[musical introduction]
Obama: It's been a long time coming.
But tonight, because of what we did on this day,
in this election, at this defining moment--change has come to America.
Female narrator:The word I chose is change: a change in
scenery, in environment, even in the
people around you. This change may bring
about uncomfortableness, but with change
comes incredible growth. When one can stay
confined to the mundane, it's best to
take a chance instead. Overstep your
individual boundaries and limitations,
and have the courage to seek change.
Male interview: The literacy experience I remember the most
are the ones where there was risk
involved, and, you know, I remember
fifth grade, because that's
when I came to the U.S. I was in
fifth grade, moved into fifth grade,
and it was in the middle of the year. It
was February, in fact, it was close to
Valentine's Day, which is not something I
know, and so suddenly the cultural
change that I experienced required a lot
of having to figure things out but not
in a public way. I wanted to pass. But I
remember early on getting in
the mail one of those award letters
--you've won a million dollars--which
again was a whole new genre for me and
my family. So I got that in the
mail and thought, "Oh my god, we actually won this
thing!" So there's a lot of this sense of
vulnerability that literacy has. It's
reading that text and not
understanding what its function is.
So yeah, I was an outsider and
marked in that way and so it was very--
I've always-- it's important to me to find
ways to fit in so that I don't
seem like an outsider.
Now that has changed over time, but as I
get older I think I'm much more proud of my
cultural background, but early on I
wanted nothing to do with it, to identify, so
literacy was an effort to erase and fit in and reduce the risk of being marked as an outsider.
Female narrator: I selected the word change because the most
influential aspects of my life that have
truly imprinted my literacy are times
that I've been exposed to different
environments and people. In 2013, I
traveled to Israel on a free trip, not
having any expectations of what was to
come. However, even though I didn't have a
religious background I was really
imprinted by the Israeli culture
and by the Israeli soldiers who assisted us on the trip. I gained an
incredible interest in reading about
what was going on in the Middle East as
well as writing my own stories that were
influenced by their culture and their
country. Traveling to Israel really gave
me an incredible perspective of the
media and the literacy that they portray
to viewers and readers. Situations
are often described in ways that they
were not actually like, and I became a
reader who is more informed and more
interested in finding out the different
perceptions of the situations that did
occur. From being in the Middle East,
which is such a chaotic area of our
world, I really realized that there are
many minority groups and individuals who
don't have a voice, like the voices that
we have here that can be so openly heard.
And literacy has truly given them the
ability to express their feelings.
Realizing this has made me more open to
sharing the stories and works that I've
created myself, and I am definitely more
open to sharing other pieces that I find
online or within books to my friends and
family, who I really cherish
Male interviewee: Real impact in literacy is when I got to high
school, I basically had a cumulative GPA
of 0.8 going to high school and just
didn't really focus like I should've, but
then between my junior and senior year I
went to summer school and I took an
English class. And with this English
class during the whole summer, I wanted
to be able to achieve getting a good
grade, because I had a professor or a
teacher before that told me I would
achieve nothing. And she told me I was
bad at literature skills and everything,
and I knew I wasn't. So that motivated me
to basically not only to see the
light, but kind of prove to her that I'm
not what she thought--that she shouldn't
have judged me. Basically I went back to
high school my senior year. I had to make
up 10 different classes from my junior,
sophomore, and freshman year from failing them.
I took what was called credit recovery, and
actually passed basically all my English
classes except one in my junior year
with the teacher that doubted me.
So when I went to my senior year, I
focused myself on reading. I did a lot of
reading, I did a lot of writings, I actually
wrote a speech, the first speech I wrote
it's called "How Can We Change?"