My literacy development is largely influenced by the intersection of the community I come from and my education. I grew up in a middle-class, suburban city: Elk Grove. As an overview, my hometown’s demographic is quite diverse, with an ethnic composition comprising of a discernible amount of minority groups. An online database actually reports the population includes 35.8% White residents, 27.8% Asian residents, 18.4% Hispanic residents, and 10.4% Black residents. This can be conveyed in my high school’s demographics, as well. Franklin High School was a moderately-funded school that was able to hire teachers who were adept in their field. I frequently challenged myself to take on rigorous courses, all of which came with a heavy load of reading and writing. I performed fairly well in these classes and was writing at a B or A level. When I think back on my honors and AP Arts and Humanities classes, each teacher encouraged me to read, write, and speak in a variety of ways. For example, my senior year AP Literature professor taught me critical reading strategies that transferred with me to college and helped me in my ENL 3 class. The effective ways in which my high school educators taught me to improve my language, writing, and reading knowledge contributed a great deal to my literacy development that laid a strong foundation for college.
Among all the pros, one con from my high school education, though, was the lack of multicultural curriculum. For myself, I never truly felt that diversity and ethnic populations were highlighted enough. As I think about it now, I find this ironic too considering how diverse Elk Grove is. Therefore, I was prohibited from furthering my critical literacy. As a high school student, I prided myself in thoroughly learning and understanding what was taught to me. Therefore by not being taught a multicultural curriculum in school, I feel like I was, in a sense, kept inside a bubble that protected me about the larger world issues and current events. However, when I arrived at UC Davis, I can say that I definitely took the matter into my own hands to change this.
When I entered UC Davis in 2016, the new president was elected into office and I quickly learned that student activism was very much alive here. Coming from the local context of my high school, the environment at Davis took me by surprise. By my second year, I decided to minor in Asian American Studies to further my multicultural literacy and critical literacy. This decision allowed me to immerse myself into a curriculum that wasn’t provided in my high school. Through these ethnic studies courses, my reading and writing is more purposeful and specialized in subjects that I find interesting and also applicable to society. I am also learning new strategies of drawing conclusions and analyzing points of views from scholarly texts. Overall, I am confident that my undergraduate education is a key turning point for my literacy development because I will carry with me relevant literacy skills into my personal and professional life.
Michelle Galat's UWP101 blog 