Can my families cookbooks be considered my Heritage Literacy?

For generations my family has passed down cookbooks, these amazing guides to the wonderful flavors are a staple of our family. Rumsey states "Heritage literacy is an explanation of how people transfer literacy knowledge from generation to generation and how certain practices, tools, and concepts are adapted, adopted, or alienated from use, depending on the context"(571). I feel this is our heritage literacy. Some of these books have been in our family for years, the oldest being 50 years old. My mother has become a tremendous cook and learned well from her mother and grandmother. These are the only books I have ever seen my mother read. My mom is very illiterate when it comes to computers, but she will not hesitate to jump on Google and look up a recipe. My sisters do not yet cook, but help with the tradition of learning new recipes as well. They use their literacy skills in the form of texts. They sometimes will text their friends for their mother's recipe or text my grandmother for those constant reminders. At times all the women will gather around the kitchen during one of our many fiestas and help cook the same meal. They all read from the book and create a work of art. These same cookbooks have been now passed to my wife. I hope that she will pass them to my three girls in the future as well.

Rumsey, Suzanne Kesler. “Heritage Literacy: Adoption, Adaptation, and Alienation of Multimodal Literacy Tools.” CCC 60.3 (2009): 573-586.

Have I had an original argument in my writing?

In reading Kantz she states “many students misunderstand sources because they read them as stories”(78). This really hit a never with me because I felt that she was directly talking about me. When I first started this course this is exactly the way I read all kind of sources, I felt that I was great reader and could comprehend their ideas with no problems. When I tried to transfer this to my writings for my other classes I realized that I was merely summarizing my sources. I was not able to come up with my own unique perspective of the topic. I now understand what a original statement or argument means, to apply material to a problem or to use it to answer a question, rather than to repeat or re-evaluate it. I think that remembering this when writing is so far the most important rule I have learned in this course. It seems that I have not had a original argument, but just regurgitation of the topic. I was not taught enough about writing in school. Teachers could have realized once they read my writing that I was just summarizing. Could they have not introduced these theories prior to passing out the assignments, I feel that this should be mandatory. I am very excited to continue in this class, I would like to learn new techniques and be able to excite them while I write my assignments.

Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively, Margaret Kantz, College English, Vol. 52, No.1 (Jan., 1990). pp.74-91

Everyone who revised my Q/R all agreed, I feel that they are falling into same routine. I received the same comments from two different students.

Revision is it really that important?

Throughout my learning experience I was never taught why revision is a important subject in writing. I was never given the logic behind revising one's writing. As a young writer I always wrote the way I would if I was speaking, after reading this article I now understand that this is impossible. Sommers states "the absence of research on revision, then, is a function of a theory of writing which makes revision both superfluous and redundant, a theory which does not distinguish between writing and speech (379). When asked to revise a peers writing the process was a simple one. I would read quickly through the text and review and agree with all the points that the writer was trying to express. The writer would usually leave wither the sense of accomplishment, when they really didn't accomplish anything. I was doing my peers a tremendous disservice my not really giving a proper critique. In just a short amount of time in this course I have learned that my writing has so much more to improve and the biggest factor that I have been neglecting is revision. Students need to understand how important this theory about revision.