How is Writing a Political, Social, Cultural, and Historical Activity?

           Throughout the course of this class, I have learned that writing is most definitely a political, social, cultural, and historical activity. We have read many works that demonstrate this, including "The Sponsors of Literacy" by Deborah Brandt, "Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood" by Richard Rodriguez, "Writing on the Bias" by Linda Brodkey, "The Queer Turn in Composition Studies" by Jonathan Alexander and David Wallace, "En Los Dos Idiomas" by Marcia Farr, "Unpackaging Literacy" by Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole, and "From Pencils to Pixels" by Dennis Baron. Each of these readings explore different aspects of writing and how writing is and has been used. I find this topic very interesting because previous to taking this class, I never really thought about how writing encompasses so many aspects of our life. I enjoyed getting an inside look at how people from various cultures and social groups view writing.
          "The Sponsors of Literacy" by Deborah Brandt looks at how writing and socioeconomics are related. Brandt writes, "A statistical correlation between high literacy achievement and high socioeconomic, majority-race status routinely shows up in results of national tests of reading and writing performance." This is because these people have more powerful literacy sponsors. Brandt discussed some real-life examples that I found very interesting. She talked about two people who lived in the same city whose literacy experiences were extremely different because of their culture and socioeconomic statuses. Raymond Branch and Dora Lopez were both born in 1969 and grew up in the same midwestern town. The differences are that Branch was a white, American male of European descent, whose parents were a professor and a real estate executive. Meanwhile, Lopez was a female Mexican American whose parents were a shipping clerk and a part-time book store worker. Their resources (or lack thereof) were vastly different from Branch's family. While Branch had literature access at his fingertips, Lopez's family had to travel 150 miles away to have access to Spanish literature. As we see in Brandt's examples, Branch is of a majority race, he is of the male gender, and he and his family have a high socioeconomic status. Lopez is of a minority race, she is of the female gender, and she and her family come from a much lower socioeconomic background. These characteristics shape both of their literacy journeys.
           In Richard Rodriguez's "Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood," he talks about growing up in a Spanish-speaking household, but when his family moved from Mexico to California, he was forced to learn English. Throughout the piece he talks about trying to reconcile the two languages, but finds much difficulty in doing so. At first it is hard for him to transition into writing and speaking in English. He finds the pronunciations and sounds of the language to be awkward and rarely speaks to anyone outside his home. Finally, his teachers impress the importance of speaking English upon his parents and he is now being encouraged to speak in English when he is at home, instead of Spanish. When Rodriguez is finally comfortable speaking in English, he then has to deal with extended family members looking down on him for not speaking Spanish. Eventually, he begins to feel guilty speaking Spanish anywhere and so he doesn't use it, or rather he feels he can't use it. Rodriguez claims that children shouldn't be taught in their native language at school because if they are taught in their native language, they are being taught something that should be private to them in a public space; children shouldn't be using something so familial in the classroom because it doesn't belong there. Granted, I grew up writing and speaking in nothing but English, so there's no way for me to really understand how bilingual children feel about communicating in one language out in public and in another language in the home, but I disagree with Rodriguez's stance. I believe that if children are taught at least partly in their native language at school, it would make their transition easier. Rodriguez was forced to only speak English and it negatively effected his Spanish and maybe if he were encouraged in school to speak some Spanish, that wouldn't have happened.
         "Writing on the Bias" by Linda Brodkey addresses social class. Brodkey felt that since she was of the working-class, she had to read classic literature to make her feel smarter and more middle-class. I think this is a valid concern for someone who had very high ambitions for herself. To get into a university like she wanted to, it is necessary to be well-read, no matter which class you are from. The whole reason Brodkey got into art is because it "transcends class"; she didn't want to be associated with her own class and thought that art would aid in that mobility. She even tried to make her mother and sister read the books she was reading so they could be just as well-read and have a chance at transcending their class as well. However, her desire to transcend classes became an issue at home when she felt she could no longer could relate to certain family members, like her father.
         "The Queer Turn in Composition Studies" by Jonathan Alexander and David Wallace addresses the political aspect of writing. Alexander and Wallace state, "As a discipline, rhetoric and composition needs a better understanding of how heteronormativity operates in society at large, in our classrooms, and in the pages of our books and journals—for numerous reasons: because 5 to 10 percent of the population is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered or transsexual; because gay marriage is a hot-button civil rights issue debated in election campaigns as well as in the pages of composition readers; and because unpacking the problematic ways that American society deals with sexual identity has the potential to help all of us to understand not only how we are positioned in society but also how we contribute to the positioning of others for good or ill." As a society, we must embrace multiculturalism instead of marginalizing it. It should be the norm for our universities to have classes that focus on multicultural topics because minority rights are a much talked about issue in today’s society. People don’t necessarily know how to address LGBT issues and aren’t comfortable doing so, so I believe that if universities had classes centered on these subjects, it would be a learning opportunity for everyone. Specifically, the field of composition studies can do a lot to promote awareness about LGBT and other minority rights. As of now, it seems that only LGBT and minority writers know how to tackle these subjects in their work. Alexander and Wallace write, “Although we are proud to participate in a scholarly and pedagogical tradition that takes diversity seriously, we also feel a profound sense of disappointment each time we read the latest book or journal article in which a theorist or researcher whose work we respect takes on the knotty questions of how identity issues such as gender, race, and class affect the teaching and learning of writing but fails to address sexual identity or, in many cases, even to acknowledge it in passing.” But if everyone is required to take classes that address this subject, or at least have the option to take these classes, others will have the tools and knowledge to write about these topics as well.
        "En Los Dos Idiomas" by Marcia Farr addresses cultural and social aspects of writing. Here, Mexican immigrant families' literacy patterns are studied. Included in this study are people who were born and raised in Mexico and people who immigrated to Chicago from Mexico. In general, those who were raised in Chicago had more and better schooling than those raised in Mexico, which correlates to better reading and writing skills. Although literacy skills generally correlate to education level, there were instances where those who were less educated had the motivation to learn how to read and write; they did so by learning it "lirico," which I found to be very interesting. Learning literacy skills "lirico" means that they picked up literacy informally from other people, or from cigarette boxes, bills, signs, etc. Literacy skills were crucial in Chicago, where they immigrated to, because it is an urban area; there are laws to obey and signs to read, so it is extremely important to be literate there.
       In "Unpackaging Literacy," Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole explore how writing is both social and cultural. They use the example of the Vai people, who aren't taught writing in school yet their culture is still centered around writing in various ways. The Vai people use writing to communicate with their friends and family and to keep records. This contrasts with our culture because we place little value on writing outside of school. It is interesting to see how writing plays such different roles depending on the culture it is being used in.
      Lastly, "From Pencils to Pixels" by Dennis Baron demonstrates how writing is historical. In this piece, Baron examines the differences between writing a very long time ago and writing now. Literacy technology is always evolving and that what seems really old to us now was once new and was also viewed with skepticism like it is today. The computer, Baron says, is just the newest invention in a long line of inventions that have helped us write. Baron goes back to the days of Plato and writes, "Plato was one leading thinker who spoke out strongly against writing, fearing that it would weaken our memories." He also discusses spell-check programs coming into play in the 1990s, saying that at first, teachers discouraged their students from using it because they feared their students would forget how to spell if they used spell-check. Baron sums his piece up nicely when he writes, "We have a way of getting so used to writing technologies that we come to think of them as natural rather than technological. We assume that pencils are a natural way to write because they are old — or at least because we have come to think of them as being old." Since writing and pencils and whatnot have been around for so long, we forget they are forms of technology. We only see computers as technology because that's what is new today, but we can't forget that historical things were once new.

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