Gros 1 Ethan Gros Lehua Ledbetter WRA 110 26 January 2014 Literacy is the Backbone behind Friendship and

Culture Throughout my life I have grown up in a suburban area with little diversity and few friends, so when I went to the International Academy for high school, I was nave to many of the different cultures that I was introduced to. Learning about the different cultures and their literacy gave me the connection to create a strong friendship with my new friends. Many of my friends are multi-cultured, so I had to learn about their culture in order to understand them as a person. They had a cultural literacy that I had to learn about, so that I could gain an understanding of how their culture guides their actions and beliefs. So when my friends and I became closer we began to create our own vocabulary which would usually involve saying things that only we knew the meaning about; literacy of my friends culture is what allowed us to grow closer together. Cultures have influenced me throughout my life which has helped me to develop a literacy specific to myself. The first year of high school I had not known about many cultures and their traditions, so when I met my best friend who is Muslim, I knew very little of the Muslim literacy. When getting to know my friend he told me many of the common Muslim traditions. One time I didnt understand the reasons for him not eating at lunch, and when I offered him to eat I mistakenly thought he did not have any food. Then he explained to me that it was part of his Muslim tradition to participate in fasting during Ramadan, this means that they only can eat before the sun comes up and after the sun goes down. Also when I saw a lot of women with head scarfs I thought that they were just wearing them because the weather was cold, however I started to

Gros 2 notice that they wore them all the time. When I finally asked my best friend about them he told me that were not headscarves at all, rather they are called hijab in the Muslim tradition and are worn by women to conceal themselves. These are just a few of the occasions in which I had to learn the literacy of Muslims in order to better understand their culture. Throughout my time at the International Academy I learned peoples cultural literacy which allowed me to gain a better understanding about the different cultures that made up my school. Throughout my time at the International Academy my friends and I made up several different games with words and phrases. Once when my friend and I were in math class together, we both were working to solve a problem on the board and when my friend got the answer before me, he raised his hand and said what he thought was the answer. However when the teacher told him that the answer was wrong I raised my hand and said the correct answer. Then I yelled out Pachowned!!!, which was one of the first words I made up. The definition of pachown between my friends and I were to beat someone in a competition or successfully answer a question correctly. This is a word most people do not know the meaning to, so when my friends and I used pachown many people did not understand why we were saying it or what the word meant. This depicts that my friends and I had a friendship literacy that connected us as friends, preventing people from completely understanding our friendship unless they knew the literacy that we share between one another. Throughout everyones life we each create literacy specific to ourselves, just like my friends and I created literacy specific to us. Growing up my parents always taught to me to call adults or teachers yes sir or yes maam as a sign of respect. Also I was always taught to say prayers before I ate dinner. In school we had to memorize and recite the pledge of aligns every morning. On the high school football team I called the plays for the defense so I had to learn a

Gros 3 whole new literacy that we called each play. Now that I attend the football games at Michigan State University, I had to learn the specific chants that the student section says every year. My own literacy has continued to grow and build as more cultures influence me helping. Literacy is not just the ability to read and write, but is applying what certain words or phrases mean in order to gain a deep understanding of the origin in which the words came from. There are several different languages in many different cultures, but just knowing to read and write in that language does not mean that one knows the literacy of that culture. In order for someone to be literate is being able to know and understand the words and phrases that make up the culture. I had to learn about my best friend and the Muslim religion with some of the literacy behind his beliefs in order to understand my friend better. Also in order for people to understand the true bond of friendship that my friends and I share, they must first understand our literacy and the origins of our literacy because that is what shaped our friendship. Friendships are just one culture that shapes your own literacy. Growing up there are several cultures that influenced me and as these cultures influenced me I gained a new literacy that became my own personal literacy. After reading an excerpt from The Elements of Literacy by Julie Lindquist and David Seitz, I have gained a new perspective on the meaning of literacy. The authors definition and perception of literacy by the end of the article, is the uses of literacy is linked to historical moments and change over time(Lindquist and Seitz, p.12), therefore the best way of understanding what literacy means today is by looking with a broader historical perspective (Lindquist and Seitz, p.12). There is not one specific definition; instead the ways to find the meaning of literacy is to understand the different perspectives throughout history or by understanding a cultures literary norms, so that one can adapt to the culture.

Gros 4 Work Cited Lindquist, Julie, and David Seitz. The Elements of Literacy. New York: Longman, 2008. Print.