Technological Impact on My Writings

Okay, so I don't actually type correctly. See, I started instant messaging when I was in third grade and became able to hunt and peck reaaaally fast to keep up with three or four different instant message conversations, so that is the kind of culture I grew up in. I am 22, so unfortunately a lot of my childhood was spent waiting until 5pm when I was allowed to sign on to AOL (insert weird login noise here). However, I have always been an avid reader, so I have to say that for me, personally, I feel that I have a command of standardized language as well as a fluency in the continuously emerging technologically-motivated language. I think communication has become less formal. I also think websites like "I Can Haz Cheezburger" have made it popular to speak pidgin English, which is odd to say the least. Most of my communication with friends and family is through Facebook and text messages at this point in time. This is part cultural shift and part convenience on my part.

(I had to rewrite this next part. Technology FAIL.)

Responsibilities I am taking on as a producer/reader/future teacher of texts:

SUBVERSION. I take on the responsibility of challenging language, and treating it not as an apolitical tool but as a system which works in the favor of the dominant cultural paradigm.
CULTURE. I take on the responsibility to make it clear that culture is an ongoing conflict and not a warm blanket we are all sleeping under. There are some school districts where Huckleberry Finn is supposed to be taught without any discussion of race. This demonstrates a strict separation of literature and history that I will not tolerate. There is a need in this society to separate literature and history because literature liberates history. Asking students to read a text and be able to answer multiple choice questions or fill in blanks from a word bank about what Susie had in her hand when she came into the house, or what Papa was wearing when the fire started, is not engaging our students in critical thought. It is limiting the level of cognition we ask them to think at to the lowest levels of word perception and literal comprehension. Beyond any of this, Mark Twain would roll in his grave. If America is a circle, then race is at the center of it. By agreeing to even acknowledge culture as an ongoing battle, I believe I place myself within that war. I am willing to fight.
CREATIVITY. I take on the responsibility of making art (and life) fun and engaging, with an emphasis on discovery, appreciation and play alongside commitment and compassion.
SUPPORT. I take on the responsibility of at least trying to think of everyone in the process of making something, whether it is an animated writing or a lesson plan. I think it would have benefited me a lot more to read Dorothy Allison in high school than it did to read Charles Dickens. It makes sense for multicultural classrooms to be less successful in America when we are teaching a bunch of brown children a perspective of history that further victimizes and marginalizes their people. I take on the responsibility of each individual's story in constructing my own.