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Benjamin 1

Trametria Benjamin

English 101.018

WA4-Final Draft

Ruth Kramp
Elementary School Counselor

Ruth Kramp’s concern is that literacy is declining and


people are so into electronics in general which has
caused a decrease in reading and reading books. She
reads books everyday and does appreciate
technology. Mrs. Kramp references a book called
“Entertain Ourselves to Death” and she feels society
does that with the usage of it constantly. A lot of
schools are focused on the TAKS test and focus on
excerpts of books instead of reading their entirety. She
stated that the children and the joy of reading has
been lost over the years. She graduated in 1977 which
was pre-computer and stated how using a type writer
is better than a computer, but in using a computer it could eat up a lot of your time.
She feels literacy has gone down, due to the fact that parents work and do not have
as much time to read to their children. She reads to her eight-year old daughter
every night, while she is playing, about to go to bed or just anytime Mrs. Kramp has
the time to read to her she does. She feels reading gives children the ability to read
and time spent together doing something productive. She also feels that not
spending time with the family contributes to the decline in the literacy rate today.

Melissa Walker
Math Specialist
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Mrs. Walker feels literacy in society has semi-declined and notices that there is not
much reading at home from what she notices from the students who attends the
school she works at. Some students may see texting as a form of literacy but in her
opinion she feels it hinders their learning of grammar and proper speaking of
English. Texting may be easier to communicate with their peers, but not being able
to communicate with adults at the same
level. Back in high school literacy was not
dominated by technology. She was asked to
read all the time in her classes and they did
a lot of current events and did several
readings in periodicals, magazines,
newspapers etc. As a high school student
she admitted to not appreciating reading like
she does now because she does read for fun
now and she does not have much time
during the school year but she does try to
catch up during the summer. Though, during the school year she mainly reads
newspapers to keep up with the current events although it is not fun her she feels
she does need to keep up with what is going on in the world.

Crystal Hume
Elementary School Librarian

Mrs. Hume feels literacy is very important


and it is the foundation for everything you
do in life, even if you want to use math or
science in your career. You will have to
have reading skills, so the first thing
teachers need to focus on is literacy and
then from that they can branch out to
every other part of the academic world for
a student. Overall she feels literacy has
declined and she feels part of it is due to the internet and people being able to
quickly “Google” something which now become a verb or now they are being it and
they don’t have to really read as much or search as much using a book. With the
popularity of television and video games people do not read for pleasure they way
they use to. In her everyday life she wants the students to become lovers of books
and lovers of reading so she pushes reading books and researching through books,
and if a computer is needed she encourages the students to at least use an online
encyclopedia and to read the entry in its entirety rather than just “Googling”
something because the results will be much better if you use your research and
literacy skills rather than just typing something into a search engine.
Whitney Smith
Benjamin 3

Speech Pathologist

Ms. Smith stated that literacy’s role in education has made a different turn and the
influences of all technology has changed our dependency and the drive for students
to depend upon technology instead of using their
knowledge for reading and writing. In Ms Smith
everyday literacy she works on speech and
articulation with children and has a visual and a
word to go along with it to help children enhance
their vocabulary and better their speech.

Jeanette Aguirre

Literacy Specialist

Mrs. Aguirre agrees with Ms. Smith and goes on to


say that she does believe technology is great due to the fact that society can
research things faster. She is agreeing once again with Ms Smith that some of the
meta-cognition that was used in the past, in her opinion is not as present today
because everything is handed to students and there is no reading behind the
information just the click of a button and there it is. Overall she feels that the
names of literacy have changed no so much just the names of it but the theory has
remained consistent. Compared to her generation, which is the 70’s, her experience
in phonics based and decoding, but as a teacher she feels the curriculum does not
call upon either one as they were in her time.

Production Notes

Trametria:

Went and did seven interviews, wrote the questions to ask the interviewees, was
going to do the video but my clips were not playing so I quoted and typed what they
said in the videos.

Questions

1. How do you view literacy?

2. Do you feel literacy in society has improved or declined? Why?


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3. What kinds of literacy do you use every day?

4. How often do you read, write etc. for fun?

5. Do you feel today’s generation had redefined the word literacy?

6. What forms of literacy were used back when you attended high school?

Field Notes

Name: Crystal Hume


School History: N/A
Occupation: Elementary school librarian
Age: 36

Name: Whitney Smith


School History: N/A
Occupation: Speech Therapist
Age: 24

Name: Melissa Walker


School History: Bachelors of Science in Education w/ reading specialist
Occupation: Title 1 Math Specialist
Age: 45

Name: Jeanette Aguirre


School History: Catholic all girls school (New York), military, Bachelors in
Science, Masters in Bilingual Education at Southern Methodist University
Occupation: Reading Specialist
Age: 30’s

Name: Ruth Kramp


School History: Counselor certification from Texas A&M Commerce,
Undergrad in Finance from Baylor University, Masters in Teaching from
University of Texas at Dallas
Occupation: Elementary school counselor
Age: 50’s

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