The Power of Words

The film based on Markus Zusak's hit novel The Book Thief includes this powerful line: "Words are life, Liesel."

That line has always rung true for me, to whom words were often a salve and light. They seem more true to me now after my time in the Master's program at ASU, as I uncovered and worked to refine a passion for language and literacy.

Language

Etymology has always interested me, but my time in the program really took that interest to another level. Through my classes, I came to relish looking into the nuances of a word's history, tracing words from their origin to modern usage.

It always amazes me what you can discover about words and the power they have to make meaning in a text. A single word can tell you so much about the writer, the character who speaks it, or even the intent behind the text.

Some of the most fun I've had in writing projects has been studying and writing about the pieces of language used in texts and speculating on the meanings they hold.

Literacy

As an educator who always loved reading and writing, it was sometimes hard for me to connect with students who didn't see value in those things, or who struggled in them. I placed less value on other forms of communication and literacy, like audiobooks or even video games.

But through my studies, I came to see the value in those modes of literacy and understand the disparity in who can gain the "main" modes of literacy and who gets left behind.

While literacy isn't only limited to reading and writing, those are two modes of literacy that are most valued by institutions like the education system and workplaces. However, these kinds of literacy are not always readily available to all, in some part due to the fact that literacy can be given or taken away by those in power. An example that comes to mind is funding that is pulled from schools that produce low test scores, decreasing students' chances to be sponsored in the most valued literacies of society.

My work and areas of interest have mainly focused on these two aspects, as you can see on the sub-pages of this tab. Words truly are powerful!