When I came to this class, I had no clue what I was getting into. All of the classes that I’ve taken usually consist of teachers standing at the front of a classroom, handing down information from on high that I had to passively write down and comprehend. I rarely have had a class where I was asked to give my opinion or engage with the material. On top of this, I never thought of literacy in any context outside of reading and writing. The first time that we discussed our definitions of literacy, I had no clue what to say. It wasn’t until Rose’s “I Just Want to Be Average” that I thought of literacy in a deeper context that just reading and writing. Literacy can open doors and is relevant to everything in my life. From watching Parks and Recreation to going on the Internet, literacy is important to every aspect of life. However, I still haven’t come up with a final definition of literacy. All that I know is that literacy is much deeper than just reading and writing. I don’t really know where I am going with this post, so I will just end it with this question: What is literacy to you?
You very nicely summarized how I feel as this class comes to a close. I am more aware of how I use my literacy, but I am no where closer to a definition of the word. I don’t know if I will ever be able to define the word, but I know that I will approach teaching with more awareness of what goes into developing literacy. I feel like this class has taught me how to be a better teacher and to take everything in a child’s life into account rather than given me a definition of literacy. I like that better than a definition.
Like you, I also didn’t know what to expect in this class. I was also pleased as well as freaked out that this class didn’t have a definite answer and wasn’t a professor lecturing at the front of the room, telling you exactly what you were supposed to learn. Engaging with the texts and interpreting them on my own was something I wasn’t used to, but I definitely think I benefited from being forced to form my own opinions and draw my own conclusions about the readings and discussions.
I mentioned in another comment that until I had read Literacy and the Literacy Myth: From Plato to Freire by Paul Gee, I hadn’t thought of literacy as anything more than reading and writing to transmit ideas. Now I realize that literacy is defined based on a society’s particular interpretation of it. Like sammix3, I don’t think I can define literacy, but what it means to me has evolved so much so that when I visualize it, it is this twirling globule, constantly changing its shape and color (don’t mind the description, I have synesthesia and sometimes see words as pictures). Literacy is no longer a straightforward topic; it’s so much more involved and has so many contributing factors that the definition itself cannot be pinned down. I appreciate how this class has given me a new view on literacy and how deep it is.
Defining literacy presents the same problem as defining art–it’s a subjective experience.
Recently I’ve been reading The Supermodel and The Brillo Box: Back Stories and Peculiar Economics from the World of Contemporary Art (Dan Thompson). A good portion of the book focuses on conceptual art, essentially art that isn’t necessarily appealing in and of itself, but is valuable because of what it represents or how it was created.
The acceptance of concept art as a valid and respectable form is an contentious issue among both the art and mainstream communities-in fact, the inclusion of concepts as art prevents a lot of the public from engaging with any form of art. Some people find it ridiculous or outrageous to put something in a museum that anyone could make.
Personally, I love concept art and consider it as equal to highly elaborate or skillfully created visual work. Not everyone would agree, in much the same way that not everyone agrees that there are multiple literacies that encompass everything from reading and writing to music to math to the menial of opening doors.
If you’re interested, here’s a good review of Brillobox with a lot of interesting examples: http://nypost.com/2014/04/27/inside-the-mad-world-of-modern-art/
The problem of having a concrete definition of literacy is something I share with you. I can remember on the first day of class, everyone was throwing around complex ideas about the nature of literacy. Even I tried to come up with odd theory of process-then-react. I had a feeling that on our last assignment we were going to have to define is somehow, and here we are.
While I never got a specific definition, this course definitely helped me set boundaries of what is, and what is not literacy. I believe it is uniquely human experience that has variation between any two people, and accounts for part of our foundation for communication. That’s about it. I would say this is better than where I started from at the beginning of the semester, but still far from a tangible definition.