My full name is Callahan but most people call me Callie. I am from Omaha, Nebraska and this is my first year here in Lincoln as a student. I am a Psychology major and I plan to focus in Education. Right now I’m working as a Behavioral Therapist for a young boy here in Lincoln who has been diagnosed with with Autism. While this has been such an amazing opportunity to be apart of, working with him one on one, I have realized how education and growth is such a fundamental part of our lives. This is why I am so passionate about helping others learn and to feel comfortable doing so in classrooms with other students.

This helps tie into our discussion of the classroom community and what I hope to gain from the course. I have always been hesitant to share in front of larger audiences but I plan on stepping outside of my comfort zone. Expressing my ideas onto paper does not happen in an instant; it is something I will continuously have to work on and revise. I believe that writing is a collection of ideas rather than the one or two you start with. Over these next few weeks, I would like my abilities to change and develop as I become more familiar with my own style of writing.

         After reading the essay by Harris, I have found a new idea of the word community. Before reading this piece, I believed that a community was just the environment in which a person lived and moved about but now I find it to be so much more. A person may belong to multiple communities and it is just how they relate to a group of people in different settings. There isn’t a single community that will define a person but it will play a role in the shaping of their identity. I belong to a few communities myself including my university, my sorority, my work, my friends and my family. A community teaches you socialization, culture and language. All of these things can be altered overtime and adapted by others. Communities may appear gradually or very quickly.

Language does play a large role in the development of a community. The people within the community impact the communication and the language that is mostly commonly shared and accepted. It will depend on the setting, comfort level, professionalism and the manners to speak accordingly. This will in turn influence the writing that is produced. Writing stems directly from the language in the community and that is what everyone will see to recognize, process and understand. These two things will influence how the community revolves and how easily people are able to communicate with one another and share new information. Our growth depends on communication and understanding; without language and written text, communities would not have a solid base.