Literacy Snapshot (Emilea Bade)

For the literacy snapshot project we were required to keep track of the reading and writing activities that we participated in on a daily basis. At first when we were told about this project I thought, "That is easy enough, we are all college students and all we ever do is read and write for class." But as I began to really pay attention to what I read and wrote those days outside of just what I did for my classes, I realized that I am almost always participating in some type of literacy activity.
I think that often times at our age we don't realize how often we do these things because we have been reading and writing for so long that they just come naturally to us and we do them automatically without consciously thinking about them. When I began to dig deeper than just the reading and writing that I do for class I realized that sometimes I also read books just for fun, like right now one of my friends has recommended that I borrow a book and I have been reading it when I have free time (which is rarely, but it happens). Reading for fun and reading for class, however, are common of most people our age and most are very aware that they do these two things.
It was when I looked farther into the literacy activities that I participate in that I began to get a bit more creative. For example, I went to my parent's house this weekend so that my dad could change the oil in my car. On the way down to Williams (a small town near Bedford), I noticed that I was reading all of the road signs along the way as well as the signs for different stores along 37. As I noticed this I realized that I always do that when I am driving somewhere even though I already know what all of the road signs between Bloomington and Williams say. While I was there I also helped my mom make a dessert for the Labor Day cookout they were having today. In order to do this I had to read the recipe so that I knew how to help her with the cookies. When we start to pay attention to all of the times that we are reading and writing, we realize that doing both of these things is a major part of our functioning throughout the day and we realize how lost we would be if we were unable to do them.