Writing is influenced by the writer’s experiences, in form of topic, characters, plot, placement, or even subconscious influence. Everything you do affects you in some way, when you write you reveal yourself in some way on that page, and as a result you expose some of every experience you may or may not have realized you faced. It’s uncomfortable to explicitly describe personal information, and you never need to do that in order to become a good writer, but a person does need to draw upon private experience in order to write. Writing cannot be limited to only to the things that a person has experienced without any influence from anything other than them.

This week I've been thinking a lot about what is and isn't "inclusive." I started to worry about the topic because of my involvement with the Bryn Mawr production of The Vagina Monologues: a show that is often considered to be out-dated and only representative of certain types of women. When we were talking about inclusion (especially inclusion of all voices), I was wondering if putting on such a show is a negative thing; can a show that has negative connotations still be informative and even important? 

This is my second post of the night to make up for missing class on Wednesday because I'm sick (again >:o )

This week has been an interesting experience rereading The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. I had read the book before, for an English class my junior year of high school (I think it was junior year at least), yet it was a greatly different experience reading it again this time. While reading this time, I found myself comparing my two experiences with this book, and reflecting about my development in higher education and my relationship with literature. Through reading about Douglass' story,  I reached a deeper and much greater appreciation of my privileges. As a slave, Douglass had nothing. The descriptions of what everyone was allowed and given as slaves felt like a jolt to my systems.

I took this course for a reason. I want to get into the depth of these topics--literacy, privilege, school to prison pipeline, racial violence...the list goes on. I want to try to understand the issues, in all their complexity, of the society I live in. No doubt, I'm at the beginning. I've got a lot of learning ahead. Unsettling Literacy is part of that learning.

At the same time, it can be hard not to wonder about hope. When I spend most of my academic energy trying to open my eyes to gritty parts of our society's effed up systems, hope seems out of reach at times. 

I recently attended an activism workshop, where I was reminded that, "you're not the first to do this work, and you won't be the last. You don't have to do everything in your lifetime."

Our in-class discussion on the dangers of literacy and Frederick Douglas's story made me think a lot about how available information is nowadays. In our time, for those with socioeconomic circumstance (privilege) to have internet access, information is readily available. However, as one of my classmates pointed out, this information is often from biased sources. I thought that comment was incredibly important. If someone who is in a disadvantaged situation of any kind seeks out information, the source of that information may have a huge impact. For example, a young queer individual from a highly religious, low-income family may not know where to seek out information on the internet.