We read Elaine Richardson's piece "My Ill Literacy Narrative: Growing up Black, Po and A Girl in the Hood." for homework. In these stories Elaine explains through her own life experience that there is not just one side or contex to words or events. She explains that her brother calling a girl pretty right infront of her meant that he was calling her ugly, and when he said you cant be the man she took it as boys were dominant over girls. I think we have all had expirence like that being on both sides, telling your mom you want pizza for dinner she takes it as shes not good at cooking. Boys will think them hitting on you is nice but a girl will take it as mean or degrating and the boy only got that he was hitting on her. I have had many of these moments where words can have double meanings, in each instints it was because of a lack of expirence by one person or another. Each person has different expirence and thats why words have different meanings to every person.

I am from writtings

In class our last two assiagnments, consist of writing about where we were from. The first way was writing a poem like the poem "Where I am From" and the second approach was writting a story about where we were from like Jay Z did in Decoded. I found it much easier to tell where i was from in a story then writting a poem. I didnt fully understand the poem "where I am From", it was confussing to me because she used one word to describe a whole memorey or event that was important to where she was from. I didnt not understand the importance of these words or get why the described where she was from. On the other hand the way Jay Z described where he was from through detailed experience in his life made me realize why they were important and described where he came from as well as capurting my attention more then the poem. I liked describing my stories to explain what was important to me and why it discribed where i was from through my story because it gave a whole picture. My poem was confussing because puting a whole memory into one word was hard for me. Writing the story allowed me to look back at that park and explain why it was important and why it was where i was from.

I am From..

I am from driving around blasting music.
I am from laughing with friends so hard my stomach hurts.
I am from the beach, staying up all night with the lifeguards and waking up early for work.
I am from Olympia Park, where everyone meets up and I played little league.
I am from the alley behind my house, where the neighborhood kids would play basketball and soccer.
I am from Taft pool, where i joined swim team for the first time and pretended i was an mermaid with my friends during free swim.
I am am from the corner ice cream store, where my dad would take me after i lost a game.

introduction

 My name is Lauren, i was born and raised in chicago. I am currently going to school at Western Michigan University. I  have been working as a lifeguard at lake Michigan for Chicago Park District for three years. I love swimming,basically any water sport, snowboarding, and soccer. I have one brother Brendan, who goes to University of Iowa going into prelaw. My brother is my role model and someone i really look up too. I am undecided, but i might want to do something with psychology because it is my favorite class.