Portfolio wouldn’t let me put in new category
Austin Yocum
Professor Meehan
English literature
2/19/2012
To start the revision process I first read the comments the Professor Meehan wrote and changed some of my paper. I read over the entire paper and looked at what I still needed to improve on and corrected more mistakes that were showed to me. I decided that I wanted to keep the first three pages the same with my experience and how I lead into the topic. Then I decided that I needed to bring in some of what I learned in the third paper. I brought in some knowledge of electronic era, which I think I need in this paper. Also the big part was my second last paragraph with a counter argument. I know that I had to put in that new technology is replacing books in the new ear and how it is affecting student’s minds. I learned that a good paper and argument has a counter argument that a reader knows that I understand new technology is replacing books but I don’t think it is better. I think I did a good job by allowing this new information in my paper. Actually I changed my ending of my paper a good amount. I added two new paragraphs and also made my conclusion longer and more accurate. I felt like I was beating around the issue and a conclusion is meant to bring my views all together. Overall I believe that I have made this paper into something that not only had an experience of mine in but also led to deeper thoughts. Thoughts that allow readers to understand reading are very important for minds.
I mainly chose this paper because it is what I started with in my writing process. Through the class I learned different ways to improve on my writing. I would of never guessed that putting in information that doesn’t support your topic is a good thing. I realized from the beginning that my writing was a little poor but I learned that the topics are the most important. How a writer brings in thoughts is very important and it’s not all about correct spelling. Don’t get me wrong it is but I have learned that having a strong topic helps a lot. Also never start a paragraph with a quote. It doesn’t set up what the paragraph is based off of. Bring your reader into your writing by giving them a topic sentence. I have tried working on my run on sentences since I know I do not stop at a topic. Also bringing in other authors helps your topic but need them at the right space. Through out my college career I want to keep working on my writing. I know that it is not the very best at all but with the new knowledge I have learned will help every writing assignment I have. My reading though will help with my writing in college. I have learned that you can go deeper in reading than I have ever thought. Frankenstein helped me with this since Shelley incorporated a deeper meaning in the book but also brought other authors in to help her writing. I will try to improve on this in my college career and I think my first writing assignment has made a deeper improvement than it started out as. Going over and rewriting some of the paper has challenged what I have learned and help me learn that you can always go back and do more with a paper.
I pledge my honor that I have completed this work in accordance with the Honor Code.
Reading to Develop Ideas
All through my early education I thought reading was forced onto my fellow friends and me. I had no understanding of why this was happening because all I wanted to do was go out on the playground and have fun with my friends. We didn’t care who read, all that mattered to us was who could throw a baseball the farthest or fastest. We all saw other kids reading but we just made fun of those kids for being teacher pets and nerds. Those nerds would understand our culture and way of living at a much earlier stage than my friends and I that were just living in a fantasyland. For a long time I thought that reading was for nerds, I now realize that it shapes how you learn and grow as an individual.
From an early age all I worried about was sports. I could care less about reading in school and that could have been why I was considered behind every other student. From kindergarten to early middle school I had to take speech classes. At first I was confused why I was stuck in a room with only one other student and two teachers. I did not understand that most people including my parents could not understand a word I said to them. I had extreme trouble pronouncing words, reading from books or grasping the idea of what the book was telling me. Not until late elementary school did I realize that reading was very important in communicating with the world. For years I disliked reading because I thought I didn’t have a problem. I enjoyed being with my friends because they understood me; being with them was like a separate life from school. Reading was a chore in my eyes that I did not want to do because I did not think I needed it. Reading was a huge project in my mind that I chose to leave unfinished.
Gerald Graff in his issue of “Hidden Intellectualism” describes that students harbor intellectual resources-“Street Smarts” that go untouched from regular schooling. Many assume that intellect comes from reading likes of Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare and many more. When I was a youngling, I did not need books for intellect but got by in school from skills I learned on the sports field and other ways. I learned how to communicate with people, understood simple angles in the game of baseball, and learned simple physics by judging a fly ball. Then I realized at the beginning of high school street smarts would not help me become a more intelligent being or help evolve my self. To become a better student and grow as an individual I noticed that I needed to read more and harder material and not rely on my hidden intellect.
David Hume and many other great minds have talked about how experiences help people learn and later evolve in life. Birkert’s states, “For I don’t think that we ever really forget what we read, any more than we forget what we experience” (Birkerts 112). Birkerts is describing how we remember our past experiences that will later help us learn and accomplish many feats. As I kept reading more and more I could relate the stories to my experiences in life. Even though I had to read out loud to someone most of the time, which Birkerts would find not to be individually enlightening, my reading experience was the complete opposite of his experience. I decided talking to others helped me understand what I read and allowed me to relate to others more. I was saying my opinion and my arguments were bringing up more intellect arguments. A person who has read Joseph Harris, the author of Rewriting, would relate me to his thoughts and theories. Harris proposes a social method to the world. He believes that individuals can capture more when discussing ideas and thoughts from their readings. After discussing opinions with my fellow students I wanted only to read books having different arguments that I could confer with for my spin on the story.
Until late middle school and early high school, I finally started to realize that what I read shaped how I interacted with people and how I grew up as an individual. I grew up as a different person compared to typical students in the eyes of the world. Reading, to young minds, might be a chore but actually it helps the individual evolve. Reading helps individuals understand problems in this world, brings new vocabulary into the brain, and gives the background of information for the ideas an individual has for this world. Military leaders for years read from past leaders to get to know what went through their minds and how not to make the same mistakes. Ideas are brought into a person’s mind from reading other author’s ideas and then evolved through the personal beliefs of the person. Their personal beliefs are also shaped through the author’s words they are preaching to the reader. The ideas then lead to argument between students that bring up ideas the other students might not everyone would have seen. This can be shown through any political debate. Many people only understand a subject from one side of the story but with reading and debating they can be shown the other side of the argument, which they might agree upon. These intelligent arguments with friends help the individual grow an appreciation for different ideas and different views from all types of individuals.
Students have now led themselves away from the written word and into the electronic word. Students at a higher rate are now reading off computers and other technology and letting books sit on shelves. Many are arguing that this type of reading is hurting students in understanding the material since it allows students to flow over the material quicker than ever before. The electronic age allows people to read through hypertexts or even video games with their stories with pictures. Video games bring real life characteristics into play and allow individuals to learn from the experiences they face. Sven Birkerts does not agree with this new technology and I do not either since it is allowing people to lose their sense of self in electronic world.
Electronics have brought new mediums into the world that many people believe help individuals grow . One medium that has changed our era is the television. I know that the television has led to easier news coverage and has let many people understand new knowledge they might have never learned just through a book. When writing books kick started, the eyes of the rich only read the books. Poor people could not afford books and they still had lives and created themselves through everyday life with their chores and activities. Television as allowed people to just watch a short clip on an experience instead of reading it in a book in many pages. I understand that television has allowed people to create their own self without reading but I believe that this self is a fake self. I say fake self since books allow someone to understand and relate to himself or herself too the reading and uses that experience in the real world while television is bringing news that only is attractive to bring viewers in. This juicy news allows the viewer to think that the news they are watching can be used in everyday life, which leads them to use wrong information to create a different individual. This different individual uses that information to create somebody that he thinks society would like instead of creating a unique individual. Books allow an individual to understand and learn experiences that will shape them as an individual better than television. Television doesn’t allow people to grow as an individual as a book would.
Growing up kids including my self thought reading was a chore and had no importance. I have learned through my years of schooling that reading is one of the most important tools for being successful later in life. Reading doesn’t just tell a person about the past culture of the world but helps create the person that you become in life. Reading might not always seem appealing to individuals since now a person can pick between a 300-page book that will take days to read or a 3-hour movie, but the person will realize that reading is a key factor in their whole cycle of development as an individual. Reading allows an individual to understand society but also to create the individual that the person wants to become in the world.
Works Cited
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Faber and Faber INC., 2006.
First Write
Austin Yocum
Professor Meehan
English literature
2/19/2012
I think my experience in this essay really made it happen. A reader can look into my past and feel what I have gone through. Though I know I can improve on much in this essay including more of Birkerts maybe or throw in Harris. If I return to this essay I would make it more in depth and really explain my experience with reading and Birkerts experience.
I pledge my honor that I have completed this work in accordance with the Honor Code.
Reading to Develop Ideas
All through my early education I thought reading was forced onto my fellow friends and me. I had no understanding of why this was happening because all I wanted to do was go out on the playground and have fun with my friends. We didn’t care who read, all that mattered to us was who could throw a baseball the farthest or fastest. We all saw other kids reading but we just made fun of those kids for being teacher pets and nerds. Those nerds would understand our culture and way of living at a much earlier stage than my friends and I that were just living in a fantasyland. For a long time I thought that reading was for nerds, I now realize that it shapes how you learn and grow as an individual.
From an early age all I worried about was sports. I could care less about reading in school and that could have been why I was considered behind every other student. From kindergarten to early middle school I had to take speech classes. At first I was confused why I was stuck in a room with only one other student and two teachers. I did not understand that most people including my parents could not understand a word I said to them. I had extreme trouble pronouncing words, reading from books or grasping the idea of what the book was telling me. Not until late elementary school did I realize that reading was very important in communicating with the world. For years I disliked it because I thought I didn’t have a problem. I enjoyed being with my friends because they understood me; being with them was like a separate life from school. Reading was a chore in my eyes that I did not want to do because I did not think I needed it. Reading was a huge project in my mind that I chose to leave unfinished.
Gerald Graff in his issue of “Hidden Intellectualism” describes that students harbor intellectual resources-“Street Smarts” that go untouched from regular schooling. Many assume that intellect comes from reading likes of Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare and many more. When I was a youngling, I did not need books for intellect but got by in school from skills I learned on the sports field and other ways. Street smarts I realized at the beginning of high school would not help me become more of my self. To become a better student and grow as an individual I notice that I needed to read more and harder material and not rely on my hidden intellect.
Birkert’s states, “For I don’t think that we ever really forget what we read, any more than we forget what we experience” (Birkerts 112). Birkerts is describing how we remember our past experiences that will later help us learn and accomplish many feats. As I kept reading more and more I could relate the stories to my experiences in life. Even though I had to read out loud to someone most of the time, which Birkerts would find not to be individually enlightening, my reading experience was the complete opposite of his. I decided talking to others helped me understand what I read and allowed me to relate to others more. I was saying my opinion and my arguments were bringing up more intellect arguments. A person who has read Joseph Harris, the author of Rewriting, would relate me to his thoughts and theories. Harris proposes a social method to the world. He believes that individuals can capture more when discussing ideas and thoughts from their readings. After discussing opinions with my fellow students I wanted only to read books having different arguments that I could confer with for my spin on the story.
Until late middle school and early high school, I finally started to realize that what I read shaped how I interacting with people and how I grew up as an individual. I grew up as a different person compared to typical students in the eyes of the world. Reading, to young minds, might be a chore but actually it helps the individual evolve. Reading helps individuals understand problems in this world, brings new vocabulary into the brain, and gives the background of information for the ideas an individual has for this world. Ideas are brought into a person’s mind from reading other author’s ideas and then evolved through the personal beliefs of the person. Their personal beliefs are also shaped through the author’s words they are preaching to the reader. The ideas then lead to argument between students that bring up ideas the other students might not everyone would have seen. These intelligent arguments with friends help the individual grow an appreciation for different ideas and different views from all types of individuals.
Growing up kids including my self thought reading was this chore and had no significance what so ever. I have learned through my years of schooling that reading is one of the most important tools for being successful. Reading doesn’t just tell you about the past culture of the world but helps you create the future ideas that this generation will be founded on and shape you for the person you are to become. Reading might not always seem appealing to individuals but they will realize that it is a key factor in their whole cycle of development.
Works Cited
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Faber and Faber INC., 2006.
First time through
Austin Yocum
Professor Meehan
English literature
2/19/2012
I think my experience in this essay really made it happen. A reader can look into my past and feel what I have gone through. Though I know I can improve on much in this essay including more of Birkerts maybe or throw in Harris. If I return to this essay I would make it more in depth and really explain my experience with reading and Birkerts experience.
I pledge my honor that I have completed this work in accordance with the Honor Code.
Reading to Develop Ideas
All through my early education I thought reading was forced onto my fellow friends and me. I had no understanding of why this was happening because all I wanted to do was go out on the playground and have fun with my friends. We didn’t care who read, all that mattered to us was who could throw a baseball the farthest or fastest. We all saw other kids reading but we just made fun of those kids for being teacher pets and nerds. Those nerds would understand our culture and way of living at a much earlier stage than my friends and I that were just living in a fantasyland. For a long time I thought that reading was for nerds, I now realize that it shapes how you learn and grow as an individual.
From an early age all I worried about was sports. I could care less about reading in school and that could have been why I was considered behind every other student. From kindergarten to early middle school I had to take speech classes. At first I was confused why I was stuck in a room with only one other student and two teachers. I did not understand that most people including my parents could not understand a word I said to them. I had extreme trouble pronouncing words, reading from books or grasping the idea of what the book was telling me. Not until late elementary school did I realize that reading was very important in communicating with the world. For years I disliked it because I thought I didn’t have a problem. I enjoyed being with my friends because they understood me; being with them was like a separate life from school. Reading was a chore in my eyes that I did not want to do because I did not think I needed it. Reading was a huge project in my mind that I chose to leave unfinished.
Gerald Graff in his issue of “Hidden Intellectualism” describes that students harbor intellectual resources-“Street Smarts” that go untouched from regular schooling. Many assume that intellect comes from reading likes of Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare and many more. When I was a youngling, I did not need books for intellect but got by in school from skills I learned on the sports field and other ways. Street smarts I realized at the beginning of high school would not help me become more of my self. To become a better student and grow as an individual I notice that I needed to read more and harder material and not rely on my hidden intellect.
Birkert’s states, “For I don’t think that we ever really forget what we read, any more than we forget what we experience” (Birkerts 112). Birkerts is describing how we remember our past experiences that will later help us learn and accomplish many feats. As I kept reading more and more I could relate the stories to my experiences in life. Even though I had to read out loud to someone most of the time, which Birkerts would find not to be individually enlightening, my reading experience was the complete opposite of his. I decided talking to others helped me understand what I read and allowed me to relate to others more. I was saying my opinion and my arguments were bringing up more intellect arguments. A person who has read Joseph Harris, the author of Rewriting, would relate me to his thoughts and theories. Harris proposes a social method to the world. He believes that individuals can capture more when discussing ideas and thoughts from their readings. After discussing opinions with my fellow students I wanted only to read books having different arguments that I could confer with for my spin on the story.
Until late middle school and early high school, I finally started to realize that what I read shaped how I interacting with people and how I grew up as an individual. I grew up as a different person compared to typical students in the eyes of the world. Reading, to young minds, might be a chore but actually it helps the individual evolve. Reading helps individuals understand problems in this world, brings new vocabulary into the brain, and gives the background of information for the ideas an individual has for this world. Ideas are brought into a person’s mind from reading other author’s ideas and then evolved through the personal beliefs of the person. Their personal beliefs are also shaped through the author’s words they are preaching to the reader. The ideas then lead to argument between students that bring up ideas the other students might not everyone would have seen. These intelligent arguments with friends help the individual grow an appreciation for different ideas and different views from all types of individuals.
Growing up kids including my self thought reading was this chore and had no significance what so ever. I have learned through my years of schooling that reading is one of the most important tools for being successful. Reading doesn’t just tell you about the past culture of the world but helps you create the future ideas that this generation will be founded on and shape you for the person you are to become. Reading might not always seem appealing to individuals but they will realize that it is a key factor in their whole cycle of development.
Works Cited
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Faber and Faber INC., 2006.
First time through
Austin Yocum
Professor Meehan
English literature
2/19/2012
I think my experience in this essay really made it happen. A reader can look into my past and feel what I have gone through. Though I know I can improve on much in this essay including more of Birkerts maybe or throw in Harris. If I return to this essay I would make it more in depth and really explain my experience with reading and Birkerts experience.
I pledge my honor that I have completed this work in accordance with the Honor Code.
Reading to Develop Ideas
All through my early education I thought reading was forced onto my fellow friends and me. I had no understanding of why this was happening because all I wanted to do was go out on the playground and have fun with my friends. We didn’t care who read, all that mattered to us was who could throw a baseball the farthest or fastest. We all saw other kids reading but we just made fun of those kids for being teacher pets and nerds. Those nerds would understand our culture and way of living at a much earlier stage than my friends and I that were just living in a fantasyland. For a long time I thought that reading was for nerds, I now realize that it shapes how you learn and grow as an individual.
From an early age all I worried about was sports. I could care less about reading in school and that could have been why I was considered behind every other student. From kindergarten to early middle school I had to take speech classes. At first I was confused why I was stuck in a room with only one other student and two teachers. I did not understand that most people including my parents could not understand a word I said to them. I had extreme trouble pronouncing words, reading from books or grasping the idea of what the book was telling me. Not until late elementary school did I realize that reading was very important in communicating with the world. For years I disliked it because I thought I didn’t have a problem. I enjoyed being with my friends because they understood me; being with them was like a separate life from school. Reading was a chore in my eyes that I did not want to do because I did not think I needed it. Reading was a huge project in my mind that I chose to leave unfinished.
Gerald Graff in his issue of “Hidden Intellectualism” describes that students harbor intellectual resources-“Street Smarts” that go untouched from regular schooling. Many assume that intellect comes from reading likes of Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare and many more. When I was a youngling, I did not need books for intellect but got by in school from skills I learned on the sports field and other ways. Street smarts I realized at the beginning of high school would not help me become more of my self. To become a better student and grow as an individual I notice that I needed to read more and harder material and not rely on my hidden intellect.
Birkert’s states, “For I don’t think that we ever really forget what we read, any more than we forget what we experience” (Birkerts 112). Birkerts is describing how we remember our past experiences that will later help us learn and accomplish many feats. As I kept reading more and more I could relate the stories to my experiences in life. Even though I had to read out loud to someone most of the time, which Birkerts would find not to be individually enlightening, my reading experience was the complete opposite of his. I decided talking to others helped me understand what I read and allowed me to relate to others more. I was saying my opinion and my arguments were bringing up more intellect arguments. A person who has read Joseph Harris, the author of Rewriting, would relate me to his thoughts and theories. Harris proposes a social method to the world. He believes that individuals can capture more when discussing ideas and thoughts from their readings. After discussing opinions with my fellow students I wanted only to read books having different arguments that I could confer with for my spin on the story.
Until late middle school and early high school, I finally started to realize that what I read shaped how I interacting with people and how I grew up as an individual. I grew up as a different person compared to typical students in the eyes of the world. Reading, to young minds, might be a chore but actually it helps the individual evolve. Reading helps individuals understand problems in this world, brings new vocabulary into the brain, and gives the background of information for the ideas an individual has for this world. Ideas are brought into a person’s mind from reading other author’s ideas and then evolved through the personal beliefs of the person. Their personal beliefs are also shaped through the author’s words they are preaching to the reader. The ideas then lead to argument between students that bring up ideas the other students might not everyone would have seen. These intelligent arguments with friends help the individual grow an appreciation for different ideas and different views from all types of individuals.
Growing up kids including my self thought reading was this chore and had no significance what so ever. I have learned through my years of schooling that reading is one of the most important tools for being successful. Reading doesn’t just tell you about the past culture of the world but helps you create the future ideas that this generation will be founded on and shape you for the person you are to become. Reading might not always seem appealing to individuals but they will realize that it is a key factor in their whole cycle of development.
Works Cited
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Faber and Faber INC., 2006.
Paper #3 electronic age
Austin Yocum
April 17,2012
Professor Meehan
English 101
“The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learner’s souls, because they will not use their memories,” states Socrates. (McLuhan 113) Socrates knew that new ways of learning were being brought out in the world and this alphabet would change literature forever. Change is not a new topic to anyone in the world. Although society has experienced great changes before now, people’s experience of the world has been altered more in the last fifty years than in the many centuries preceding ours going from spoken stories, to the alphabet, to books, to the printing press and now to computers. When the alphabet was introduced books were only made for the rich. The rich could only afford them but now anyone can access literature and learn from it in a matter of seconds. Sven Birkerts and Marshall McLuhan noticed these mediums changing society before anyone else had a chance too. They noticed that these mediums worked us over and the fate of reading and understanding a good book are getting fewer and fewer for everyone. The Electronic Age is upon all of us and it is ruining our own self and soul, as Birkerts would put it.
Until writing was invented, man lived in acoustic space. Man learned news from words coming from the mouth and listening through the ears. Humans rarely knew what was 50 miles away and had no means of finding things out as quickly as they do now. Stories brought tribes and large amounts of people together and the person had certain ”self” to them. They used ears to process the information, which is completely different, then what humans use today. Humans are now using their eyes to process information.
Birkerts says, “The soul of our societal body, is encoded in print. Is encoded, for countless generations been passed along by way of the word, mainly through books”. (Birkerts20) Books bring a kind wisdom that cannot be met anywhere else and also with the experiences which we can use to interpret the behavior of people around us. Birkerts tells experience of reading allows us to, “question our origins and destinations and to conceive of ourselves as souls.” (Birkerts 30) The new medium is not letting people achieve these destinations because we are flowing through so much information so quick. The internet allows information to be processed very quickly at very large amounts. Literature now comes in forms of pdf, hypertexts, and blogs. Students are reading the topics so fast and just looking for a sentence that they like. They flow over the real material (or called skimming) and don’t process the information. This is hurting the student since they aren’t letting this information shape who they become later in life such as a book would do.
Increasing dependence on technology puts us “in great danger of collectively sacrificing a very precious, indeed a defining part of our experience.” (Birkerts 130) What is at risk is our very “soul”, the essence of who and what we are both individually and as a society. This is shown in a new movie, Trust. It is about how new technology is allowing a person to be someone that they aren’t. Internet lets people become a new individual, which allows them to hide into a new identity. The movie shows an old man pretending to be a college student online who earns the trust of a high school girl. The two finally meet and the girl notices that the young man is actually very old and in returns rapes her. New technology is making us lose our sense of soul. Now anyone can hide behind these new types of literatures and not have a sense of identity to them. When books finally were made only the rich could afford them and this gave them a sense of self. Now anyone can have these types of literatures since it is so easily accessed in our world.
Anyone in the world can read a book or even be a writer in this new age. New literature has let common readers now be writers. Blogs have helped this but it is now letting people change there self and allowing them to have many different identities. “…and who are you?” is that quote that is shown in the book, the medium is the massage. (McLuhan 152) McLuhan is showing that one person can have more than one self now and at one time.. The person is getting confused because they have so many different identities. The quote leads into the next page which states, “I-I hardly know, sir, just at present-at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” (McLuhan 155) This quote is shown with countless bodies with just numbers on them. McLuhan is showing his reader by the end of the book that people are now being known for many selves. McLuhan understands what the new media is working people over and changing their soul.
In the book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the reader goes into some sort of fantasyland. The new stylebook, almost like a movie brings the reader into a different world. Through reading the books pictures, with our eyes, the reader gets engulfed in a fantasy world. The book is creating an ordeal that doesn’t seem real. The book is leading the reader into believing that other movies and electronics texts could actually happen. The new electronic literature is destroying the individuals soul and their actually self and letting them believe they are a different individual in this new world.
Sven Birkerts does describe through The Gutenberg Elegies of how he feels and what happens when he reads a book. He gets brought into the book as he was the writer or how he was right there and he describes it as what a good book should do. I know that this is what readers are doing now with this new literature but it is somewhat different. The way Birkerts understands a book helps him with his soul/self. The new literature is getting the person to have a different identity and has a different defining moment for each person. I understand that many people could argue that new literature is helping create the persons self in a new way but for the most part it is bringing them into a world that can never be true. Looking at video games, many people see the real thing and that they could really do something that was in the game. The new literature is giving the reader a different experience then what Birkerts is describing that you get from books.
The day has come where families do not talk about how their day went at the dinner table but look at their phones and look at news or play games. I know that the electronic age has made our world a lot easier and smarter in different ways but as a whole it hasn’t made our world better. I’m not going to say it is the devil like Birkerts decided too, since this point really has no counter argument. No one can argue against a subject as the devil. At the same time, it is important to seek possible answers to the questions Birkerts poses and to consider, particularly in the context of education, the implications of some of the issues he raises. Just like McLuhan, Birkerts shows that schools are behind in times and maybe though a book was never an effective medium for children to use. The medium of computers and the Internet is upon everyone and people are not ready for it. The medium is controlling people and turning them into beings with more than one self. The world needs to slow down and gradually approach technology for literature and go back to the old fashion way of books.
I thought my quotes fit really well in my paper. I really liked writing about this topic and at first had a hard time deciding. I thought my points went very well and the paper went well with maybe minor mistakes.
Works Cited
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Faber and Faber INC., 1994. Print.
McLuhan, Marshall. The medium is the Massage. Corte Madera: Gingko Press, 2001.
Schwimmer, David, dir. Trust. 2011. Film. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1529572/fullcredits>.
3rd paper
Austin Yocum
April 17,2012
Professor Meehan
“The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learner’s souls, because they will not use their memories,” states Socrates. He knew that new ways of learning were being brought out in the world and this alphabet would change literature forever. Change is not a new topic in the world. Although society has experienced great changes before now, people’s experience of the world “has altered more in the last fifty years than in the many centuries preceding ours Going from spoken stories, to the alphabet, to books, to the printing press and now to computers has changed the way humans learn each day. When the alphabet was introduced books were only made for the rich. The rich could only afford them but now anyone can access literature and learn from it. Sven Birkerts and Marshall McLuhan noticed these mediums changing society before anyone else did. They noticed that these mediums worked us over and the fate of reading and understanding a good book are far from us now. The Electronic Age is upon all of us and it is ruining our own self and soul, as Birkerts would put it.
Until writing was invented, man lived in acoustic space. Man learned new things from word of mouth and listening through the ears. Humans rarely knew what was 50 miles away and had no means of finding things out as quickly as we do now. Stories brought tribes and large amounts of people together and the person had described self to them. They used ears to process the information, which is completely different, then what humans use today.
Birkerts says, “The soul of our societal body, is encoded in print. Is encoded, for countless generations been passed along by way of the word, mainly through books”. (p.20) Books bring a kind wisdom that cannot be met anywhere else and also with the experiences which we can use to interpret the behavior of people around us. Birkerts tells experience of reading allows us to, “question our origins and destinations and to conceive of ourselves as souls.” (30) The new medium is not letting people achieve these destinations because we are flowing through so much information so quick.
Increasing dependence on technology puts us “in great danger of collectively sacrificing a very precious, indeed a defining part of our experience.” (130) What is a risk is our very “soul”, the essence of who and what we are both individually and as a society. This is shown in a new movie, Trust. It is about new technology of computers and how any person can be anyone. It shows an old man being a college student who in the end talks to a high school girl then rapes her. New technology is making us lose this sense of soul. We can be anyone and not an individual. Way back only the rich could afford books given them a sense of soul. Now anyone can have anything since it is so easily accessed.
In the book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, it is shown indirectly and directly of how humans now learn with everything being easily accessed . Humans now learn through their eyes with television and computers etc. Throughout the book it shows pictures of eyes and to read the book, the reader needs to use their eyes since it is mostly pictures. The book is an extension of the eye and now humans bring information through it to their brain. Birkerts would say this extension is fine because he loves books. With books not just anyone could be a writer like himself but now this extension is used to read electronic literature which Birkerts believes is the devil.
COnclusion
The day has come where families don’t just talk about their day at the dinner table but look at their phones and look at news or play games. I know that this electronic age has made our world a lot smarter in different ways but as a whole it hasn’t made our world better. I’m not going to say it is the devil like Birkerts said since this point really has no counter argument. At the same time, it is important to seek possible answers to the questions he poses and to consider, particularly in the context of education, the implications of some of the issues he raises. Just like McLuhan he shows that schools are behind in times and maybe though a book was never an effective medium for children to use. The medium of computers and the Internet is upon everyone and the only to find out if it a good medium to use will be in the future.
Birkerts does it again
Are “Hypertexts” changing the way we learn and how things are done. The Museum hypertext is a very tricky thing to handle. For someone who is used to order this hypertext was not for me. It let you choose your own path and keep clinking and learning through the story. The Museum even can be a metaphor for itself since in a museum a person goes own there own path sometimes. It was just confusing to me. Right off the bat, I didn’t know where to go and tried to use the map and still had a hard time. Going into this new technology was new and different. It felt like I was just FLOWING through the Hypertext and not understanding or learning it. When you pick up a book you know where the book is going and it has a point. I feel like this hypertext and other hypertexts don’t have any POINT.
Sven Birkerts would agree with me on this. He focuses on the differences of print and electronic hypertext in his book. He believes that we don’t understand these hypertexts as well. Hypertext to him is too much medium and not enough message. Media is working us over and making our minds not grasp the message. These hypertexts are just random enough that are challenging and some have no point.
I feel that hypertexts are something that just are there to waste time. I understand that the creators are pointing in time and using old literature and just putting it in a new form. Like the hypertext Birds singing other birds songs. This shows old poem techniques in just a new way. At first it looked pointless then you can understand the deeper meaning. Though I started to understand the point of it, I flowed through the topic and felt like there was no point in reading it or trying it. Also hypertexts could help with finding more info on a topic since one word could lead to more. I think that going to a book and finding the information is better than connecting these things together based on just words.
Hypertexts are a new upcoming. They are changing the way students learn and not just by picking up a good pick. A reader strives for a perfect book and now maybe that reader can get it with hypertexts. The way that hypertexts are run are just not for me. It has to much going on with new media coming in all at once. Sometimes they have split screens, words moving, sounds. These are engaging but some story lines are just not to the point. I just need to pick a book up since I believe they bring forth the POINT better. Hypertexts are confusing and more confusing if you have never used them. Can you navigate a hypertext better than a book?? I know I can’t since hypertexts can lead to anywhere.
I feel like I am Birkerts a little. In his day all he used is paper,pen and pencil. Electronic were no where close to what they are today. Though technology grew fast and he would say I had more affiliation with it I still feel like younger children are used to it more. When I was in school they still used books just like Birkerts. Now a days schools are up with technology and using iPads. Children are more used to learning and understanding topics this way since their brain has always seen it. If in “Medium is the Massage” McLuhan said that school wasn’t up with times and students at home were learning different things than at school. Now it is the opposite and it seems like students are okay learning through hypertexts. Birkerts and I are just behind the times and our brain learns through a step to step process through books and not all over the place like hypertexts. This argument will always go on because arguments like these always pop in all centuries with new technology always coming up.
The world Wide WEB
The question has started coming up more and more each and every day. Is technology(the world Wide WEB) changing how we learn and what we learn?? It seems that the world is split with their answer. Some say that we know can get any information in the world right away and don’t need to use 20 books to get the answers. Many though think internet is the worst thing and destroying learning. This topic though has been around for a long time since Socrates. He even stated that he knew change would come and said the new technology would ruin great thoughts of people. The alphabet would change many minds and then this lead to better technology until where we are today with computers. Has the internet become a medium for many and making them stupid? Nicholas Carr brought this up in the article, “Is Google making us stupid?”
Carr is different then Birkerts right off the start. If Carr wanted to be like Birkerts, he would start destroying points on how the internet is the best thing. Carr knows that the internet is changing our way of learning but puts in sort of a counter argument also. She gives reasons of how students are changing with the internet but she stays non biased through out. He states that as a writer the internet as been a god sent. It has saved him so much time and is quicker and easier. Though this is stated he said that he is changed. He can barely read a whole article that is more than a page. Through the years many just want the information right away and the easiest. This is what Google has done for us. He brings up many big names and tells how their mental habits are changed. Bruce Friedman a blogger on the topic stated, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print.” It has and I can say that from others point of view and mine. I do not like seating down and reading a long book. I would rather type in the title on google and get a summary on it in 5 minutes. With phones though many will argue we are reading more than ever. This is true with text messages and articles right on phones that is true but how we comprehend the information is different. We aren’t grasping the meaning of things very well. We go to school and the school is way behind on technology then your home and now your learning two ways and throwing everything together. We are not comprehending information well like Socrates and great minds did when they used pen and paper. Our mind is being used different and is it a good different?? Carr would say it’s not and others like Murray would say yes. It’s all a matter of opinion and how you comprehend the material.
In this project it is not just about destroying a view. It is destroying a point and view but also throwing in material that says yes I know this can make my view seem wrong but I will not be working on that. For this project I’m been thinking on what to write. I’ve been leaning to using Murray and using Hugo in it. Murray likes how technology has changed learning and Hugo showed a new way of reading just as television did. We are learning with our eyes and not just with our hears. That will be the main part of my paper I think. It could change though just as technology is changing everyday.
