What is Literacy?

:
Day 2
Dr. Will Kurlinkus
Last Time…
• Why do We Need to Learn to Read and
Write?
• What do we learn to read and write in
school?
• What did you do in high school English?
• How do workplace literacies differ?
• To be literate is contextual: Different
communities, cultures, and nations have
different standards of literacy.
• Literacy norms us towards societal
standards: Whatever they may be.
What literacies, skills,
and expertise do we
need to survive the
21 Century?
st
When we read and write
literacy narratives—
stories about learning to
read and write—our goal
is to uncover some of
these societal codes and
wonder about them (and
cause our reader to
wonder with us)
 Indeed to explore
these questions in
this course we will
be studying
literacy theory and
especially literacy
narratives.
Who Are You?
Name, Major, Career, & What’s
Interested You So Far
How Do We Read Long
Sometimes-Boring Texts?

1. Ideally you read the whole thing!

2. Find the thesis/signposting paragraph of the intro
(ideally read the whole intro if not gigantic). Ask,
what’s the problem is article is trying to solve and
how will it do it.
3. Read enough of the signposted body sections to get
the point. Use headings to skip. Look for topic
sentence, key terms & a defining quote, and a clear
example.
4. Read the conclusion. Ask, did I get what I needed to
understand the conclusion. If not, go back and dip a
little more.
Three Metaphors of
Literacy—Scribner 1984
• People debate about what literacy is because definitions
of literacy define standards and techniques of education.
• Harvey Graff, for instance, says that literacy is only
learning to read: not writing, skill online, etc.:
What would an English course look like to Graff vs.
someone like Cynthia Self who defines literacy as…
• Literacy is social, not individual—”individuals in
societies without literacy don’t randomly learn to
read”
• Literacy is, therefore, place and time bound: What
it means to be literacy in 2024 is different from
what it means to be literate in 1870. How so? Just
writing your name was a literacy test. And,
somehow, so many people got by without reading
or writing?
Three Metaphors of Literacy—Scribner 1984
1. Literacy as Adaptation: survival/pragmatic value, “functional literacy”: “the level of proficiency necessary
for effective performance in a range of settings and customary activities” (9).
• What settings? Soldiering originally around WWI—4th grade reading level?
• What minimal functional competencies? Reading a newspaper, writing a check, filling out tax
paperwork? Whose standards?
• Predictions from 1984: Will technology require more literacy or less of citizens?

2. Literacy as Power: Literacy has been a tool by which elites safeguarded their power. So, granting literacy
means granting power.
• Literacy is a fundamental human right.
• Determinism: Are the richest most powerful people the most literate? Are the most oppressed people
the least literate?

3. Literacy as State of Grace: Literate people are somehow more virtuous: “the literate individual's life
derives its meaning and significance from intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual participation in the
accumulated creations and knowledge of humankind, made available through the written word. ” (14)
Literate people are more cultured: I read a book a week this year! But not always: oh, you read only
trashy romance this year? Oh, you only listened to audiobooks? Where else do we see literacy as grace?
 Gatsby’s Library
A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting
somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady
concentration at the shelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly
around and examined Jordan from head to foot.
"What do you think?" he demanded impetuously.
"About what?'
He waved his hand toward the book-shelves.
"About that. As a matter of fact you needn't bother to ascertain. I
ascertained. They're real.
"The books?"
He nodded.
"Absolutely real - have pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice
durable cardboard. Matter of face, they're absolutely real. Pages and - Here!
Lemme show you."

Taking our scepticism for granted, he rushed to the book-cases and returned
with Volume One of the Stoddard Lectures.
"See!" he cried triumphantly. "It's a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It
fooled me. This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness!
What realism! Knew when to stop, too - didn't cut the pages. But what do
you want? What do you expect?"
He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering
that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse.
 The Chan Zuckerberg
Initiative
Our experience with personalized learning, internet access, and community
education and health has shaped our philosophy.
Our generation grew up in classrooms where we all learned the same things at
the same pace regardless of our interests or needs.
Your generation will set goals for what you want to become — like an engineer,
health worker, writer or community leader. You’ll have technology that
understands how you learn best and where you need to focus. You’ll advance
quickly in subjects that interest you most, and get as much help as you need in
your most challenging areas. You’ll explore topics that aren’t even offered in
schools today. Your teachers will also have better tools and data to help you
achieve your goals. . . .
Many of the greatest opportunities for your generation will come from giving
everyone access to the internet.
People often think of the internet as just for entertainment or communication.
But for the majority of people in the world, the internet can be a lifeline.
It provides education if you don’t live near a good school. It provides health
information on how to avoid diseases or raise healthy children if you don’t live
near a doctor. It provides financial services if you don’t live near a bank. It
provides access to jobs and opportunities if you don’t live in a good economy.
The internet is so important that for every 10 people who gain internet access,
about one person is lifted out of poverty and about one new job is created.
Literacy Artifacts
This Doesn’t Mean That
Literacy Shouldn’t Be
Taught & Revered: It
Means That Literacy is A
Complex Subject That
Should Be Studied And
Thought Of Carefully
1. Give Me a Brief Analysis of Portrayals of
Literacy.
2. Tell Me What You Liked About the writing.
3. Tell me something you identified with
Some
• Literacy Sponsorship (Lamott’s Father): Who
encourages you to read and write? What identities
do those people hold that you seek? Why do you like
your favorite teachers? Why do you remember
Observations certain teachers more than others?
• Literacy as Identity
From Bird By
• Lamott encounters systemic praise for her reading
and writing: Her teacher reads a poem her father
lets her write with him her teacher publishes her
Bird
writing in a textbook. How does such praise lead us
to education or, contrarily, how does scorn push us
away? When were you shamed by a teacher—
shamed out of literacy?
• Intro: I grew up around a father and a mother who
read every chance they got, who took us to the
library every Thursday night to load up on books for
the coming week. Most nights after dinner my father
stretched out on the couch to read, while my mother
sat with her book in the easy chair and the three of
us kids each retired to our own private reading
stations.
• Good literacy Narratives, like all autobiography/non-
fiction, tend to:
1. Trace inevitable courses of events: They
look back and say this is how and why I
came to be.
2. yet they also portray hiccups,
ambivalence, barriers to this inevitability
“My father writes pornography!, dropped
out of college, etc.) This is what creates
tension and narrative arc.
3. They break audience’s guessing machines:
Smooth literacy narratives are boring.
Descriptions that describe simply what we
all know are boring, I shouldn’t be able to
guess what happens next.
• “I saw a home movie once of a birthday party I went
to in the first grade, with all these cute little boys and
girls playing together like puppies, and all of a sudden
I scuttled across the screen like Prufrock’s crab. I was
very clearly the one who was going to grow up to be a
serial killer, or keep dozens and dozens of cats.
Instead, I got funny.”
• Identification is created through identifiable
emotions not broad general writing.