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Nathan Wackett
English 101.18
WA2
A Sea of Literacy

As I sit here, staring at a blinking blank document, with just my header and a

catchy title that I thought sounded pretty cool, listening to my music, thinking of this very

sentence I am typing right now in my head, letting every grammatical rule, and spelling

law, and the knowledge that there are

miles of code being read every time I

make a key stroke, or click “next” on my

media player, and the notes being sounded

that I know are being played in the music

all cut through the waves of my mind in

the sea of literacy that floods me every time I end up in this situation. I know it’s paper

time. Just this glimpse into the current moment is affirmation that literacy of some sort is

always around me, everyday.

Waking up, reading the alarm clock. Reading. Numbers. Literacy in the morning.

Going to take a shower, reading the hot or cold knobs. Reading. Hot. Cold. Literacy in

the wash. Going to class, reading books, knowing what the jumble of semi-Greek

symbols and markings means and what those groupings mean within themselves. From

playing in band and ensembles and writing music to reading and playing notes and

having to know where these notes go and why they go there. For me these are the main

branches of my everyday literacy experience. But there are so many more aspects that

can come in to play. Interpreting art, conversations, numbers on meters, even personal

thought can play into a literary timeline of a day.

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Nathan Wackett
English 101.18
WA2
For most people my age, the phenomena of text messages seem to play a part, as

seen by the fact that our English professors

have had us incorporate it into our daily

literary timelines. But enough of generalities,

it’s time to get personal.

I am a somewhat studied musician, for

me, the bulk of my literacy expedition into life is playing, reading and studying music. It

is the sole reason why I am in college. Most of my days are spent in theory class,

breaking down pieces of music and how and why they work, like an architect studying

the principles of design; I study the structure and principles of music. (Others are spent in

performance classes, such as piano, marching or jazz band and my guitar lessons, where I

have to read and think of chords, rhythms and melodies and their placement on my

instrument, or even in the rare event that my band becomes active enough to play show, I

have to think of all that I’ve written and any extra exciting bits we have thrown in to

spice up our performance.) Even when I am just relaxing in my room, writing music I

have to think, “This won’t fit, or it’ll sound bad, or not sound how I need or want it to.”

Or to actively think of what actual effect I need to

use on my guitar and all the other billions of

things that run through my head when I touch

something musical. For me this is my literacy and

how I experience it everyday.

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Nathan Wackett
English 101.18
WA2
For the less bulk of my days there all the times I sit at my computer either

editing/recording music or social networking, or even in this case, writing a paper, this is

where I use a more literal take on literacy in

reading and writing real words that the

common person could pick up on, rather than

the warped take on music I tend to have. Even

watching T.V. listening to people, dialects,

inflections, even on the Spanish speaking channels I can pick up a fair percentage of what

the actors and newscasters are meaning. I tend to think of myself as a fairly intelligent

young man, I understand languages enough to know what words mean, and being in a

society and species that has language and communication, these things are always around

me. Otherwise we’d be grunting and throwing sticks and stones… although these in

themselves seem to be some kind of literacy, and even can be part of today’s human

literacy based on the person. All this literacy stuff seems to pretty much be human

nature.

There is one thing that I haven’t quite touched on, that I would like to, that I think

maybe a fair percentage of people may end up ignoring in hopes of trying to find some

super awesome meaning of literacy above the generally accepted (even I am guilty of that

by throwing music in front of me to guard myself from this fact) but, books still do exist,

and they are not the financial burden that college students like myself should fear. I know

a ton of people who still read these days, the lot of my friends mostly read themselves.

But I find myself in the group of kids who in a way shunned the written word. Only

having to read if tortured by the fear of a failing mark in a class. I had read at one point in

my life where it was enjoyable and I could learn what I wanted, and escape to some

fantastical land. But with the advent of Nintendo and the television, a lot of my
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Nathan Wackett
English 101.18
WA2
generation missed out on this vocabulary expanding, energy efficient form of

entertainment. I fear a lot of people don’t partake in this activity any more, even I am

guilty, I occasionally read, trying to chisel through the Harry Potter series, but I sadly

find myself without the time mostly, even

though I’m gaining my Reading Rainbow

inspired love for reading again. Perhaps some

Public Service Announcements are in order?

After all this divulging and insight into my

daily partaking of litera-seafaring, the once white whale of my paper is now covered in

the inky markings of completion and I can get back once again to playing my guitar. The

waves of my mind calming as the beast sinks to the briny deep of the sea of words

covering it, the cascading calm comes through and the ship is back to tranquil turf…or

surf in this case. Maybe one day Nahab will conquer extra curricular book reading too,

and have this activity join the school of other litera-sea fishes he has swimming in the

vast expanses of his mind. The tide of the litera-sea has ebbed away to come back again

for another paper, another day. Until then, I’ll be only waist deep in literary goodness,

just (t)reading water with common spoken words, the occasional bulletin or sign and my

music.