Reply to comment

An interesting aspect that caught my attention in your reflection is how you remember reading, but not the actual part of reading with your parents (did I interpret this correctly?).  What is interesting is that in both of our early literacy careers, our parents played a very important role. I learned how to write before everyone else in class because my mom would always draw with me. Yet, I wonder what the implications are of what parts of our early literacy we choose to remember. I still remember my mom and sitting down and slowly writing everything.To this day, when I am in a class, I always focus on how my teacher presents the information as opposed to what the teacher is presenting. I personally am a very process oriented individual. When I read this reflection, I focused a lot on the emphasis on impressing the teacher.

We both thought of  having the skills to read/write as part of being on top of the food chain. I wanted to be cool like my brother and you wanted to be liked by the teacher. Perhaps, literacy is a verb, a performance. There is a whole process that goes behind becoming literate. But, the word literacy itself is growing with meaning. For examples, back then you equated reading as a source of power to impress others. But, is that how you still feel to this day? Or, has that feeling evolved with you? If you chose to focus on a different aspect of your early literacy, could you possibly ended up in a different discourse?

Furthermore, I wonder if we have a predisposition of learning a certain way because of our backgrounds (family and/or academic). For examples, earlier today, I was talking to a group of biologists who, in unison, shot me down when I said a 1st generation person is one who immigrates to another country while the 2nd generation person is the one born in the new country (I learned this piece from various social science and education classes). Their response was that anyone who is the first to be born in the new country is the first generation. I personally think the latter should be the correct form, but either ways it got me thinking about how the discourse we identify with shapes our thinking and the space we occupy. Because I was with that group, I didn't argue any further but rather provided examples of the 1.5 generation and other such vocab used by the government. Even though the higher authority had a decision made, the smaller group discussion we had about terminology in our niche caused us to think we are better thinkers than the forms.

So, based on your reflection, you were very comfortable with yourself until the Miller twins came into the picture. Suddenly, you didn't feel like the better student. But, isn't this all a matter of perspective and the discourse we identify with? Were the Miller twins good at reading ALL types of books, or just the particular ones that were assigned in class? Did they focus on something else in their performance that you may not have? For one, I noticed a lot of emphasis on the twins instead of improving the reading skills. As a college student, I still struggle with the performer in me. Every performance has different roles...perhaps the act of reading is the performance itself and the roles we play are our mental states.