Literacy
Definitions
According to this article, it
says “literacy can be thought of as a particular set of social practices that a
particular set of people value.” The author goes away from what I ever thought
literacy to be, in the fact that it is not just teaching how to read or write
but teaching students to have voices and opinions. The author calls this
instrumental literacy or it “is made up of all of those proficiencies one needs
in order to be able to access a text and understand what it is doing to
readers.” This author believes there is an importance to not only being able to
read but able to act on what you read or write and discuss it.
I interpret this literacy
definition as having the tools to decipher communication and speaking on it.
This reminds me of teaching students how to read. So often, I have parents who
say he can read great at home, why is he still below level. Well, a student may
be able to accurately read “Sam I am” but does he understand and comprehend it.
Can he tell me about Sam finally giving into trying the ham and green eggs and
loving it. Can he relate to the text on how he once didn’t want to try broccoli
but then he did and now it’s his favorite. Can the child even retell what
happened in the story. Being able to read from the page and then discussing it
later are all part of being literate. If a person cannot recall the details and
put them into their own words then are they really literate of the text? I also
like that he talks about writer’s voices. If a student can discover their voice
then the rest will come.
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJe5s1-u_70
youtube video called “What is Literacy?”
This video mostly just poses
questions about what is literacy and how it is the ability to understand but is
also a set of tools like I said before. It starts off with definition from the
dictionary too. The video has kind of a sad and mysterious appeal to it with
the music and constant flower petals falling in the background. Lastly, the
video leaves you feeling the literacy is infinite and so many things like the
your knowing your own identity is to be literate. This video takes the
definition and gives a little more abstract twist on literacy.
The main
point that I take from it, is that being literate is not just one thing but can
be many things from thoughts, ideas, and your own personality. It also gives a
sense that literacy is fluid and can be part of so many different things in
life from books, tv, writing, to your own personality.
This picture or definition for
literacy comes from a blog. It shows all these different things that are needed
for a person to be able to think and understand things for themselves and make
sense of the world around of them. Rather then just talking about being able to
read or write, this persons brain needs to be able to process and access
information. They have to be able to interpret information in order to gain a
better understanding.
To me it shows things that lead
to comprehension of information. You have to evaluate it, analyze it, and apply
it to daily life. It also mentions technology with goggle and yahoo. Lastly,
you have to understand its process to be fully literate of the information.
Putting all of these together, I
think literacy continues to be a fluid thing as new technology is introduced to
society. I think there can be different types of literacy like being culturally
literate- where you know how to act in a certain culture. There could also be
technology literacy- where one would know how to operate technology well. What
all the literacies have in common is for people to be literate they must have a
full understanding of how they work and know how to appropriately comprehend
and access the information given to them whether it’s in the format of cultural
customs or access facebook.
