PR Module 2 CASE

Diana Martinez

ENG CASE2

Trident University

Dr. Stephens

Literacy Practices

Literacy practices encompass the cultural ways that involve the utilization of written language and also in readings that people rely on their day to day activities. In a more simple definition, literacy practices refer to the ways in which people employ literacy in their activities. Literacy practices, thus, gives a powerful way through which the link between reading and writing activities are conceptualized within the social structures that they are embedded. In the everyday life of any person, there are several ways in which reading and writing are put into application. This is based on the fact that people participate in several literacy events on a daily basis. Literacy events can be defined as activities where literacy plays a role. The normal everyday literacy events include spoken and written language. Literacy practices, thus, involve the construction of values, knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings that are associated with writing and reading of certain texts within certain specific contexts. Literacy practices are generally embedded in literacy domains, which include school, community, and work.

In my daily activities, there are several literacy practices that I normally engage myself in. The first literacy practice that I engage in is reading of daily newspapers and articles. In nature, I am a person who likes to update myself on current matters that take place in my local town and even in other areas around the country and even globally. This thus makes me to spend about an hour a day of reading newspapers, journals, magazines, and articles about several matters in the social life. I not only get the information from written papers, but I also read much of the information from online sources such as websites and news blogs. The other aspect of my life where reading lays a significant part I academics. Being a student comes with a lot of reading responsibility and one is obliged to it. When I enroll in any given class or course, there are some course content that must be covered in every course, since there are quizzes, discussion boards, homework, and tests that comes along with every course. To be adequately prepared for all these, therefore, I always have to read the course content since this is the only way I could get acquitted with the course material for me to pass the courses.

The other important literacy practices that I normally get involved concerns my college life. Life my college life, there is the aspect involving class attendance, writing of application letters, writing of letters of inquiry, taking notes in class, and writing of tests. I believe that this is the part that covers much of my literacy practices that concern writing. On a typical day, there are several hours in which I attend classes of different courses and in each of the classes I always take notes that are verbally lectures by the instructors. I therefore get involved in writing for the most part of a day in taking of such notes. The second part that writing plays part involves working on writing tests.

Though some of the assignment requires that students type the work and submit I online, there is no doubt that some of the in class exams are handwritten. Depending on the course content and the ways through which different courses may be structured, I normally get involved in a number of written tests during class semesters. The other part of my life that involves writing concerns writing of letters that functions for various purposes. Though there has been advancement in technology where most of the information could be typed using computers rather than handwritten, there are some other parts of life that strictly require and specify that written letters are used. A good example involves my case when I was applying for a position in college, the application letter had to be handwritten, and thus this gives a clear example of how writing plays an important role in the social domains of literacy.

Due to the introduction of advanced technology a lot of things have changed in the communications system. This has also brought far reaching impacts on the ways through which people read and write. Though some of the writings that I write are done manually, a large part of my writing life involves the use of electronic devices. Starting from the simple example, writing a text message, I normally type my phone messages using my handset and send either to the mails or the handset of the individuals of interest. This is also form writing that I employ on a daily basis. Apart from the use of the phone, I mostly do most of my writing using my computer. This is the electronic device that I depend on in most of the writings. In communication, the computer is very helpful for me because it not only enables me to communicate through the mail, but also allows me to communicate with my friends and family on one on one basis through Skype. The other important aspect of the computer is that has played a significant part in my social interactions with friends, peers, classmates, and family.

In terms of academic matters, the computer plays a very important part. Most of the assignments that are given in class are online based. This thus means that students have to login to their school accounts and work on the assignment, then submit it to be graded by their instructors. This has been more common in the common system where most of the students are taking online classes. I, therefore, do most of online based assignments by typing with computer and submitting it online for grading. Furthermore, most of the course materials that are used in the school are online based, because there school material on online library material. I therefore do most of the reading with the help of the computer because I engage online library in most of my research practices.

In conclusion, there are several literacy practices that I engage in on my daily activities. Most of these practices concern my academic life and the social life. The technological advancements that have been witnessed in the recent past have had a lot of influence in most of my literacy practices. This is based on the fact most of the reading and writing that I engage in involves the use of electronic media, which include handsets and computers that are involved in the exchange of in a fast way, even for people living at far apart geographical locations. Generally, in a typical day I take a considerable amount of time in reading and writing because, basically, all aspects of my life involve literacy practices.