My literacies

Throughout my life, I have learned many things and found many hobbies. Naturally, as one tends to do, some hobbies and skills became things that I became very interested in or very good at, thus, making me literate in the different areas. Some of those hobbies/activities for me are: Watches, Cars, Bussing Tables, and Grammar........yes, Grammar.

First, Watches. Ever since I was about 13 years old, I have wanted a nice watch. Basically, I feel as though men don't have a lot of options when it comes to buying nice things. Women have necklaces, rings, bracelets, purses, etc, but what do men have? Watches. I received my first nice watch last christmas. My girlfriend bought me a black seiko with diamond hour markers, and from that moment on, I was hooked. I currently have a watch collection of 5 watches, I would have 6 but I sold one to get another. My watches span from my rather simple black seiko, to my newest/most pricey watch, a custom order diamond Movado. After buying some watches, I eventually wanted to learn how they work and how to put them together, so I am currently in the process of teaching myself about watches.

I have always had a fascination with cars. After many years and car shows, I can identify cars at night, from a distance, simply by their headlights. This helps sometimes with identifying police cars as well. I have also been interested in the inner workings of cars, but still only have a slight understanding of how they work/ how to fix them.

I have worked at Luciano's Restaurant in Wrentham, Ma for almost two years now. There are some days when I don't mind it, and there are others where I swear if the food weren't so good, and weren't free, I would quit. It is an upscale restaurant close to Gillette Stadium that is frequented every once in a while by Patriot's players, such as Vince Wilfork, Teddy Bruschi, Wes Welker, as well as former Patriot's player, TIm Tebow. During the past two years, I have essentially perfected the art of bussing tables. After practicing for so long, I basically do two jobs, I do my job, and then help the waiters and get paid extra. Not everyone can do this, but since I am able to complete my work quickly, I have time to do more, which helps a lot at the end of the day. I am currently in the process of making the transition to a waiter due to my good work, but I can definitely say that I am literate in bussing. I think working everyone should at some point in their life work in a restaurant. It is hard work but it usually pays off if you can handle it. The link below details some responsibilities for your typical busboy, but trust me, it is a job that has many different tasks, more than are mentioned.
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/kind-job-busboy-do-1214.html

Grammar, a topic that usually scares people, is something that I have been studying for many years. The reason that I am including this is because I have done a lot of learning outside of school. Once I started taking Portuguese in High School, I started to become interested in language structure, ended up buying a number of books, and studying outside of school due to pure interest. What started as a simple interest turned into my future career and college major. Ask me about the indicative mood, or the subjunctive mood, or verb tenses and I can describe them in and out. It is because of this that I believe learning out of school is just as important as in school.

While these things don't have much in common, I believe they will all help me some day in the classroom, for a number of reasons. Watches and Cars have taught me and attention to detail and working with small parts, as well as learning not only what things are, but also how they work. Bussing tables has taught me work ethic. In my opinion, restaurant work is some of the hardest work, people come and go at a very fast rate, few actually stay for extended periods of time. Two years is like 20 years in a restaurant. Working here has taught me how to handle stressful situations with a smile. I have learned to not let anything get to me at work. Finally, having a very profound understanding of my content area due to outside work is obviously useful because teachers need to be experts in their content areas. Overall, even though none of these are really related, they all contribute to my future goals.  

 

Town C High School

I have always had Town C as my neighbor. Admittedly, I would say that my home town and Town C  are not very similar, I have travelled to and spent some time in Town C frequently. Knowing of their condition, I wasn't sure how the school would be, but to my surprise, it was in better condition than I thought it would be. The school itself didn't necessarily reflect the outside, which is good because the school environment is important to how students do in school, a school that is in shambles may have poorer results due simply to the fact that students might not feel safe or happy in that environment. I was impressed by the principal's knowledge and attitude. He was very enthusiastic at our presence in his school, which made me feel welcome. As for the uniforms, I do believe in individuality; however, I feel as though the students will still be able to express themselves while still being appropriate, at least that's what I got from the Principal. I am very excited to begin observing and taking notes!

Teaching irony in literature

During chapter 2, the topic of irony was brought up and it got my attention because it provoked a number of different thoughts about irony and how it's perceived and interpreted. First of all, irony can be viewed very subjectively. Some of us may read a text about a pig who's favorite food is bacon and find it very....ironic; however, there are other people that may say, well, what's the big deal if the pig likes bacon. In this way, it's subjective, what may be ironic for one person may be normal for another. I find that as a result, it could be difficult to teach irony to students since they could have differing opinions. As a future language teacher, my classes will likely focus more on grammar than on reading novels, but I can appreciate the challenge that is irony in a reading assignment. I believe it to be easier for older students to understand because irony requires a higher understanding and a more advanced thought process because it requires students to connect two or more things and to find the similarity. This goes back to what was in chapter 2, on page 42, the teacher talks about how workshop students had a hard time identifying irony on their own. On page 43, they discuss teaching irony to two different classes in different age groups and how the students from both classes picked up on the irony through the use of comics and short stories. Irony can completely change the meaning of a text and how we interpret it which is why it's so interesting. It gives us multiple lenses through which we can read. Sometimes the irony is clear, and other times it requires a lot of analysis to pick it out, either way, irony is very interesting as well as potentially challenging for a future English teacher. One other little thing is sometimes people can't differentiate irony and sarcasm, so I have included a link describing the difference.
http://scepticalprophet.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/difference-between-sarcasm-and-irony/

 

About me

My name is Christopher Barbosa, I am a fourth year student at RIC and my major is Portuguese/Secondary Education. I also have a minor in Spanish.