Dialectical Notebook: Baron

Before You Read:

Whenever I sit down to write, I usually have:

Highlighter
Pencil/Pen
Computer
Lamp or light of some sort
Chair

Summary:

In Dennis Baron's article "From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies", Baron shows how the pencil was used to develop other technologies that we now have today. Baron also discusses the technologies that we use today have shaped the writing world, as well as the invention of the pencil and how it helped inspire the way we write.

Synthesis:

I found this article very similar to McCloud's video about comics and how the computer would revolutionize comics. McCloud talked about how he envisioned that one day, people would be able to read comics on a sideways format on the computer screen. I also find this article similar to Berger's article because Berger talks about how the way we view art and how paintings are now able to be viewed from your home computer etc. This is similar to Baron talking about the evolution of the pencil and how is has changed. 

Response	Quotation
I found that this quote was very true to today’s youth. We hardly ever open up an encyclopedia anymore in order to look up a piece of information. Instead, we google it to find the answer, which does not always lead us to the correct answer.	“The computer is also touted as a gateway to literacy” (Baron 423).
I feel that this quote summed up the whole article. Without writing, we would not even be able to build all of the technology that we have today. Writing is the first technology used whenever we create something and it always will be.	“Whether it consists of energized particles on a screen or ink embedded in paper or lines gouged into clay tablets, writing itself is always first and foremost a technology, a way of engineering materials in order to accomplish an end” (Baron 424).
I like this quote because Baron talks about the future and how the computer is just one small step. In one thousand years, we will most likely have something that completely surpasses the computer.	“My contention in this essay is a modest one: the computer is simply the latest step in a long line of writing technologies” (Baron 425)
This quote was very fascinating to me. Baron forced the reader to look into the complex design of the pencil and how back then, the engineering that went into making it, was very well thought out and planned. I thought this was very interesting, how a simple device could have been so complicated.	“Pencil technologies involve advanced design techniques” (Baron 426).
This was a good point that Baron brought up. Almost everything we write down is spoken in one way or another. Whether it is in our mind or read aloud, writing helps record those instances that we find significant.	“Anyway, so far as we know, writing itself begins not as speech transcription but as a relatively restricted and obscure record-keeping shorthand” (Baron 427).

Questions for Discussion:

The Unabomber was an American terrorist who went by the name of Ted Kaczynski. He would write threat letters to these technologists and would plant numerous home-made bombs in mailboxes of computer scientists. Kaczynski committed these horrible acts because he worried that computers and technology would someday take away the freedom of people.

Thoughts

I thought this article was very interesting. It was very informative, but seemed lengthy and talked about the pencil a little more than I would have liked. I thought it was interesting how Plato was against writing. Overall, the article was good.