So far I've been assigned to read five difference educational narratives, and they've all had various similarities, and all have had their differences. Some of the most obvious ways they differ are in the author's tone and writing style, and in the subject they're writing about. While they're all about learning experiences, each was different, and they varied in magnitude; from something as essential as learning to read, to something as inconsequential as learning to live without Google products. The seriousness of the subject also impacts the tone of the writing, which is another way the narratives differ: the tone of "Learning to Read" is always very strong, and solemn; "How I Learned to Program Computers", on the other hand, is written as more of a guide directed at anyone who might find themselves reading, and as such the tone is more agreeable and inviting. The writing styles and formats all differ as well, but that results more from the author and the method of publication rather than the content of the writing.

The process of my learning experience:

I intend on writing my first essay about my educational experience of learning to form ideas and beliefs and to substantiate my beliefs with logic and rationality rather than with emotions. The process mostly started with cognitive dissonance - the feeling of holding two conflicting ideas. The discomfort of cognitive dissonance came from holding beliefs or having ideas which I could not support - there was a lack of clear, rational and logical thought behind what I believed. There were ideas I held where, despite being something I may have felt strongly about, I simply could not back up. If I had to argue for my stance or belief, I could not hope to win. The feeling of cognitive dissonance led to questioning my stances on everything, and analyzing it with logic and rationality. Ultimately, my learning experience progressed to me being able to back up, support, articulate, and argue anything which I believe firmly without faith or emotions.

Cubing Practice

Goat Association:

Goats can be associated both with agrarian societies who use goats as livestock for producing meat, diary, and wool. They can also be associated with nomad societies who herded goats as livestock for the same reasons. Most goats, both wild and domesticated, are part of the genus Capra, which includes nine species of goats. However mountain goats are a separate genus but can still be associated with regular goats. All goats have distinctive rear-facing horns, and can be associated with other animals which have horns. Their use as livestock can relate it to other farm animals such as cows, pigs and horses. The Angora breed of goats produces hair which is used as wool and can be associated with sheep.

Finger Paint Comparison:

Finger paint compared to regular paint:

Finger paint is applied with the fingers, paint is not.

Finger paint is used only for artwork, paint is not.

Finger paint is typically used by children, paint is not.

Finger paint is generally only used to color something; paint is also often used to protect objects or to provide texture.

Finger paint is always non-toxic due to its application; paint has historically been made with harmful substances.

Finger paint does not allow for great detail for artwork, paint does.

"How I Learned to Love Traveling Solo" by Cate Hunston details the author's experiences with traveling alone and is written as a guide do it too. Personally I've always been quite unsociable and so a guide on how to travel alone is rather meaningless to me; I don't have anyone I would want to travel with anyway. A guide on how for traveling in general would be much more appropriate. As an educational narrative and a blog post it follows a similar pattern as some of the earlier narratives I've read. Everything is in very specific sections, rather than written in say, paragraph form. These sections are pertinent and no attempt is really made at linking them together; they're all just about the same topic overall.

One problem with this article is that traveling, to the author, seems to be pretty much just a hobby. One key aspect of most of the other educational narratives is that they're all talking about learning something that is very important to the author. Basic education, or perhaps programming computers to someone who works as a programmer, are crucial. Malcom X wouldn't be commonly known name if he was illiterate. The author of this article, on the other hand? She'd probably still be writing articles if she never spent a day in her life traveling solo.

I recently compared Malcom X's "How I Learned to Read" to the first two educational narratives I blogged about. But, as it turns out, I was supposed to compare it to a different narrative, titled "I Just Wanna Be Average" by Mike Rose, so I'll do that, too. First of all, I simply cannot stand the writing style of Mike Rose. Being forced to read entire novels written like that was single-handedly enough to make me detest high school English classes at times. The sheer amount of completely unnecessary details that turn one sentence worth of significant information into one page just irritates me. Perhaps I'm too pragmatic but I really don't care that his Spanish I teacher was short, for example. He's not even relevant to the story; he doesn't actually need to be mentioned, and the fact that he's short certainly doesn't need to be there. Details are great, useless details not so much, and a saturation of useless details is horribly annoying to read. I learned more relevant information from a single page with constant spacing from Malcom X than three pages with no spacing from Mike Rose.

That aside, the message in both narratives is very similar. Both had inadequate educational opportunities, both were inspired to make the most of it and became successful in their endeavors. They differ in that teaching yourself literacy in prison is not quite the same as attending some Catholic school, but the results are certainly comparable.

Most Important Learning Experience

Learning English was crucial in being able to learn anything else, so that's the most important thing I've ever learned. There are more basic things I've learned such as walking and motor functions but it's certainly possible to get where I am with physical disabilities, but without being able to read, write, speak and understand English, it just couldn't happen.

I'm only posting this to make my blog less desolate.

The excerpt "Learning to Read" from The Autobiography of Malcolm X details how Malcolm X gained literacy from studying in prison, and with it, a love of books and reading. Like the previous two articles, it is a narrative about someone's experience with learning something. One of the major differences, however, is that it is much less focused on what is being learned and how to learn it, but rather, the experience of learning it. Feross Aboukhadijeh's writing is practically a guide, and "How I Learned to Live Google-Free" is not far from it, but Malcolm X is obviously not trying to teach the reader how to read. Instead, he focuses on his motivations for doing it, and the prison environment he learned in. There's nothing in the previous two articles that can compare to feigning sleep when guards walk by after-hours, only to return to reading once they passed; and it's details like this which, in my opinion, make Malcolm X's writing much more interesting than that of the other two authors. Additionally, teaching yourself literacy in a prison cell is a great deal more impressive than going a week without Google products; the learning to read excerpt is very inspirational, much more so than the other educational narratives.