As people who are trying to study, there are too many subjects when students are in school to truly become experts in one field. We seem to believe that we already know English and so we don't seek to learn anything else. We are being ruined by society seeking to reinforce what we think we already know about literacy. I think about literacy and writing and consider how lazy we have become when it comes to communicating with others. We often use slang or even emojis or emoticons in everyday communication via text messages, social media or even emails, have a weak vocabulary and our ways of communicating are more informal and less thoughtful. I admit to doing this and not trying to read or write about more in-depth topics to try to improve my literacy. In response to Gerald Graff's article on "hidden intellectualism", he discusses street smarts and how people are often educated through what they learn in their environments. In many ways, people are intelligent, but this knowledge rarely goes unnoticed in formal education. In this way, people are intellectual but are more able to apply what they know to what they have learned about life or topics through various scenarios in their lives rather than through