Jessica Howes

UWRT
Brown
25 November 2015
Contemporary Literacy Project
My personal definition of a literacy is any person or place that does a particular thing
very well, and can inspire or teach others to do it as well. For this project, I focused on the
literacies of my practicum- the UNCC Storrs Building. When I first began the practicum, I never
believed that a place could have a literacy in the first place; now I realize the Storrs Building is
much more than just a piece of construction. It is interesting to realize that a place can have so
many uses and how it can influence a person in various ways. The literacies I have discovered
are thought of and practiced in my daily life as a result. The main literacies I found were:
communal, digital, and artistic. In the next few paragraphs I will explain how each of these can
be counted as a literacy for my practicum and how they work as one.
The Storrs Building possesses the communal literacy by serving as a meeting place for
people, as well as a gathering area for socializing and such. Through observation Ive found that
the building always has people within it, either doing school work or just relaxing and hanging
out. The architecture building fits my definition of literacy because it is a very common
communal place and it teaches others, myself included, that a lot of places thought to be just
another old building can be used as a meeting or socializing space. Now I find myself looking for
meeting places in various buildings across campus that I would not have even given a thought to

before I discovered this literacy about the architecture building. This literacy is mastered by
many people, and therefore easily promoted to the community of UNCC.
The next literacy that I chose to focus on is an artistic literacy; this is achieved in so many
ways by the architecture building, and has also had the most impact on me personally. This
literacy is virtually everywhere within the building. Architecture majors are very creative people
(obviously) and it is definitely a result of the environment that the building creates. Creativity
flows so freely there, and allows for it to bounce off of the students and affect everyone that
walks inside. The artistic literacy fits my definition because it inspires others to be more artistic
and to see the beauty of art. This has had an effect on me for sure, it inspired me to make a board
game as the visual piece of this project in the first place. I am not an artistic person in any sense
of the word, but my observations and time spent in the architecture building have made me strive
to be more artistic and attempt to influence others in a similar way that the building has for me.
The last literacy I discovered in the Storrs Building is a digital literacy. This is not as
obviously prevalent as the other two, but can still be found with closer observation. The digital
aspect is part of so many lives these days, and now can be applied to all sorts of academic things.
The building houses computers, televisions, and other electronic items that students bring in such
as: tablets, smart phones, and laptops. This fits my definition of literacy because the building
houses various forms of technology that allows students to make blueprints, models, and look up
information for projects. Prior to my practicum, I already possessed the digital literacy, as do
many others. With technology being such a large part of life for the majority of people, it is
harder to go without this literacy (especially in college). The architecture building itself is a great
outlet for students to access computers, programs, and resources that would generally not be
available to them outside of the building, which makes this literacy very important to it.