The Future of Literacy

       For the most part most of the articles presented in "The Future of Literacy" are similar, with slight variations. Most of them are a white middle class stories of a person’s growth in literacy through the influence of their parents, but the one that I did connect most too was the case study of Joseph Johansen. Johansen comes from a large middle class family that was active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The tradition of education and literacy has been part of my family since my grandparents. My mother and father have always told me that it was important to have an education and that literacy is an invaluable asset. Similar to Johansen I also didn’t have a joy for some forms of literacy. Johansen didn’t enjoy writing until nearly the end of high school; Johansen emphasized that, “I didn’t enjoy writing until my senior year in high school or later. I never did well in English courses as a younger child” (WAW, 401). I can relate to this but not in the writing aspect of literacy. I have never had a passion for reading; reading always seemed like work and taxing to me. I rather had a passion for writing I loved to write and my mother constantly encouraged me to do so and it felt as if it came easy to me. It was an enjoyable pass time and was a good way to get my thoughts down. Now, as being an engineer I'm constantly involved in a completely different form of literacy than anyone else. Close to 90% of my work revolves around computers and expressing facts and points through graphs, designs, bar-charts or whatever else is need. On that level I also seem to connect to Johansen and feel drawn to his case study.