Reminiscing

I have learned many new ideas about the reading and writing habits of the human race through this course. I have been exposed to many popular writers who I honestly had no clue existed. All of the exposure was a bit of a shock to me. I think my favorite writer that we read was Hedges. This is for many reasons.

First of all Hedges is very provocative. He challenges every American's belief in our intellectual superiority to the rest of the world and that, frankly, pisses people off. This aspect of Hedges is really what grabbed my attention but there are other factors that elevated him to my favorite writer of the class. Not only is he provocative but he is factual. He uses statistics about the literacy of our nation that are very in your face. He doesn't pull any punches. He also, through the use of his shocking facts, forces us to question our views of ourselves and the people around us. By doing so we learn new ideas about literacy and ourselves. These new ideas can allow us to think more deeply about topics that we normally wouldn't. And I love that. I love thinking. So really what it boils down to is that I really enjoy thinking and because Hedges made me think deeply he became my favorite.

Through all of this thinking that I do in my everyday life I have come to some new conclusions about literacy, reading, writing, and communicating thanks to this course. I have come to realize that we are not as advanced as we may like to think. But we are progressing. And that gives me hope. A hope that in the future through the use of the aforementioned topics we can become beings that are not only literate but beings that can excel at communication using our literacy skills through our reading and writing skills. A lofty goal yes. But just IMAGINE.