Becoming Literate

The rise of technology and pop culture go hand in hand. Pop culture has always found a way to keep up with technological advancements. For example, the invention of radio brought music, sports, and many other forms of entertainment to a widespread audience. In part to the creation of the internet, pop culture is vastly different than it was decades ago. Some believe that this has caused pop culture to take a turn for the worse. They say the internet has caused interpersonal relationships to fade away in favor of likes and followers. Others question if pop culture even exists today. However, I disagree that pop culture today is indeed beneficial. In Watching TV Makes You Smarter , Steven Johnson's main point is that if entertainment is consumed in the right manner, it will improve the mind’s cognitive abilities. His argument revolves around how television and movies have drastically increased their number of threads. Johnson explains “the Sleeper Curve,” which shows how entertainm...

The first time I can remember being able to read was around kindergarten. The children's book Parts by Tedd Arnold is one of the first books I remember reading. The book is about a young boy who lost his first tooth one day. This worried him, causing him to think he would lose all his body parts. However, the boy's parents reassure him that it is perfectly human to have a tooth, or a strand of hair fall out. Tedd Arnold's choice of words and rhymes in his books appealed to children my age at the time. My father would always read it to me and my younger sister. I loved the book so much that I would start to read it to myself. Even though I did not fully know how to read on my own, it still encouraged me and made reading one of my favorite things to do in my spare time. With my father being an English teacher, literature played a crucial role in my young life. Waking up on a Sunday to read comics from the newspaper while eating breakfast was sometimes the highlight of my day....