Jason Collins Reflection

3 moments of tension in the article

• The opening sentence where he immediately starts off by stating all of the discourse communites he is apart of and how every single one of them has a lot of tension in them. Creates for an immediate opening of a sense of tension. "I'm a 34-year old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay." 
• Jason Collins is the only one raising his hand saying he is different. He is isolating himself through discourse and making even more tension between society and himself.
• When he said "some of us know and accept our sexuality right away and some need more time to cook. I should know-I baked for 33 years." This could make someone who is opposed to gays feel uncomfortable and expresses who he is, and tries to cut the tension and gets right to the point of who he is to society. However this in fact just creates more tension between him and society.

Also, this article is a piece of creative nonfiction because it is telling a true story told well through the use of a first-person point of view with insight from that specific person. Because the person is telling a first hand account, will leave out the unimportant details, and might even add some details to make it more interesting. It is still a true story however, because it zooms in on a specific point in time and has more details, it is more creative. It shows how you can be creative with telling a story and getting an overall message across.

3 Moments of tension within my own discourse communities

• Whenever I don't know someone but they seem to know me, creates tension because I seemed more important to them than they do to me.
• When introducing someone to other people which you have to do a lot as a first year college student, it causes for tension because although I like both of the people, I never know how they will respond and react to each other.
• And something that happens all the time in discussions, trying to come to an agreement on something, but realizing that you both just have different opinions and won't come to an agreement. This can be hard to overcome the tension when the other person is stubborn and keeps arguing and you just want the tension to be over.

Reflection on Unit 1

I have grown since the beginning of the unit in a way I never thought possible. Blog posts allow me to reach a different audience that I wouldn't normally address in an essay or a more formal work. I love the sense of artwork that seems to be reflected in the works and assignments we do. I don't look at this class as a boring writing class like many students might, but instead view it as an art class where my mind can flow freely and I am able to express whatever is on my mind. Not only does this relieve stress for me, but it also creates perspectives of looking at things that I normally wouldn't. Analyzing other forms of literacy and describing a certain literacy journey we personally have had, has made me able to realize who I am as a writer and what kind of writing I like talking about. I found out that trying to persuade others, which is a big part of rhetoric, is what I like to do and it shows throughout my literacy journey. I try to shed light on specific topics and attempt to make my audience take my side in a specific topic. I found it hard to write without doing this.  Whatever I wrote about, I always felt a need to persuade a topic and this class so far has already opened my eyes to this. Not only does this type of a class teach me a new way of thinking, but also teaches me new things about myself.

Literacy Narrative Final Copy

                     Tech Literacy: The Ultimate Problem With the Modern World
Technology. It is the fastest growing application in today's modern world. It has made mankind able to do some amazing things however it has also led our society into a world of smart phones and computers that have made our youth more and more socially awkward. Nobody even knows how to hold a conversation in person anymore. Everyone is constantly on their phone distracted by something else. Although this technology seems like a good thing in the sense that people are now able to socially interact with people from around the globe, it is also hurting us. Many people have become technologically literate which already is leading to the decline of newspaper and magazine use around the country. My personal experience with technology and literacy has opened my eyes to what lies ahead for the future. My focus of this impact will be on the educational aspect of technology. We rely way too heavily on technology that it is even translating to that way in the classroom. In high school especially, teachers try to get out of explaining things better to students by telling them to 'look it up online'. Simply looking something up online, sure, could be helpful to some degree, but wouldn't that eventually make teaching in person obsolete? If this is the case, the upcoming generations will be the laziest we've ever seen, leading to obesity, not listening to authority and never needing to leave their bedroom. It is scary to see that our world as we know it could be leading to this. If this problem is ever going to get fixed, we need to go to the source of the problem, and that is the classrooms today. These problems stem from the poor teaching styles and failure of teachers to help students in their time of need. Students, in order to fully understand material, need reinforcement on what they learned in class. However, if they didn't learn it in class it is extremely difficult for them to reinforce this material. This leads to them having to self-learn from reading and watching videos online. This is no way to learn, especially if they are going to spend all day in class anyway, they should be getting something out of going to school. Throughout my personal literacy narrative in high school I have learned many things about not only technological literacy but also about society as a whole. Teachers nowadays rely heavily on technology, telling students to go home and check the homework instead of simply telling them in class. This technology is not only making students lazy, but the teachers as well because they don't want to do their job. I know this from self- experience, as way too many times during high school I found that the teacher was awful at teaching and instead told us to go online to find lectures on the topic. I would have to listen to another teacher online as compared to my teacher in person. I was constantly led to question ‘isn’t that what they get paid for though? To teach us?’. Teaching in this country has to change or technology will take over. Although it is enhancing the learning environment for many, particularly in college, high school students are exposed to an environment where everything is done for them. Looking up answers online isn’t learning and it is why we are so lazy. Why do we need teachers if there are videos of teachers teaching the material better than the ones in class, online for free? And why is college so expensive if many times people can be self-taught? There are many questions that need to be answered about the educational system in todays society and unless changes are made there could be consequences later on. Education is just one example of how smart technology is actually making people dumber. It is leading our society right into the ground and if we don't stop it now, our kids will start off at rock bottom. 

On the other hand, during my literacy journey, technology played a major role in enhancing my learning and ability to excel at understanding, interpreting and coming up with conclusions based off of other literacy. Being around computers and smartphones during my journey allowed for me to be able to learn things I never would have if I wasn’t around them. I became literate in all of the programs that come with a computer and applications that come with a smart phone. Especially on an iPhone there are certain things you have to be able to know what to do like exiting out of the apps, Siri, notification center, iMessage and everything else that comes with being an iPhone user. Also knowing how to use certain apps have made me technologically literate where I now know to use them and how to use the information given to me to my knowledge. Although technology has made me literate within its use, it has also made me impatient and even lazy. Because this technology is immediately responsive where we can get feedback as soon as we click, when it doesn’t load or something goes wrong we have no patience anymore to simply wait for the technology to comply. We are even so literate in technology now that we feel almost no need to use anything else to communicate with others other than our technology. This makes us extremely lazy because we feel we can do everything from this technology. We can work, study, read, watch, and communicate all without ever getting up and actually even needing to open our mouths. This in itself has made me lazier too. I have noticed that I sometimes would rather sit at home and watch Netflix by myself than go out and interact with other people. This notion on its own shows how throughout my literacy journey I may have gained knowledge, but it in fact has hurt me more than it has helped me. The more technology this world gains the closer we are to becoming a society that no longer enjoys the world for what it is. I have noticed that whenever I bring out my phone to take a picture of nature or of anything for that matter, it never looks as good as it did in real life. This journey has opened my eyes to the dangers of technology literacy and how in fact we should actually be straying away from it. Technology is the way to the future, but maybe the future is a lazy, disregarding place.

Literacy Narrative 1st Draft 600 words

Technology. It is the fastest growing application in today's modern world. It has made mankind able to do some amazing things however it has also led our society into a world of smart phones and computers that have made our youth more and more socially awkward. Nobody even knows how to hold a conversation in person anymore. Everyone is constantly on their phone distracted by something else. Although this technology seems like a good thing in the sense that people are now able to socially interact with people from around the globe, it is also hurting us. My focus of this impact will be on the educational aspect of technology. We rely way too heavily on technology that it is even translating to that way in the classroom. In high school especially, teachers try to get out of explaining things better to students by telling them to 'look it up online'. Simply looking something up online, sure, could be helpful to some degree, but wouldn't that eventually make teaching in person obsolete? If this is the case, the upcoming generations will be the laziest we've ever seen, leading to obesity, not listening to authority and never needing to leave their bedroom. It is scary to see that our world as we know it could be leading to this. If this problem is ever going to get fixed, we need to go to the source of the problem, and that is the classrooms today. These problems stem from the poor teaching styles and failure of teachers to help students in their time of need. Students, in order to fully understand material, need reinforcement on what they learned in class. However, if they didn't learn it in class it is extremely difficult for them to reinforce this material. This leads to them having to self-learn from reading and watching videos online. This is no way to learn, especially if they are going to spend all day in class anyway, they should be getting something out of going to school. Teachers nowadays also rely heavily on technology, telling students to go home and check the homework instead of simply telling them in class. This technology is not only making students lazy, but the teachers as well because they don't want to do their job. I know this from self- experience, as way too many times during high school I found that the teacher was awful at teaching and instead told us to go online to find lectures on the topic. I would have to listen to another teacher online as compared to my teacher in person. I was constantly led to question ‘isn’t that what they get paid for though? To teach us?’. Teaching in this country has to change and or technology will take over. Although it is enhancing the learning environment for many particularly in college, high school students are exposed to an environment where everything is done for them. Looking up answers online isn’t learning and it is why we are so lazy. Why do we need teachers if there are videos of teachers teaching the material better than the ones in class, online for free? And why is college so expensive if many times people can be self-taught? There are many questions that need to be answered about the educational system in todays society and unless changes are made there could be consequences later on. Education is just one example of how smart technology is actually making people dumber. It is leading our society right into the ground and if we don't stop it now, our kids will start off at rock bottom. 
On the other hand, during my literacy journey technology played a major role in enhancing my learning and ability to excel at understanding, interpreting and coming up with conclusions based off of other literacy.