Obama Speech

On February 10, 2007, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president. In his speech, he used a lot of pathos, or appeals to the audience's emotions. He did this to draw them in and keep their attention.
An example is his bringing his wife and kids on stage. He did this to appeal to the audiences feeling of love and family. He wanted them to know that he was a family man and would do anything for his family.
Another example is his mentioning God and his Christian faith. He did this to appeal to the religious feelings the audience may hold. He wants them to know that he is a Christian just like them and holds the same values as them. It will also comfort them knowing that a Christian may be in office.
He also talks about families struggling paycheck to paycheck despite working hard. This shows that he is caring and feels the pain of those people. He wants people to know that he is in touch with the lower class, not just the upper class.
Obama uses all of this pathos to really tap into the audience's emotion. He wants them to be drawn in and know that he cares. He also uses it as a ploy to get people to vote for his, since he got them to feel things during his speech.

College Freshman Living in the 21st Century Research

Researchers such as Deborah Brandt and Shirley Brice Heath have looked a literacy sponsors and literacy events. Brandt defines a literacy sponsor as any agent who enables, supports, teaches, models, as well as recruits, regulates, suppresses, or withholds literacy. Heath defines a literacy event as any occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of participants’ interactions and their interpretive processes.
Brandt interviewed people born between 1900 and 1980. Heath, on the other hand, interviewed and observed working-class African Americans who work in a textile mill in Trackton, North Carolina. However, neither of these people has looked at freshman college students living in the twenty-first century.
In an interview, I gathered information from a freshman at the University of Central Florida. Sean Skow is from Saint Cloud, Minnesota. He is nineteen years old. His major is currently undeclared, but he is leaning towards the social sciences, except not education.
As Sean grew up, his parents read him a lot of picture books. They read him a lot of different books, but he did not really have a favorite. From this, his parents gained the satisfaction of knowing they were helping their son become literate. Sean, on the other hand, gained the start of his journey to become literate.
While he grew up, his mother was a first grade teacher. Before he started kindergarten, he knew all of the first set of one hundred site words for first grade. Since his mother was a teacher, he had the advantage of having a head start. This event helped jump start his journey to become literate.
School was another way he became literate. In school, he practiced reading. He would get frustrated when the class would go through the alphabet and make the sounds of each letter. His teacher would say, “When you say the letter ‘m,’ you have to buzz your lips.” Because he did not feel this buzzing, he disliked the letter “m” for a while. Today, though, he has come to like the letter.
His earliest memory of learning to write involves his mother. He would try to imitate her cursive. Though it was just scribble, it would eventually lead to him learn to write him. When he first learned to write his name, he would write his “e” backwards. Eventually, he got it right.
Technology did not really play a role in Sean’s becoming literate. He only played typing games to learn how to type, but besides that he mostly just read books and wrote to practice.
In comparing Sean to the Trackton children, I found lots of differences. Sean’s mother was a first grade teacher, while the children of Trackton had parents working in the textile mill. He had the advantage of having someone to help him unlike the children in Trackton. Their parents were not really involved in children’s being literate. Also Sean’s parents read him lots of pictures books, while the Trackton children read or hear a lot of Bible literature.
During the interview, Sean made a really good point about why he learned to read. He said, “It was never really a matter of wanting to learn. It was more a matter of it being expected.” This answer prompted a discuss about if he would have learned had that not been expected. His answer was surprising. He said that he was not sure, which really causes me to wonder about that.
From the interview, many new topic questions have been formulated. Does having a parent as a teacher give a child an advantage in becoming literate over a child who does not? If society did not expect children to become literate, would they? If not, why? If yes, why? What role does technology play in a child becoming literate? All of these topics can be answered by interview people who fall into each of the topics. Besides interviews, research needs to be done to compare results with new findings.

Heath Article Addendum

After class discussions and much thought, I have found out that my last blog was wrong. The passage was not about why children should go to school. Nor was it about what school has to offer the children.
Heath really wanted to compare the forms and functions of oral language with those of written language produced and used by members of social groups within a complex society. In Trackton, the people never really read anything alone. Things are always read out loud and then discussed. This is great for a person’s daily life when they are in a group setting, but what happens when he is alone. Will he be able to read and think for himself on the piece of literature?
When children in Trackton start school, will they be able to just read something to themselves. Since they are use to reading things out loud, they will not really know how to read something silently and answer questions. This will cause stress on the student because he is not use to it. The student will also not be able to think critically on his own. Since he is so use to hearing other people’s opinions and thoughts, will he be able to form his own opinion on anything.
This approach harms a child’s growth in literacy. If they always hear something read aloud, they will never be able to do it on their own or it will be difficult. To help out the children, the adults need to start having the children read stuff to themselves. This will help them get ready for school and create critical reading skills they will need for the rest of their lives. Once this happens, the children of Trackton will be more prepared for school and life.

Heath Article

“Adults did not consciously model, demonstrate, or tutor reading and writing behaviors for the young. Children, however, went to school with certain expectancies of print and a keen sense that reading is something one does to learn something one needs to know. In other words, before going to school, preschoolers were able to read many types of information available in their environment. They knew how to distinguish brand names from product descriptions on boxes or bags; they knew how to find the price on a label which contained numerous other pieces of written information……….. In these ways they read to learn information judged necessary in their daily lives, and they had grown accustomed to participating in literacy events in ways appropriate to their community’s norm.”
The adults in the community do not consciously help their children with reading and writing. They do it without realizing it. Because of this, the children thought of reading as something done to learn what is needed to learn. Preschoolers, by the time they started school knew the basic skills needed to survive.
This passage left me with two big questions. Why do the children go to school, if they know the basic reading skills to survive? What do they learn in school? If preschoolers know how to read the information necessary for daily life, what does school have to offer them?
Since most reading in Trackton was done socially, why do children need to become better readers? Most of the people in Trackton did not read alone. The only people who did read alone were the elderly. Even job applications and loan applications were done orally. Even if the person wanted to write the application themselves, the employer or loan officer would not let them. Thus the only skills needed were listening and speaking. Both of these skills can be taught and learned outside of schools.
The only thing students could learn in school was mathematics. Really there was no need to learn more than just the basics because most of the people worked in textile mill factories. Still most of the deductions were done but the employer.
In reality, the city of Trackton was a place where the people lived with very little literacy. They saw no need to learn more than what was needed to survive.