon acquiring this, I became a bit uncomfortable, because although my family is not poor, I knew we did not even come close to some of the standards by which they lived by. This being the reason why I tried to blend in, change my speech, and have some effect on the type of literacy they would get as they observed me, just as I was them.

In John Santiago Baca’s A Place To Stand, he too made similar cultural literacies as I had done about the people surrounding him. After being placed in one of the most dangerous prisons in the state, he had to make literacies of his own, literacies that would not only teach him about the people around him, but would save his life. Because of being in jail, he has plenty of time to make observations about the other men around him, which in turn allowed him to know the difference between danger and safety, life and death. He quotes about two  of his jail cell members by whom he felt uncomfortable and tense by , “JJ was short and Snake was long and tall, both had pale skin, from being in the dungeon too long. Their eyes gleamed furtively, and were lined with deception, Their blade like stares, and gaunt faces made them a lethal threat to anyone who looked at them.” (181). To be lethal means “sufficient to cause death.” This meant that Baca was aware and cautious of JJ and Snake, because he knew, that even just a look from them or at them could cause for him to be killed. He was able to determine such strongly a conclusion about them because of their appearance, and the way they came off to him and the other jail cell members. The way they looked and stared, shown that they were capable of murder and were dangerous. Therefore this causing, him to single them out as a threat and to be wary of his approach during later times. This literacy, and because of his observance allowed for him to know to stay away from them and avoid their stares at all cost. The more time he spends in jail, the more literacy he takes in and the more opinions he draws about the people around him. This allowed for him to know the difference between his friends and enemies.

I too, was continued to draw conclusions about people, and made some determining differences about the people around me as well. However, instead of friends and enemies,  I was drawing conclusions about the different educational backgrounds that many of the incoming students had. As the day went on, we came into contact with many of the families to get to know them better and to “break the ice”. This involved conversation and introductions. After what felt like hundreds, as the event continued I was able to see the difference between who had come from a great educational background and those who had not come from so great and educational background. I did this through the observance of language, and through listening to how people introduced themselves, and their demeanors and even the use of “ebonics”, which in other terms mean slang. I was able to tell about a good majority of the college kids. Whether they stuck out their hands, and politely introduced themselves, such as “my name is..” or if they jumped right to the point , without formality, with “My name..” This happened a few times, and I began to develop opinions about some of the students. The majority of them African-American. As much as I didn’t like to see it , it was unfortunately true. Many of them used slang and gave informal introductions, while the white students went out of their way to be formal and curt. It was because of this, that I was able to see the difference in educational background and systems, and the way in which it affected each racial group.

In  Mike Rose’s I just Want To Be Average, he too allowed for negative literacies about the people around him to affect not only his actions but even his identity. Upon accidentally being placed in a “slower vocational” class he writes about his observance about the people around him and how he was able to tell what kind of people they were, by not only their actions but appearance. “ Mercy relied on a series of test, mostly the Stanford Bennett mostly the stanford Binet for placement and somehow the results got switched and confused with those of another student named Rose. The other Rose apparently didn’t do very well, for I was placed in the vocational track a euphemism below level.” (17). Because of the results and outcomes of his class switch up, Mike was already able to determine that not only was Rose “slower” but that the test was not for her. He was using educational literacy, which allowed for him to analyze the level by which Rose was on and determine her status as a learner. Mike  used educational literacy to come to one conclusion, and to gain a certain type of knowledge. The author automatically was able to tell that Rose was not well prepared and was not very smart because of her test scores and the class he was placed in after the switch up. He was already able to conclude that she was “slow” and that she did not do well on standard tests because of this.

Just as Mike Rose and John Baca were able to use different literacies to determine things about the people and places around them, I too had did the same. John Baca’s literacies kept him alive in the dark confined prison by which he was placed and helped keep him afloat and connected to the real world, while Mike Rose’s literacies allowed for him to keep sane and constantly draw the line between him and his fellow vocational classmates. It reminded him that although placed in the slow class did not mean you were slow. Thus showing, that literacy and the gaining of it is not only important for how you view others and the environment around us, but even how it is a vital and ever-growing part of our identity and who we are as a person.