Author: Svetlana Gibson

Teachers Unite

As I read and re-read the “Digital Literacy” article by Dobson and Willinsky and “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies” by The New London Group, I couldn’t help thinking that something was missing. Both articles put forth new ideas and provided the reader with valuable and thought provoking information and yet were incomplete. What is missing is a page in the articles which explicitly states how to “creat[e] access to the evolving language of work, power, and community, and [foster] the critical engagement necessary for them to design their social futures and achieve success through fulfilling employment.” (The New London Group, p.1) The multiliteracies approach strives to fulfill the above goal, which is a noble one, but the article left me wanting practical strategies which I could use in my Grade 5 classroom, consisting of students ranging in reading and comprehension levels from none at all (ESL students as well as native speakers) to Grade 7.

The authors of the “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies” article assert that “literacy pedagogy now must account for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies.” (p. 2) I absolutely agree because if we don’t, then the students will not be able to fully participate in and take advantage of the new media. I also strongly believe that we must not give ourselves wholly to the new. We must also make room for three R’s – Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. For the students to be able to fully participate in their community they must be well grounded in the basics of reading and writing. I am not sure if we can skip the basics but I am sure we can teach concurrently with teaching them to navigate the superhighway of the new technologies. The authors agreed that the “disparities in educational outcomes did not seem to be improving.” (p.3) They went on to state they agreed that “what students needed to learn was changing, and that the main element of this change was that there was not a singular, canonical English that could or should be taught anymore.” (p.3) The article was written in 1996 but I am glad we still teach the standard English language, including Canadian spelling. “[Cultural] differences and rapidly shifting communications media” (p.3) notwithstanding, we must have a clear picture of what it is we want our students to achieve and how we are going to do it. Having a single standard of English language will not hamper students’ progress. If anything, it will help level the playing field as long as we teach it to all students and expose them to the cultural differences and the rapidly shifting communications media.

The idea of multiliteracies is a sound one but we must not stray too far from reality with its bright, vibrant and multi leveled students who come from an incredible array of backgrounds. We must remember that many teachers who are currently working in the classrooms come from pre technology based education and will need instruction and support to themselves become comfortable with the new technology. Not all teachers are yet comfortable in giving up the reins of power and the repositories of knowledge and allowing their classrooms to become collaborative environments not just among students but with the teacher as well. The change to a classroom where the teacher is the facilitator in students’ acquisition of knowledge is here but it is far from being the norm yet.

The authors assert that “as educators, we have a greater responsibility to consider the implication of what we do in relation to a productive working life.” (p.6) As educators, we must be cautious not to focus all our efforts on teaching solely to the “working life” of students and the demands of the marketplace. It is one thing to teach our students to be adaptable, innovative, creative, critical thinkers but we must be careful which one we promote: “as opening new educational and social possibilities or as new systems of mind control or exploitation.” (p.7) The authors, when stating that “it may well be that market-directed theories and practices, even though they sound humane, will never authentically include a vision of meaningful success for all students” (p.7) need to take a stronger stance and state that it will never include all students, and it should not include all students.

If “our job is not to produce docile, compliant workers” (p.7) then we need to allow students to question, teach them how and then allow them to question the teachers and the information presented to them and the way it is being presented. We cannot ask students to “develop capacity to speak up, to negotiate, and to be able to engage critically with the conditions of their working lives” (p.7) without allowing them to do the same in the classroom. We must go even further and demonstrate it by questioning ourselves. We cannot produce students who are critical thinkers by ourselves being “docile, compliant workers.”

I feel that these articles highlight the disparity between the academically centered educators, and those of us in the trenches. While their ideas are good, they lack grounding in the real world issue of a modern classroom. If we are to achieve a true multiliteracies approach, there must be a melding of the classroom teacher and the academic educator.

Dobson and Willinsky’s (2009) chapter “Digital Literacy.” Retrieved November 15, 2009, from http://pkp.sfu.ca/files/Digital%20Literacy.pdf

The New London Group. (1996) “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies:Designing Social Futures.” Harvard Educational Review 66(1), pp. 60-92.

Commentary 2

Images Before Computers

“My sense is that this is essentially a visual culture, wired for sound – but one where the linguistic element… is slack and flabby, and not to be made interesting without ingenuity, daring, and keen motivation. (Bolter, p. 47.) Bolter quotes Jameson in The Breakout of the Visual for the purpose of illustrating how “very different theorists agree that our cultural moment – what we are calling the late age of print – is visual rather than linguistic.” (Bolter, p48) One needs only to look around us and see how prevalent images are in our everyday life especially when pertaining to advertising on the outside on billboards, busses and storefronts. The space is limited therefore the images have to be much more compelling without actually using a lot of words.

Both Kress and Bolter assert that the use of image over print is a relatively new phenomenon which has happened as a result of computer use and hypertext. If we look at the history of advertising, we can see that the shift was occurring and becoming culturally entrenched before the wide use of computers. Bolter asserts that “in traditional print technology, images were contained by the verbal text.” (p.48) He is absolutely right when referring to books and magazine articles but when looking at printed ads, we can see that images play a more primal role.

Since we live in a commercially driven capitalist (market) society which is highly dependent on the sale of unnecessary items, much capital and research has gone into how to sell every product imaginable. It may have become a cliché, but only because it is true – sex sells. Here is a very interesting web site that highlights some of the more ludicrous examples. (http://inventorspot.com/articles/ads_prove_sex_sells_5576)

United States and Canada are made up of many people, representing various diverse cultures and languages. Images are pretty much universal although we do have to be careful as some may not be as universal as others. “The main point is that the relationship between word and image is becoming increasingly unstable, and this instability is especially apparent in popular American magazines, newspapers, and various forms of graphic advertising.” (p.49) I would assert that the relationship was already unstable when computers became prevalent. Computers allowed people the forum of discussion and quick access to the images which were previously viewed in isolation. There is no doubt that hypertext allows a further foray into the world of image and freed the image from the binding of the text. Kress points out the obvious and is not always correct. When he states that “[the] chapters are numbered, and the assumption is that there is an apparent building from chapter to chapter: [they] are not to be read out of order. [at] the level of chapters, order is fixed.” (Kress, p.3) It is a mistake to limit our study of the remediation of print by simply looking at text in books. If we expand our focus, as we must to properly discuss the subject, and include magazines and printed ads, evidence clearly points to the fact that the image was becoming more dominant before the prevalent use of computers. Like books, magazines and authors who wrote for them also knew “about [their] audience and … subject matter” (Kress p.3). Unlike books where the order is very rigid, a magazine can be read in any order you like.

Bolter acknowledges the influence of magazines and advertising on remediating text and images by stating that in Life magazine and People magazine “the image dominates the text, because the image is regarded as more immediate, closer to the reality presented.

Bolter’s use of the shaving picture from the USA Today is an excellent example of images becoming central in print. However, I think he is being generous when he states that “designers no longer trusted the arbitrary symbolic structure of the graph to sustain its meaning … .” (Bolter, p.53) I see it more as more pandering to the lowest common denominator. The designers do not trust the public’s ability to read a graph rather than the graph’s ability to “sustain its meaning.” (Bolter, p. 53) It seems that the need to dummy text down is a comment not only on the writer’s faith in the public’s ability to interpret text but also to interpret images. Images are becoming more and more basic and try to appeal to our primal senses and needs – for instance, using sex as a vehicle to increase sales.

The existence of the different entry points speaks of a sense of insecurity about the visitors. This could also be described as a fragmentation of the audience—who are now no longer just readers but visitors, a different action being implied in the change of name, as Kress points out.

Kress succinctly addresses the power of the image in the example of Georgia’s drawing of her family. We can clearly see the differences and interpret them the way the creator of the drawing intended. The placement of the little girl in the drawing tells us about how she views herself in terms of her place in the family. There are no words and none are needed for the image really is worth a thousand words.

Perhaps it is fitting that in this fast paced world we live in, we are moving away from the art of writing, which does take time to both produce and consume to the image which takes time to produce but is designed to be consumed very quickly. However, to tie this change directly to the rise in the use of computers is to blind oneself to the rich legacy of printed images in advertising prior.

Bolter, D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2^nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, 22(1), 5-22.

Inventor Spot. (2009). 15 Ads That Prove Sex Sells… Best? Retrieved 12 November, 2009, from http://inventorspot.com/articles/ads_prove_sex_sells_5576

Tags bolter, culture, Kress, print ads

Research Paper Text

Language as Cultural Identity

Post author By Svetlana Gibson
Post date November 4, 2009
1 Comment on Language as Cultural Identity

Language as Cultural Identity

Russification of the Central Asian Languages

Pier Borbone asserts that “there is no obligatory relationship between language and writing: per se, every language can be represented with any graphic system, even systems originally created for other languages – if necessary with certain adaptations.” (Borbone, 2007) He further theorizes that “the decision to adopt a certain kind of script depends to a large degree on other considerations, not having to do with the language itself, and that the choices of script made by different peoples and nations are an interesting clue to cultural, political and religious aspects of their history.” (Borbone, 2007)

The former Soviet Union provides an interesting case study when looking at cultural and political implications of using an already existent script for historically and culturally rich but very different languages which already had been using a different script. Specifically looking at the adoption of the Cyrillic alphabet to the Central Asian and Far Eastern languages, we can examine the Russification of these particular languages and cultures.

With the creation of the new Soviet Union came many challenges. One of the major challenges was to create an identity and somehow unify over 100 different ethnic groups. A systematic policy of Russification was adopted by the early Soviet government but it was by no means a new development. Russification dates back to the 16^th century with the conquest of Khanate of Kazan and other Tatar areas. At its early stages, Russification mostly involved Christianization and implementation of the Russian language as the sole administrative language.

The Cyrillic alphabet was created by St. Cyril and his brother St. Methodius, who were Byzantine missionaries and were sent to convert the Slavs to Christianity. The original alphabet was known as Glagolitic from which modern day Cyrillic evolved.

Glagolitic alphabet

The Glagolitic Alphabet was a precursor to modern Cyrillic

Cursive version of the Glagolitic alphabet

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/glagolitic.htm

1918 version

The names of the letters are in Russian.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/cyrillic.htm

Languages written with the Cyrillic alphabet

Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Archi, Avar, Azeri, Balkar, Bashkir, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Buryat, Chechen, Chukchi, Church Slavonic, Chuvash, Dargwa, Dungan, Erzya, Even, Evenki, Gagauz, Ingush, Kabardian, Kalmyk, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Komi, Koryak, Kumyk, Kurdish, Kyrghyz, Laz, Lak, Lezgi, Lingua Franca Nova, Macedonian, Mansi, Mari, Moksha, Moldovan, Mongolian, Nanai, Nenets, Nivkh, Old Church Slavonic, Ossetian, Russian, Ruthenian, Serbian, Slovio, Tabassaran, Tajik, Tatar, Turkmen, Tuvan, Tsez, Udmurt, Ukrainian, Uyghur, Uzbek, Votic, Yakut, Yukaghir, Yupik

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/cyrillic.htm

In the early centuries, the Christian missionaries had difficulties in converting eastern Slavs to Christianity due to language barriers. The western missionaries were using Latin and the eastern missionaries were using Greek but both were foreign to the Slavs. St. Cyril (827-869 AD) developed the Glagolitic/Cyrillic script which made the conversion process much simpler. The brothers modeled Glagolitic alphabet on a cursive form of Greek. The Glagolitic alphabet evolved into Old Church Slavonic which “was used as the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church between the 9^th and the 12the centuries.” (Blech, 2008) Currently the Russian Orthodox Church uses Church Slavonic which appeared during the 14^th century. There are some speculations that the Old Church Slavonic may have been invented by St. Kliment of Ohrid based on the Glagolitic alphabet.

The current form of the Cyrillic alphabet came into being in 1708 during Peter the Great’s westernization and secularization campaigns. The newly modified alphabet was known as grazhdanka.

The 1917 Russian revolution paved the way for the inception of the Soviet Union in 1922 which united several republics under one umbrella. After 1922, the authorities decided to eradicate the use of the Arabic alphabet in Turkic and Persian languages in the Soviet-controlled Central Asia, in the Volga region, including Tatarstan, and in the Caucasus.

This drastic change was well thought out because it detached the local population from the exposure to the language and writing system of the Koran. This served a twofold purpose of curbing religious activities and further separating the local population from their ethnically closer groups in other Middle Eastern countries. As well it prevented the “formation of alternative ethnically based political movements, including pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism.” (Absoluteastronomy, 2009)

A very effective way of accomplishing this was to “promote what some regard as artificial distinctions between ethnic groups and languages rather than promoting amalgamation of these groups and a common set of languages based on Turkish or another regional language.” (Absoluteastronomy, 2009)

The new alphabet was inspired by the Turkish alphabet and was based on the Latin alphabet. However, in 1939-1940, the policy changed and it was decided to change Tatar, Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Azeri and Bashkir languages and make them use variations of the Cyrillic alphabet. It was claimed that the switch was made “by the demands of the working class.” (Absoluteastronomy, 2009)

In the Soviet Union the Latin alphabet was first officially introduced in Soviet Azerbaijan in 1925 13, and a “Unified Turkic Latin Alphabet” for all the Turkic languages of Soviet Central Asia followed between 1927 and 1930. In the second half of the 1930s the policy was changed, and a campaign began to introduce, in place of the unified Latin alphabet, several Cyrillic alphabets somewhat different for each Turkic language. For instance, the Cyrillic alphabet for the Uighur language consisted of 41 letters – the Latin one being of 32. (Winner, 1952)

Since the Soviet government decided that a nation was defined by the existence of a language, a language had to be selected each time it was decided that there was to be a nation. This activity produced considerable problems. One of the major ones was the fact that dialectic differences had to be accentuated between the populations of a single linguistic area. Each nation was constructed on the basis of difference.

The most ludicrous case was the separation created between Tajik and Persian. The Tajik used literary Persian as their written language. There exists a perfect comprehensibility between the literary languages current in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. However, in their daily lives the Persian speakers of Central Asia use dialects which vary considerably. The relationship between Iranian and Tajik Persian is similar to the relationship between Persian French and Quebecois. Russian linguists had to formalize and fix differences and to invent a modern literary Tajik language. Instead of taking one of the existing Tajik dialects as their standard, they created an artificial language which combined characteristics from different regions. They kept the phonological system of Old Persian, but adopted grammatical variations which highlighted the difference with Iran.

Uzbek was also severely manipulated. It was linked with Kazakh and Tatar which have the least similarities with Uzbek. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were quick to adopt Latin script, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan delayed the switchover, and both still use Cyrillic.

The situation is different for the Turkic-speaking peoples of the Soviet Union. The use of various modified Cyrillic alphabets, in this case with variations for the Azeri, Kazakh, Turkmen, Kyrgyz languages, was the norm at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union. Nowadays the various independent states each go their separate ways: in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan a modified Latin alphabet is used, while in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan the Cyrillic ones are still used. Obviously to some extent these choices reflect the political relationships that exist, or are desired, with Russia and Turkey.

The 20th century is one in which national languages have rapidly developed and increased in number. If we speak about European national languages, they have increased nearly threefold (from 16 to 50) in something more than 100 years. In Central Asia, if only the Turkic language writing systems are taken into consideration, the unified literary language (Chagatay Turkic) developed into 30 different literary languages.

Ong asserts that “more than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness.” (Ong, 2000, p.77) He further states that “writing establishes what has been called ‘context-free’ language … or ‘autonomous ‘ discourse, discourse which cannot be directly questioned or contested as oral speech can be because written discourse has been detached from its author.” (Ong, 2000, p.77)

The result of this manipulation of languages was loss of local languages and cultures. The official policy of sending Russians to non-Russian speaking republics resulted in the local population adopting Russian language and culture while Russian people did not learn local languages or partake in the local cultures. To do so was considered backward. When non-Russian speakers moved to another non-Russian republic, they learned Russian instead of the local language. For example 57% of Estonia’s Ukrainians and 70% of Estonia’s Belarusians claimed Russian to be their native language in the 1989 Soviet census.

Patterns of linguistic and ethnic assimilation (Russification) were complex and cannot be accounted for by any single factor such as educational policy. Also relevant were the traditional cultures and religions of the groups, their residence in urban or rural areas, their contact with and exposure to Russian language and to ethnic Russians, and other factors.

There is strong evidence to suggest that language was viewed as the first attack in the government’s Russification policy because it is very closely tied with who we are, individual identity and the identity of a group. Changing a language eventually brings about changes in culture and thinking. Changing a script in a particular language to another aligns that language and culture with the dominant culture.

References

Absolute Astromony: Exploring the Universe of Knowledge. (2009) Russification. Retrieved October 3, 2009, from http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Russification

Allworth, A. Ed. (2002). 130 Years of Russian Dominance, A Historical Overview . Duke University Press. Retrieved October 2, 2009, from Google Books http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X2XpddVB0l0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=use+of+cyrillic+alphabet+in+central+asia&ots=-95SLd9pSF&sig=QTiOnWJkrczLApCu-d6ffsl9aEM#v=onepage&q=use%20of%20cyrillic%20alphabet%20in%20central%20asia&f=false

Blech, A. (2008) The Russian Orthodox Church: History and Influences. Retrieved October 23, 2009, from http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/creees/_files/pdf/curriculum/CREEES-developed-units/russian_orthodox.pdf

Bodrogligeti, A. (1993). Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Question of Alphabet Reform for the Turkic Republics. Azerbaijan International, 1.3, 16-17. Retrieved October 28, 2009 from http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/13_folder/13_articles/13_sovietunion.html

Borbone, G. P.(2007). Choice of Script as a Mark of Cultural or/and National Identity. Retrieved October 18, 2009, from http://www.stm.unipi.it/programmasocrates/cliohnet/books/language2/02_Borbone%201.pdf

Burghart, D. L., (?/) In the Tracks of Tamerlane: Central Asia’s Path to the 21^st Century. Retrieved October 5, 2009, from http://ndu.edu/CTNSP/tamerlane/Tamerlane-Chapter1.pdf

Eurasia Insight. (2006) President Ponders Alphabet Change in Kazakhstan. Retrieved October 24, 2009, from http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav111706b.shtml

Omniglot: Writing Systems and Languages of the World. (2009). Retrieved October 27, 2009, fromhttp://www.omniglot.com/writing/glagolitic.htm

Omniglot: Writing Systems and Languages of the World. (2009). Retrieved October 27, 2009, fromhttp://www.omniglot.com/writing/cyrillic.htm

Ong, W. J., (2000). Orality and Literacy. New York: Routlage.

Winner, T. G.(1952). Problems of Alphabetic Reform Among the Turkic Peoples of the Soviet Central Asia, 1920-1941. The Slavonic and East European Review, 76, pp. 133-147.

Commentary 1

Universal Library

I chose to write about the universal library because this topic has been close to my heart since I was 12 years old. My biggest dream was to read all the books in the world in all the languages in the world. Many of my friends were eager to point out how ridiculous that dream was – after all I only spoke Ukrainian and Russian and a bit of Polish and German – the basics I learned from my Grandmother. I would not let these naysayers dissuade me from my dreams. How difficult could it be to get a foreign book in translation? By then I had already read all of Dumas’ adventures of the Three Musketeers and Jane Eyre as well as other classical writers. Some books were typed on a typewriter and shared among trusted friends and you learned early on that those books were not to be talked about with people who you did not implicitly trust.

O’Donnell asserts that “[the] main features of this vision are a vast, ideally universal collection of information and instantaneous access to that information wherever it physically resides.” This idea appeals to me tremendously I would love to be able to have access to all of Tolstoy’s works and be able to read my favorite passages whenever I like without having to dig through boxes or travel to the library. This is not to say that I would not rather have a book in my hand but since it is not easy to find some books in their original language, especially the rare first editions, I would love to see a copy on line. O’Donnell characterizes this as a

The dream today is weighed down with silicon chips, keyboards, screens, headsets, and other cumbersome equipment — but someday a dream of say telepathic access will make today’s imaginings suddenly as outmoded as a daisy-wheel printer.

It may be so, but where would we be without our imaginings? The idea of a virtual library is a noble one. As Hillis points out in the Brand article,” we are now in a period that may be a maddening blank to future historians–a Dark Age–because nearly all of our art, science, news, and other records are being created and stored on media that we know can’t outlast even our own lifetimes.” True as this may be, should we stop all scanning projects because we are worried about being able to retrieve data.

I will tell you this- when I was doing the readings, and exploring the virtual libraries, I found books of songs and stories that my Grandmother sang and told me when I was a child. What a gift from people who these books probably meant nothing to! Where Stewart Brand prophesizes, “there has never been a time of such drastic and irretrievable information loss as right now” and blames the computer industry’s production schedule for the rapid advancement of standards, it must be pointed out – since the process of standardization really took hold, we have seen technologies last many years. HTML is nearly twenty years old.(Wiki) The JPEG picture format was defined as a standard in 1992. (Wiki) The Portable Document Format (aka PDF) is over sixteen years old (Wiki) and is now an open standard. And a file created with the first version of these standards can still be read on computers today. He remarks “civilization time is in centuries” but how many of us can understand the earliest books in the English language? Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or even the works of William Shakespeare are only a few hundred years old, but they seem to be an entirely different language!

While it is true that the media will probably not outlast our lifetimes, I’m sure that was apparent to the authors of medieval manuscripts. However – they did not stop copying out illuminated sheets of manuscript simply because they might not survive a fire. The fires in Alexandria marked a huge blow to the body of knowledge of the time – but one fire in one city will not wipe out a universal library. There will be backup to tapes, redundant hard drives, and redundant locations to store data. Sure, if the power goes off that information will just sit there – but think about how it sits there. Each hard drive is created as a sealed environment and the data could well be readable in 100 years. The motor that drives the plates inside the drive may have failed, but the platters and the data they contain, could last a very long time. Under ideal conditions, to be sure – but what book left outside on the table will last beyond the year? The reason books have been such an efficient method of passing information across the ages isn’t because they are inherently better. There have simply been so many of them written that a few were bound to make it. Really, the body of knowledge we inherited from three hundred to two thousand years ago is remarkably small. I do not know if a universal library will work better for longevity, but it will give more people access to books they might never have otherwise seen. I do not advocate the end of all print media – it is good to have an alternative to the electronic versions, but I think the electronic versions will become the ones that people make use of.

References

Brand, S. (1999). Escaping the Digital Dark Ages. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=4&sid=d441a38a-9c6d-4085-80a4-b520f38fe9ac%40sessionmgr14&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=tfh&AN=1474780

Kelly, K. (2006). Scan This Book! Retrieved from http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/~gdowney/courses/j201/pdf/readings/Kelly%20K%202006%20NYT%20-%20Google%20Print.pdf

O’Donnell, J. J. The Virtual Library: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20070204034556/http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/virtual.html

O’Donnell, J. J. (1998). Avatars of the World: From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998. 44-49. Retrieved from http://www.public.asu.edu/~dgilfill/speakers/odonnell1.html

Tags archive, communication, Technology, universal library

Text

Text we R, text i AM

Text, to me, is what we are, what I am. I love words and everything they make us and give us. I love reading. I love seeing words. In this information age, text defines us and gives us life. Text has allowed us to progress and move forward, but it has also isolated us from one another. We no longer need to seek the company of others in person. We can enclose ourselves in the safety of our homes and take on any persona our imagination allows. To me, text is me. It is the first time my daughter spells her name with the inverted C.

I chose the above concrete poem to represent what text is to me because it conveys what text is. It does an excellent job of illustrating the depth and breadth of text in modern languages.

Tags discussion board, poetry, Text, Text Defined

Introductions

Many ways in which New Yorkers say “Merry Christmas” or its equivalent. (LOC)

Post author By Svetlana Gibson
Post date September 9, 2009
No Comments on Many ways in which New Yorkers say “Merry Christmas” or its equivalent. (LOC)

Many ways in which New Yorkers say “Merry Christmas” or its equivalent. (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

I have selected this image because words, or to be more exact the actual mechanics of the process of writing, fascinate me. I am also interested in translations of a text into different languages and how the original message changes or remains the same depending on the cultural variations in what words we use.

My name is Svetlana Gibson and I teach grade 5 in an inner city school in Coquitlam. My attention was captured by this course because I teach with laptops. Students in my class show remarkable improvements in their writing and reading when using the computers to demonstrate their learning. I am currently at home with an eight month old baby and her four year old big sister.