Ok, so the first picture may be difficult for you to see, but these are pictures of my friend, Kyle, and his facebook page. Last week, Kyle died and it has been weighing on me very heavily. I have known Kyle since I was in preschool, he was one of my favorite people, and one of the best people I know. One reason I chose to do my photovoice on Kyle this week is because he is very much on my mind right now. I also feel that this is, in some way, a small tribute to my very good friend who I have not talked to or seen in far, far too long and is now gone. (I am grateful that I feel comfortable enough with all of you to share this.)
But how does this connect to literacy? Well, since Kyle has been on my mind lately, naturally I was thinking of him when I had to create this photovoice. I see many ways to connect literacy to these two pictures, as well as to the events that have taken place over the last week. If you could look more closely at the picture of the facebook page, you would see that his wall is filled with posts from after his death. As people found out, many went to Kyle's facebook page to post comments to him. Though Kyle will obviously not be able to read them, people have been writing for a week now, all addressing him as though he will soon log on and read all of them. For many people, including myself, this is a cathartic process that we need to go through. In order to understand our feelings such as grief and confusion, we all chose to write and, in a sense, to talk to Kyle. (I, in fact, found myself talking to Kyle before going to sleep the night he died.) Language is a powerful way in which we understand the world around us. If you were to look at the posts, you would see that some of them merely say "I miss you," "I love you," or "the world will never be the same without you," all true sentiments. However, some of the posts share stories, pictures, or links to videos of Kyle. Not only do we feel the need to write and speak, we also share our pictures and memories through visual representations. Most of Kyle's friends, including me, changed their profile pictures to ones including Kyle. His death has reminded me that there are so many ways in which we have chosen to preserve his memory and also to cope with his death. These are all ways in which we are using literacy to navigate this diffucult time.
Furthermore, this experience reminds me that the forms of literacy are changing. When I first found out about Kyle, it was in a text message from my friend, Pat, who had heard about it from another friend. Kyle arrived at the hospital around 2 on Wednesday morning and I knew about it by noon. He died at 5:30 pm and I found out at 7:30. His obituatry was not in the paper until Sunday, but I knew on Friday when his wake and funeral were going to be because my friend, Dan, had posted it on his facebook. All of this was information that, at one time, would have taken a long time for me to receive (I may not have known about Kyle for days after his death instead of the day of), but because of new technologies, all of this information came to me rather quickly. The way that people interact with the world, and even their own feelings, has changed because of changes in forms of literacy.
For me, writing this photovoice has been helpful because I am able to share my grief with all of you through writing. But I am not merely writing a journal on paper that no one will read, I am having a conversation with you that you may or may not choose to join in on through the use of this blog, a newer form of writing and also speaking.
Because I am using this photovoice as a tribute to Kyle, I will conclude this entry by giving you a link to a youtube video made in the memory of Kyle. He was funny, sweet, smart, and a great person, all of which you can see a small part of if you choose to follow the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaBzs1Mc0F4&NR=1
Allie--
ReplyDeleteI am very sorry about your friend--What a sweet soul you have to include him in your post and to honor his memory.
Facebook, text messaging, youtube, newspaper, etc. etc. I know that technology is often dubbed as an insincere form of communication, but in the case of Allie's friend, Kyle, I do not know if we can be so quick to make that judgment. Losing someone, or even just hearing about the death of another human being, is incredibly difficult. It is something that we will all face, yet it is hard to accept that. Everything about death is very hard to accept, which is why communication is so important during those trying times. Our need to tell people in our lives that we love them, or to write on a facebook wall as a memorial to someone we've lost, is a cathartic and wonderfully expressive form of communication. It is, in a way, literacy of feelings and emotions. We must attempt to try and say how we're feeling, whether through a text, an email, a youtube video, our actions, or a blog posting.
I hope that you will continue to talk with us about this, Allie, if you need to. We are all very sorry for your loss.
Thanks for your brave, insightful post about Kyle. Jenna's right--we're all sorry for your loss and I'm glad our 'blog turned out to be a safe outlet for you to think about him in a way you might not have without literacy on your mind.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the technological literacies you acknowledge, I'd say there are specific literacies that surround death--what we're allowed to say, what's taboo, and this changes depending on the circumstances of death and even across cultures. Technology might be crossing some of the accepted boundaries, or maybe "challenging" our accepted protocols around how we honor people in death. I wonder if you can think of ways authors/poets have written about death, both in traditional ways and in ways that were shocking when they were published. As morbid as it may sound, adolescents are often fascinated with death--it happens in every culture--making this a compelling topic of study in the English classroom.
I want to tell you once again how sorry I am about Kyle. I know it's been hard on both you and Kate.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I think this is an interesting post, particularly because of what we were talking about in class the other week. We talked about texting and technologies and how students are communicating differently and, thus, reading differently. But it's not just the younger generations that have been using these new technologies...it's adults as well. In my job on campus as the Assistant in the Language Center on campus (Whitby 3, check it out), I had to redesign the websites for the departments that I worked with. Originally, I wrote the information in well constructed paragraph form, much as I would write a book. As soon as I went to a Web Lab meeting about these websites, I saw the error of my ways. I was informed that reading a website is a little bit like reading a newspaper. With newspapers, the most important headlines are put above the fold. With websites, the most important, eye-catching things are put at the top, before the reader has to scroll down. Not every word of a website is read (except by the creator). Instead, websites are scanned for important information and then, the user moves on. A woman who is at least 40 years my senior explained this to me. She had to learn how to read all over again.