Wisley Leandre

Ms. Jimisha Releford

English 104
02 September 2015

Making Connections Assignment 1

In Gilyard- Literacy, Imagination, and Flight Chang Chun Tao was more into and
influenced by literature that focused on social issues and took a sociological approach.
Chang Chun Tao would tend to relate literature that he read to his home country and the
social issues they faced. During Taos experience he would also connect issues of the
African American stories he read and African American movies he watched to his own
experiences. In a sense, Tao used his own experiences and social issues to understand and
connect with the literature and movies. You could infer that the purpose that writing
served for Tao was to help him connect with other cultural and experiences, while
connecting them with his own. Tao, throughout the reading, used his experience and
social issues in his country to help him connect with and understand what he read and
watched. In this reading Literacy is implied as a form of communication and connecting
with others.
In the other reading, Mahiri & Sablos Writing for their lives the two
students mentioned, Keisha and Troy werent fond of academic writing. These two
students were fond of expressive writing, which is emotional and personal writing.
Keisha wrote poetry, plays, prose, and songs. Keisha would write about love, society, and
things going on around her. She uses her poetry to express herself, describe periods in her
life, events and social problems in her neighborhood, as well as her own emotions and
her difficulties dealing with them.

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Troy also used his literacy to express, but he did that in the form of raps. Rap verses were
his literary form of expression. Just like Keisha, Troy wrote about events and social
problems within the neighborhood that he lives in. One of Troys raps central theme was
the reality of life in the inner city and surviving. His raps used highly figurative African
American Language styles. Both were interested in having meaning in their writing and
also finding order in their loves through writing. Writing serves the purpose of helping
Troy and Keisha express themselves and talk about the nature of their environment.
Literacy in this text could be implied as a form of expression.
These two experiences are similar in the fact that the writers in these two
selections used literacy and writings as a way to connect, whether it be with another
cultural or with themselves. They also contrast in the way they are used to connect. Tao
,in the first selection, used it as way to connect with another cultural and understand
writings and movies of a cultural by connecting it with his own experiences and his own
cultural. In the second reading, Keisha and Troy used it to connect with their emotions
and express them. They used it to speak on problems with their neighborhood and the
realities of life in the neighborhoods that they lived in.