Southfied Literacy Tour: Expectations

1.) We chose to visit a library, music store, grocery stores, neighborhoods, apartment complexes and restaurants within the city of Southfield. We thought that because our school is so diverse we needed to drive around and target many places in order to fully understand the city and our students. The library is obviously a good resource for literacy learning, grocery stores are where students go with their care takers, music stores give us an idea of the music our students are listening to and restaurants show us where families go out to dinner. Lastly, we thought that driving around neighborhoods and apartment complexes was important because students spend most of their time in their own homes, so we needed to gain perspective on where our students live.

2.) We expect to see the diversity found in our school also reflected in the city. By targeting all of these places we expect to see people taking part in the activities that fit these places. For example checking out a library book at the library, purchasing groceries at the grocery store and hopefully families outside of their homes and children in the area. We are hoping to hear some of the languages represented in our students within the school outside of the school as well. Lastly, we expect to learn a great deal about the community, not just in a literacy perspective, but also learn more about the families and places where our students come from.

3.) The visits confirmed my expectations. In all of these places we could expect people to be doing what they normally do depending on the location. We found culture within the community, but not as many people were out because it was after school when people were still at work. Because the city has such a large population we still saw people interacting with their community, regardless.

4.) After discussion we expected to see many new litericies specifically related to the culture of the city and the diversity in language. We think that there will be buildings related to religious practice and honoring languages and culture. Also, we chose to visit the library where traditional litericies are found in books but there was also technology or new forms of literacy. We also found examples of litericies, such as signes and labels of the area, which would be usual for any city. Oral language is found throughout Southfield in the vast amount of languages spoken. Writing will be found throughout the community as well. In our school, signs are written in three languages: Arabic, French, and Spanish, the three dominant languages represented within the school. My question is then, will these languages be honored on signs within the community because there is a prevalent population within the community, or will everything be written in English, making it incredibly difficult for families to communicateand function within the city? I am interested to see how language is treated within the community itself.