What did I learn from this class?

Well, I think the most important thing I learned from this class is that writing is not simply to write something about something, but is about how to create, interpret and understand something that we really like. As we continued writing blog entries and doing assignments about literacy, we gradually found what we really like and began to understand and improve it in the way we have never done by ourselves, such as using a map, making a video, and drawing a comic. Those interested things I’ve never expected to learn in a regular writing class.

Take me as an example. Before taking this class, I have never got a chance to explore what is my own literary. Finally, I have realized that photography is where my passion is. Through some of the assignments about literacy, I had re-evaluated some of my photographic works in my album. I found out there were lots new meanings of those pictures that I have never thought about had been explored by this time. Also, during some of the workshops we had in this semester, the skills of how to make videos and draw comics using computer software really helped me a lot with my assignments.

Anyway, this writing class is one of my favorite classes since I came to America. And, our teacher Franny is also the best teacher who taught us a lot of meaningful and useful things that I think are much more precious than others.

After I went through the whole article, one of the Elizabeth Hill’s main points I think is that the way of recording and expressing information is not just alphabetic writing. There are tons of other ways can do that, such as pictures, maps, music, etc. I strongly agree with her idea and I believe the rest of the methods play a very important role in the literacy of people, which is far more significant than alphabetic writing.

Obviously, new technology has pushed the improvement of extending the range of literacy. If we didn’t have such a broad field of expressing information, we’ll never reach the high standard of living nowadays. That’s because we can use those methods to learn something and to share with others more efficiently. Here’s a concrete example:



There are two different signs on the road. The one on the left shows a clear white right turn sign with blue background, and the one on the right indicates several alphabetic words. If I never learned English, I’ll probably ignore the right one but turn right when I see the left one. Let’s suppose the right sign contains very important information. The audiences of that must be less than the left one, and the efficiency of expressing information is also lower than the other one.

In fact, using “visual signs” in modern society is becoming more and more common all over the world. People are also glad to accept this kind of method because it contains the most natural sense that almost everyone can understand and share with others. With this method, people would also create new things without having any specific knowledge of that, which made the transmission of information easy to achieve.

In my point of view, the higher writing system is not necessarily the best way of recording and expressing information. It may be more efficient to record but not always a good way to express. Like the example I have mentioned above, no matter how important information has been indicated on the sign, if no one can understand that, the consequence is zero. Therefore, alphabetic writing is not the only way to record and express information and not the best way to do that as well.

Technology Shift

After reading “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology” written by Dennis Baron, there are so many technologic methods have been created by people in order to extend the range of literacy. All those improved technology not only provide us a better environment to interpret, creative and understand the things related to our life, but also give us more opportunities to know the world and ourselves.

With today’s high speed Internet, we would find the most recent news in the world and also added comments that everyone could share their ideas with it. With today’s GPS and satellite system, people could observe any interested places on the earth without travelling. In addition, with today’s photography and video technology, we could also record and save every precious moment in our life. Take me as an example. If camera had not been created by people, I’ll never find out what my passion is in my life. I used camera to record the world in my eyes. I took a lot of pictures and shared my thoughts with my friends. But more importantly, through using my camera to create works, I learned a lot of things that I had never touched before. It gives people another eye to see through the world, which I think is one of the positive results of today’s technology shift.

Visual Performance

In modern society, there are numerous kinds of media and technology that contain a large amount of information can be spared into a huge scale. Among those methods, I think the most impressive way must be visual performance, like videos, movies, dramas, etc. I always like something that’s moving instead of staying. I’d like to track the movement of objects or predict the ending of the story. However, the things on the screen are always changing, and you’ll never know what the next scene is going to be. That’s the part really makes me excited and forces me to watch until it ends. Also, it’s the easiest the way to persuade me. It’s because the sound, music, images, scenes, and all kinds of effective methods composed together in order to lead audiences’ mind into the place where the author or director wants them to be.

In ancient time, the nature of human is to seek movement. We hunted moving animals. And, the faster they were, the more valuable they were. Just like the moving objects on the screen, our nature doesn’t change. Therefore, if someone had to make a project for me, I’d like to have a video performance.

Independence

I took this picture in Central Park, New York. It was a cold winter. Only a few people in the park. When I was walking around with my friends, there were a father and his little son playing in the field. Then, I found out that the father never got close to his son. He was just walking behind and sometimes leaded the way for him. The little guy fell down several times, but his father never jumped out to help him. Instead, he just squatted there and encouraged him to get up. I was really interested about these two lovely guys and took the picture above to record that moment.

I could understand the purpose of why could the father be so cruel with his son. He wanted his son to be independent. That is quite different from the parents in China. Take my parent as an example. When I was young, my parent never left me alone. They hold me in their arms while walking in the street. When I fell down, they always rushed on me and checked whether I was injured. I also had a baby-sitter when they were busy. Besides, my baby-sitter lived with us all the time expected holidays. This well-cared situation was mostly like some other parents at that time. Therefore, most children in China I think are less independent than the children in the US because our parents rarely give their children the opportunity to practice independence, which leads to that many of them hardly adapted to the new environment and sometimes narrow-minded. Compared to the children in the US, they tend to be more independent as a result of the different education received from the parents. On the whole, I strongly support the way what the father in the picture did to his son. Also, I believe the earlier the children become independent; the higher goal in their life will be achieved. This is the idea that I want to represent through this picture.

The City

The city where I once lived is called Jinan in China, and it is the capital of Shandong province. In 2008, the population of the city reached approximately 5.5 million. It is not only a huge number on a statistical table, but also some actual feelings that permeate our daily life such as the crowded street, traffic jam, dirty air and so on.

The picture above was taken in my apartment when I was living in Jinan. At that day, it was a quite fine day and we hadn’t seen such a good weather for a very long time. Then, I thought about it. Why does city make us so hard to see a good weather in our daily life? Can it be changed? Therefore, I transferred this picture into my computer and edited it by Photo Shop. It should be a very nice picture, but I adjusted the contrast and added some filters in order to make this picture more sharp and dirty. In my point of view, a city should be squalid and cowered. People living in the city would feel depressive and anxious, so that I made this picture like contractible eyeshot. When people see this picture, they will feel hopeless and worry about the situation about our environment, which is the purpose of making this picture.

Sometimes, I wondered about why so many people from the countryside wanted to get involved into a life like this. Is this because here we can get more opportunities for jobs or just want to change our living conditions? Then I doubted who should be responsible for our environment, and how can we prevent this from happening instead of dealing with the aftereffects of damaging the environment. While I think those questions should be answered by our government and the whole society, and the solution will be much more complicated than we think.

Scenery with Wind

I took this picture in my bedroom when I was in high school in China. This is one of my photographic works won the third prize in the “I Love My Family” national digital photography competition. At that time, I was also preparing for the Chinese university entrance examination which might be the biggest challenge for every student in China. When I felt tired of my study, the only thing could set me free is photography. I’d love to use my digital camera as my third eye to see the world in a different position. I could always understand or interpret something while I was seeing the picture I just made, even if I didn’t mean to represent any specific ideas before I was actually taking the picture.

I shot this picture in a completely dark room. The light coming from the right corner is actually set by a flashlight. I used very slow shutter speed in order to make the objects clearly in the dark environment. Then the light records the movement of the fan and also makes the painting on the wall more concrete. A comparison between the moving fan and the quiet painting turns out to be the theme of the picture. When I saw the picture in the display screen of my camera, a strange feeling suddenly came through my mind. At that moment, I quickly decided to name it as “Scenery with Wind” because I believed this picture had reflected my life during that time. As I was thinking, every teenager at that age should be care-free, just like the moving fan in its free space and the wild wind which could blow to anywhere. However, the fact told us that we had to bear the heavy load of study and also the pressure from our families. This tough situation forced us to become the concrete painting on the wall. We couldn’t move; we couldn’t focus on other things beside study; we even couldn’t do what we like. We were just a painting waiting for being sold. I hope this situation will be improved in the future, so that teenagers in our country will live a happy life.