Jessica Howes

UWRT

Brown

25 November 2015

Contemporary Literacy Project

My personal definition of a literacy is any person or place that does a particular thing

very well, and can inspire or teach others to do it as well. For this project, I focused on the

literacies of my practicum- the UNCC Storrs Building. When I first began the practicum, I never

believed that a place could have a literacy in the first place; now I realize the Storrs Building is

much more than just a piece of construction. It is interesting to realize that a place can have so

many uses and how it can influence a person in various ways. The literacies I have discovered

are thought of and practiced in my daily life as a result. The main literacies I found were:

communal, digital, and artistic. In the next few paragraphs I will explain how each of these can

be counted as a literacy for my practicum and how they work as one.

The Storrs Building possesses the communal literacy by serving as a meeting place for

people, as well as a gathering area for socializing and such. Through observation I’ve found that

the building always has people within it, either doing school work or just relaxing and hanging

out. The architecture building fits my definition of literacy because it is a very common

communal place and it teaches others, myself included, that a lot of places thought to be just

another old building can be used as a meeting or socializing space. Now I find myself looking for

meeting places in various buildings across campus that I would not have even given a thought to

before I discovered this literacy about the architecture building. This literacy is mastered by

many people, and therefore easily promoted to the community of UNCC.

The next literacy that I chose to focus on is an artistic literacy; this is achieved in so many

ways by the architecture building, and has also had the most impact on me personally. This

literacy is virtually everywhere within the building. Architecture majors are very creative people

(obviously) and it is definitely a result of the environment that the building creates. Creativity

flows so freely there, and allows for it to bounce off of the students and affect everyone that

walks inside. The artistic literacy fits my definition because it inspires others to be more artistic

and to see the beauty of art. This has had an effect on me for sure, it inspired me to make a board

game as the visual piece of this project in the first place. I am not an artistic person in any sense

of the word, but my observations and time spent in the architecture building have made me strive

to be more artistic and attempt to influence others in a similar way that the building has for me.

The last literacy I discovered in the Storrs Building is a digital literacy. This is not as

obviously prevalent as the other two, but can still be found with closer observation. The digital

aspect is part of so many lives these days, and now can be applied to all sorts of academic things.

The building houses computers, televisions, and other electronic items that students bring in such

as: tablets, smart phones, and laptops. This fits my definition of literacy because the building

houses various forms of technology that allows students to make blueprints, models, and look up

information for projects. Prior to my practicum, I already possessed the digital literacy, as do

many others. With technology being such a large part of life for the majority of people, it is

harder to go without this literacy (especially in college). The architecture building itself is a great

outlet for students to access computers, programs, and resources that would generally not be

available to them outside of the building, which makes this literacy very important to it.