Studio #2

Activity #1

Expert Good at but not an expert Curious about

Organization & planning Writing Sign language
Color Guard Doing makeup Cooking
Speaking French Gardening
Math Singing

I consider all of these areas to be literacies. The word literacy implies communication, and these
activities each have their own method of communication. Not only is there certain lingo or
jargon that members of these literacies use with each other, but they also have some sort of
communication with the world outside of that literacy. For example, members of color guard will
use terms like backhand or drop spin which non-color guard members wont understand.
However, they dont need to understand these terms to be impacted by the product: the
performance. Literacies can only exist through communication, and can only have an impact
through communication. Each of the things I have listed follows this criterion.

The difference between literacy and expertise is the ability to teach the literacy. You can be
competent enough in a literacy, but still need more coaching to be confident in navigating it. But
if you are able to teach it well and create literate members, then consider yourself an expert.
Sometimes, however, the process of teaching can make you an expert. It forces you to break
down the components and better understand how they work together.

Activity #2

Part 1

External Influences:
Sister I want to be a good role model
Mother I want her to be proud of me
Father I dont want to piss him off
Will and Kristen I want to be as committed and successful to color guard as them
Professors I want to balance all of my assignments and get better
Erik I want to maintain my long-distance relationship along with college life

Peoples behavior is a response to different expectations from different roles we play. These
roles come from our relationships, and the conversations we have in those relationships.
Conversation allows us to understand what other people consider normal. In this context, being
normal equates to be literate in the shared Discourse. The need to be literate to be normal
creates pressure that causes us to make decisions that make us seem like we are literate.
However, it is difficult to fully achieve literacy in all the areas of our lives, so we find ourselves
making tradeoffs trying to balance the different pressures. Our behavior is a result of conflicting
roles and attempts at literacy in each of these roles.
Part 2

Who I am as a Writer with a Cause, JoJo Harvey

StoryCorps William Lynn Weaver

When others are literate in something that you are not, the power that they hold is an external
influence that can affect the quality of your own work. Even though Weaver had the intellect to
achieve his goals, feeling as though he didnt belong as an African American in a mostly white
school greatly impacted his academic performance. He was not literate in how to navigate his
new school, and by not allowing him to achieve literacy, his teachers and other students had
power over him. Another kind of power functions more positively: help. Initially, I only
considered external influences in a negative way, but not all external influences come in the form
of pressure. They can be positive and optimistic. For Harvey, others happiness influenced the
reason she wanted to write. The effect her writing had on others motivated her to keep writing.
Her cause is to help others through her words. Weaver was on the opposite end of this sort of
interaction. Help from others encouraged him to continue working and keep moving forward
even though his high school teachers constantly inhibited his learning.