Response to Keith Gilyard's essay, "Literacy, Identity, Imagination, Flight"

This blog post is a response to the need of four journal entries. This journal entry is related to objective 3 on the syllabus, "Articulate and demonstrate ways that writing can be used as inquiry" because my response questioned the concepts discussed in the essay. I didn't really understand what I was reading and found myself confused and looking for answers

Keith Gilyard’s piece titled ‘Literacy, Identity, Imagination, Flight’ discusses dilemmas faced with teaching literacy and writing. Gilyard’s piece was one that I found quite confusing. He covered several topics such as the Asian classmate who related to aspects of black texts, cinema, and literature due to his exposure to it and similarities found in Asian American culture to the different privileges famous writers in societies received depending on the content they wrote or their unique prose. With the diversity of his essay, there were often times where I questioned what the main idea of the reading was. There were times where I thought I came to an understanding- only to be confused once again.

I understood a few sections of his essay such as the effect someone’s discourse has on their life. As stated in the text, “Why, even, is sloppy handwriting a mark of status if one is a doctor or celebrity, but a negative if one is an adult of relatively low status, a trait perhaps excusable in the writing of boys, but never in that of girls?”. The phenomenon that it’s okay for boys to have sloppy handwriting but not deemed ‘ladylike’ for girls is one that has implemented in the minds of many people in our society. A woman’s penmanship shouldn’t dictate whether she’s a good writer nor should it be deemed as something that is unladylike.

#keithgilyard #inquiries #visionsandcyphers