JHolcomb's EDUC 5352 Blog

  Some Questions to Explore Reading Lives How does your current book travel around with you? What exact part of your backpack, pocket, purse, or whatever is involved? To my personal shame as a graduated English major, my book travels around in my front pocket. No, it isn’t a pocket Gospel of John, Constitution, Communist Manifesto, or an unpaid parking ticket. It’s a Google Pixel 4a that I purchased from www.BestBuy.com for $330. Before you judge me, I’m not allowed to have a backpack at work. It clutters the common area too much. I could leave it in my car, but I’m not going to spend a single minute of my break trekking back and forth across a parking lot. I read on my phone. Next question.   What are the regular sections of your day? What little reading appointments might be possible in there? On days I work, I have time to read during my breakfast before I leave for work and during my lunch break. Other than that, I must wait until I get home in the evening. ...

  A Slice of Life Grabbing my phone from the lock-off closet, I knew I had exactly forty-three hours of free time and nothing to do. After wasting seven minutes checking every social media account I had, I went to talk to Sam. What do you want to do? I don’t know, what do you want to do? Are we really going to Jungle Book this? Sam laughed. Mike walked up. What do you guys want to do today? Sam and I looked at each other and awaited the inevitable second round of Jungle Book-ing. We don’t know. Good. I’m going to hike Mount Yona with Rachel. Care to join us? What time are you leaving? Four. We’re spending the night up there. Bring stuff. Sam and I nodded. Both of us had some camping stuff, but not enough. We headed to Walmart and bought a pocketknife, a flint and steel, eight water bottles, some canvas, and a spool of good rope. We went back to campus. To save money on food, we raided the leftover Chick-fil-a catering bags. It was 3:45. We checked the weathe...

  Literacy in my Second Secondary School My literacy journey began when I was homeschooled. This section of my journey is a blur—summers, semesters, and winter breaks all ran together and it’s a bit of a jumbled mess. I remember enjoying the books I read, though I remember few of their titles or when I read them. Most of my reading was pleasure reading—I fell in love with the Lord of the Rings and kept re-reading them.   Because of the gaps in my memory of this period, I consider 9 th grade to be the true start of my scholastic literacy. My parents decided homeschooling had played its final part in my life and transitioned me into a charter school where I took my English, Spanish, and Math classes. Spanish and Math were fine—I did well but didn’t particularly enjoy them.   This character school, however, was where I realized I loved English.   Ms. Catherine Supplee was by far the most impactful educator in my secondary experience. She balanced fun and ...