Personal Image.7

I took this picture (a timer picture woo hoo!) on Thursday when I visited my oldest childhood friend at the airport when he had a layover in Denver. Shortly after I posted it, my brother called me and told me how ridiculous my captions were becoming on Instagram. He told me that someone who didn't know Erik would have no idea what I was talking about (Erik doesn't eat gluten). I do have a private Instagram, so people who follow my account know who I am. And I would hope they would realize that calling my friend a "little gluten free crouton" isn't really that strange. This probably isn't a caption that could be used on a picture sponsored by the 1935 NCTE-developed Experience Curriculum in English, but this picture, the caption, and the platform of communication (Instagram), represent a shifting and a personalization of writing in the 21st century. As Yancey mentions, "In much of this new composing, we are writing to share, yes; to encourage dialogue, perhaps; but mostly, I think, to participate" (5). Regardless of if my brother approves of my dorky captions, at the very least, it inspired him to start up a conversation :)

Digital Reflection.7

   

I found the "36 Things Every 21st Century Teacher Should Be Able To Do" list on a LinkedIn slidesharing website...not only is the medium an example of Yancey's vision of modern day society using social media to spark conversation, but it represents the difference between past and present learning practices. I think it's hilarious that "appreciate memes" is not only in the top 36 things, but it made it in the top 5 list of things that 21st century teachers should be able to do. The introduction of Yancey's address is basically a call to action: to develop new models of writing, to design a new curriculum supporting those models, and to create models for teaching that curriculum. Perhaps the understanding of memes is a necessary tool for 21st century composers and teachers in order to relate to an audience.

When looked at in conjunction with the second image, I think it is interesting that the author mentions that in the 21st century (now), humans abandoned language and communicated exclusively in memes. This may be a little overdramatic, but many group messages are composed entirely of memes, funny pictures, or videos, without any use of text. This picture also captivates the spirit of how writing is always changing, but it has (and will continue to be) used in people's everyday lives.  In Yancey's article, she mentions that "still, outside of school, composing is ubiquitous" (7). Despite the lingering perception that writing is used only for work or school, or that it is tedious and difficult, producing memes gives people the opportunity to compose and share their creations with a larger network.

Writing in the 21st Century

Writing in the 21st Century focuses on the individual composer, specifically in the context of a network. It reintroduces and reinvigorates the concept of civic engagement and collective social action. In this new mediated landscape, we find that it appears that “writers are*everywhere*.” Through opportunities of so-called “extracurricular social apprenticeship,” any individual may come to participate in composing, learning how to write through the examples and precedents created by peers on the web. Therefore, the impact on writing is that “in much of this composing, we are writing to share . . . to encourage dialogue . . . but mostly . . . to participate.” Digital natives of this era have a tremendous capacity for networking and collectivizing through writing that is largely unmatched by previous generations. As Kathleen Yancey states: “through writing, we participate—as students, employees, citizens, human beings. Through writing, we are.”

Our poster, “Writing in the 21st Century” reflects these main ideas of Yancey’s Presidential address. In the center of our poster, we have chosen an image representing the Enlightenment Era and the notion of discourse at that time. A single individual is depicted, representing the largely individualized transition writing took. Reading was experienced in a shared setting but writing was left to be an isolated practice. Yancey explains in her address that people began “to remember reading for the sensual and emotional pleasure that it gave,” and “writing for the pain or isolation it was meant to assuage.” Now, in the 21st Century, we are seeing a return to the communal participation of writing. It is “newly technologized, socialized, and networked,” as represented by our second main picture of networked learning. The presence of computers in the image indicates the digitized turn this field has taken. “Chatting software,” which is now widely available for users, “enables us to collaborate in dynamic ways.” In our timeline across the top of the poster, we have represented these major shifts from reading text to the physical production of writing to the mediated circulation of both forms brought to us by the computer.

Ong and Didion walk into a bar...

Ong walks up and sits on an old, dusty leather barstool. A copy of Homer’s The Odyssey under his arm. Muttering something under his breath, trying to make conversation with the bartender, or anyone who will listen. The bar is nearly empty.

He takes a glance over his shoulder and sees a woman sitting at the end of the bar. She has a typewriter, a small notebook, and a pen tucked behind her ear. She seems focused, typing methodically and looking angrily at her pages with a furrowed brow. She has a tall piña colada in front of her, half-drank, with a tiny purple hibiscus resting on on the thin rim of the glass. It’s been sitting there for quite some time, with condensation creating a small pool of water on the daily newspaper that it is resting upon.  

“I’ll have a whiskey” Ong declares without looking at a menu.

“I don’t know how people come into a bar and order a new drink every time. When’s the last time someone looked at that menu? Eh?”

The bartender pulls out a stout glass without uttering a word.

“One ice cube”

The bartender puts a single ice cube in the glass and tilts the bottle of whiskey so that it cracks the surface of the ice as it is poured over.

After receiving his drink, Ong walks around the bar, still in search of a conversation.

“Hi there, I’m Walter, cold morning isn’t it?”

“I’m Joan” she says without looking up. 

“Visiting here?”

“I’m from California”

“That explains the hibiscus” Ong chuckles to himself, “How long have you had that typewriter?”

“Twenty two years”

"What are you working on?"

Didion has hardly looked up from the page, holding her left hand up to her mouth. She pulls the soggy paper out from underneath her glass, setting her drink aside on the rich mahogany counter next to a bowl of peanuts. She points at the title, without speaking. The title reads: Students in a state of unrest following Watts Riots

“Hmmm…” Ong glances at the title, Didion still hardly looked up from the page.

Ong looks at the page, and the typewriter with curiosity, he takes a single gulp of his whiskey.

Didion swivels her bar stool away, seeming uninterested in having a conversation.

“I’m on my way to give a speech at the University of Southern California about the Watts Riots” Ong  places a ten dollar bill on the counter before walking out the door. “It was nice talking to you – have a good day”

Didion is a Californian. Crafting each word, sentence, paragraph, and essay with precision. Marrying her love of California with her razor-sharp observation skills, she has the ability to provide her audience with context, detail, and description.  

But Ong is a historian. He makes sense of the world by understanding how human interaction has changed and how technology has altered our way of thinking and knowing.

Rocky Mountain Oysters and the Bottom of the Ski Slope

Leaving from the University of Kansas after visiting my older brother at school, my parents and I strapped on our seatbelts and prepared for the nine-hour drive back to Fort Collins, Colorado. Across I-70, it takes nearly six hours before arriving at the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado” sign, and another two hours before the vast plains, straying tumbleweeds, and scattered wind turbines turn into a familiar Colorado landscape.

A couple more hours north is the town where I was born, Greeley. Fondly regarded as the armpit of Colorado. My brother, my parents, our dog Targhee, and I lived in Greeley until I was about four years old. It is home to JBS (Monfort Feed Lot) slaughterhouse, dozens of epic Christmas light displays, my hairdresser, Lee, and my grandparents.

Driving through Greeley as a child, my family would joke about the smell of cow manure wafting through the half-cracked car window in our silver suburban. “That’s the smell of money,” my crotchety grandpa (also a cattle-rancher) would explain when my brother and I would hold our thumb and pointer finger over our nose. Though I remember smelling a crisp five-dollar bill and thinking that it didn’t smell at all like my grandpa described.

In a town outside of Greeley, there is a place where you can buy “Rocky Mountain oysters”. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of trying these unique culinary jewels, Rocky Mountain oysters are fried bull testicles, served in a heap on top of red and white parchment paper and a side of dippin’ sauce.

I moved to Fort Collins (northwest of Greeley by about 30 miles, and north of Denver by about 50 miles) just before I started kindergarten. Most of my childhood memories got a lot more colorful after moving here. Maybe due to the fact that I lived in Fort Collins for most of my childhood and throughout all of high school, or maybe because Fort Collins is more colorful and drastically more beautiful than Greeley or any of Eastern Colorado’s landscape.

In fourth grade, we did a “Colorado” play, and I still remember the lyrics to the song, which was uniquely named “Colorado”:

Colorado, Colorado

It’s called the centennial state

Colorado, Colorado

Joined the U.S. as number “Thirty Eight”

My special performing role gave me the opportunity to be a “train conductor” and wear overalls on stage. I was irritated that I had to be a train conductor, and had my mom take me to get special brown colored overalls so I would look different than everyone else. I saw someone wearing striped overalls the other day and thought of my fourth-grade self. Though I’m not sure the best way to differentiate yourself from a crowd is by wearing brown (or striped) overalls.

About halfway through the production, Mrs. Wagner put America the Beautiful in the CD player and blasted the “purple mountain majesty” lyrics. I never understood why the mountains were described as purple. To me, they always seemed grey or blue, aside from the pearly snow-capped peaks. But when you get up close, they’re not even blue or grey – they’re green with pine trees or red, yellow, and red leaves, depending on the season. However, I do remember a specific Crayola crayon named “purple mountain’s majesty.” I recall one time I tried to use it as a mountain color, because Crayola deemed it appropriate, although the result seemed far too forced. My friend, Lauren, wet her pants on stage of our final production, and her soggy denim seemed more purple than the mountains…

The only purple things in Colorado that I can think of is the Columbine flower (but even it is described as “blue”) and the color of the state during election season. Although, I heard the that it is losing its status as a “purple state,” or one that is torn politically between Democrat and Republican, in favor of blue. But Donald Trump did just hold a campaign event in Loveland, a town between my birthplace (Greeley) and my home in Fort Collins.

When most people think about Colorado, they think about snowy peaks, health-conscious individuals, an abundance of outdoor activities, and marijuana.

I can’t say how many times I’ve been assumed to be a skier or a snowboarder, because duh, I grew up in Colorado. But the truth is, the last time I went skiing, I zipped my stuffed animal (a monkey named Emily) up in my coat before cautiously descending down the “green” slope in strictly “pizza” formation. I was ten. I think my lack of ski skills makes me somewhat of an outsider.

I’m not particularly outdoorsy, and the closest I’ve ever been to “getting high” is jumping out of a “Mile-Hi Skydiving” airplane at 17,500 feet and looking at Pikes Peak while my parachute brought me back safely to solid ground. Since I first went skydiving on my eighteenth birthday, I have gone two more times. But I still have never hiked a fourteener or visited a dispensary.

Two of my friends who went to school out of state ended up coming back to Colorado for their sophomore year to finish out college, saying that they missed the mountains, the air, the water, the people, or just the atmosphere.

“I think I had to leave the state to realize how amazing Colorado is” – a text I received last week from a friend who is itching to come home.

But despite being regarded as an excellent place to live by many people, a large portion of Colorado is full of slaughterhouses, tumbleweeds, and desperation. Some parts of Colorado literally stink. But to ignore the awful parts of Colorado is to ignore its uniqueness.

Colorado often gets boiled down to the pretty pictures seen in magazines, pristine ski slopes seen by tourists once a year, and a common name that pops up on “best place to live” lists published each year. It gets defined by people who move here from Wisconsin, people from California, or people who live so far inside their own little bubble that they can’t comprehend that the entire state isn’t Columbines, ski slopes, and marijuana pastures. Like with any overgeneralization, Colorado is not exempt from its own distinct flaws, or its special recipe of Rocky Mountain Oysters.

To wrap things up…

Having lived in Colorado for all of my life, it can be difficult to combine my personal feelings and experiences, public perceptions, and realities.  

When I think about Colorado, I imagine crisp, cool water flowing out of a babbling brook and straight through the faucet. The sound of an elk bugling at the end of September, a skier going down a double black diamond slope in February, and a big horn sheep peering through an alpine meadow mid-April. An idealized image.

But this will never be my only image of Colorado. I picture the house we lived at in Greeley, with the big green door and the sunroom I used to paint in. The pre-kindergarten school that had tricycles and a fake gas pump outside. The house of my childhood best friend who I don’t talk to any more, with the rain chain and the solar panels. My middle school where I had to run the mile inside every Friday for volleyball practice, and the eco-friendly lights that would frequently shut off when you were still inside one of the classrooms in order to save energy. The high school where I sat in Mr. Kisla’s classroom and graded freshman papers and planned our senior field trip to the Colorado State Capitol. The Larimer County Food Bank that I volunteer at with my mom, and where I sit in her office in the upstairs of our house and watch her make jewelry instead of having to say goodbye for her to go to a 9-5 job. The monstrous temple that I have to look at when I drive home from Denver to Fort Collins to visit my family.

I cannot say I always correctly sort my food into the compost, recycle, and trash bins. I may never own a house that is wind powered, use natural lighting, geo-thermal energy transfers, or occupancy lighting sensors. I will never be allowed to see the stained-glass windows, baptism pool, or Swarovski crystal chandeliers of Fort Collins’s Mormon temple. I will probably never own a ski pass, and I may never hike a fourteener. I may never develop a resume as impressive as my mom’s, be as involved in a community, or as good of a mother. To some people from the outside, I may not even truly represent what it means to be a Coloradoan.

It is also home to ski-bums, hikers, and adventurers. It has become a surrogate home for thousands of my college peers, and gets redefined and reshaped by each person who experiences it differently. The current inhabitants of Colorado come from all regions of the United States and all corners of the globe. As a single person living in a state of 5.415 million, I can hardly speak for the whole crowd.  

Colorado is my home. A hotbed of political activity, a model for sustainability, a trendy location to move to and start a family, and a beautiful snapshot to post on the cover of the newest National Geographic. A place filled with my family, my friends, and my memories. A place filled with tumbleweeds, questionably purple mountains, monotone landscapes, towns like Greeley, and smells of wafting manure. 

Personal Image.6

I decided to include two pictures in my personal reflection this week. The first is a picture of my notebook from our writer's retreat on Thursday where we wrote down everything that popped into our minds, no matter what it was. The second is a dorky picture my mom took of me before I picked my friend Kody up to go to formal. I like to look at these two together - the first has a lot of doubt, a lot of tangential thoughts, and a lot of complaining. I laugh to myself reading back through it, especially the part where I wrote "this song is like a sad gaelic reflection." I also wrote almost in sentences, or at least in separate thoughts. During this exercise, I found that I couldn't even keep up with writing the thoughts that came into my mind. Like any other day, my thoughts were going in a million different directions that I couldn't even keep up with. In contrast, the second picture is a moment frozen in time. Just glancing at the picture, I only remember my happiest and most positive memories. But when I think about it, when this picture was taken, I was still full of doubt and anxiety (probably even more than in class). Even though that doesn't get translated from my brain through the lens of a camera. I like looking at these pictures together because it reminds me of the way that I'm thinking, what thoughts go through my mind at any given moment, and the way I remember things differently than they actually happen sometimes. Most importantly, reflecting on our class activity and on my own life helps me to reflect on who I am and why I'm writing the way that I do.