Literacy is full of dichotomies. As someone who’s new to literacy studies, it’s been difficult to decide which nuanced perspectives to agree with.

 

Maybe I’ll write my way to some kind of clarity.

 

Literacy theories generally exist on a continuum between ethnographic and ethnocentric. The most clear example of an ethnocentric theory being the “Great Divide,” where literacy is argued to be the reason that people rise to civilization from barbarity. Of course, educated scholars who have only known what it means to be literate and to participate in literate cultures where reading and writing have value would say their way is the right way. However, oral cultures are equally complex with their emphasis on memorization and language being used directly in context–they don’t have to worry about autonomy in their language because it exists only in the here and now. The observation of these oral cultures and what it means to be literate in them favors an ethnographic approach to understanding literacy–an approach concerned with social purpose, context, and community.

 

I favor an ethnographic or social approach to literacy studies because I don’t see literacy functioning or being understood properly outside of the context it’s written for. Even global literacies (literacies being shared digitally around the world or physical literacies (like a t-shirt with words) from one place being used by another) aim to localize themselves. This is evidenced by sites like reddit; it might be open to everyone, but it has subreddits to create communities with shared interests. Some of those communities are even exclusive, requiring a prospective participant to ask the moderators of a subreddit to join. This exclusivity demonstrates the importance of a sense of community and suggests global communities are interested in localizing themselves. Facebook is another example–people try to create a network of friends and family across the world, localizing their previously local communities globally. However, there are still options to make some posts available only to some people and ways to block those who aren’t really in your community (a feature whose use has been elevated by the recent presidential election). Again, the exclusivity and selectiveness within the platform aspires to create a local community with shared interests over a global network.

 

This is to suggest we don’t like it when literacy exists outside of our community. We don’t favor unsituated literacies, this is why we tend to block peoples’ posts on Facebook when those posts contain distasteful opinions that bring themselves closer to their ideal community and distance themselves from those who fall outside of their ideal community. For example, I just looked at Facebook and found my brother-in-law shared the image below.

Knowing who shared the image, I know the idea in the image (I’m assuming it regards Caitlyn Jenner) is an idea he actually has and will express to bond with those who share his idea. However, if I sent the image to my brother (who’s currently in South Korea) without any context, he would instantly understand I’m criticizing it and condoning the sentiment. This supports the idea that the same literacy can be repurposed without explanation and it will be understood based on who participates in the local community. Localization to situate a literacy is important–we all have communities that will understand a certain literacy differently based on the ideals of that community.

I can’t lie. My first reaction to reading another individual’s writing does not come without an unspoken rating scale. Posts on Facebook, texts from friends, even my favorite copy of C. S. Lewis’ “A Grief Observed” where I cringe whenever I run across that one typo…I fear that it all leads to one conclusion: I, albeit subconsciously, view literacy as a level to reach and not a practice. Okay, okay, let’s say that is where I started in late January. I would love to say that two months later, after vigorous reading of arguments and the unpacking of theories, I have a different stance. I believe literacy is better suited as a verb and not a noun.

 

However, even as I write this, there are a variety of thoughts running through my head. In the first 15 minutes after we started, here are a few of those thoughts:

 

I’m not creative writing, I’m religious studies and literature. How will the other students see my writing?

Will Kim get mad at me if I ask her how long this should be?

I really like bullet points. Can I just use bullet points? Should I ask Kim…

I kind of want to change my blog topic but I already have two paragraphs written- not worth it.

 

In my hypocrisy I recognize the problems with assigning literacy as a level to reach. The expectations are so engrained in our practices, and tear down not only the ability to let ideas freely flow, but also the confidence in said ideas.

 

There is a real difference between literacy as a noun and literacy as a verb. Their definitions stand apart but the influence of one on the other is indisputable.

 

NOUN: Literate

-No spelling errors

-Correct paragraph formatting

-Eloquent verbiage

-Follows the rules

-Can read at appropriate and expected levels

-If there is lack of things listed above, intellect is questioned.

 

VERB: Literacy

-Reading/writing/speaking at own abilities by actively responding to a prompt, situation, or life

-Rules are only set if your goal is to become “literate”

 

What believing in NOUN does to VERB:

-Immediately causes the individual to place their literacy practice on the stand- even without acknowledging this.

-Causes one to jump on the hamster-wheel of the chase of being literate: this is only achieved through literacy practices, which are affected by the expectation to “reach” a level of literacy anyway.

 

This also begs the question of the amount of power that we all have to subscribe to one of these. As stated in the beginning, I prefer the idea of the verb literacy, of presenting my ideas through my own personalized abilities. As a grad student at a California State University, the expectation to follow the standard format is unarguable, expected and can’t be changed. I am a current student who wants to stand on the other side as an adjunct professor and has a “LITERATE” stamp ready at hand. It was given to me throughout my life in this school system and I am well trained to use it. Is it more noble if I’m now learning to use it only on myself?

The first thing to understand about literacy is that it is complex. It is more than what first comes to mind when the word “literacy” is uttered. It is certainly more than reading and writing and any “standardized” or “idolized” ideas about what is included in those practices.

A lot of my understanding about literacy has been guided by my privileged access to information. Reading has always been such a big part of my life. Two things from my childhood really stand out as being really concrete parts of my personal literacy foundation. Once, when I was six I was a dollar short of a book I wanted at Walden Books. It was at this moment that my father taught me about what an advance was and he gave me one on my weekly allowance so that I could get that book. Another thing that was a more consistent literacy practice was that my father used to take me with him (assuming I had all of my homework done) to his weekly college study nights at Borders. It was always just him and I, my sister never tagged along, and I would spend the whole time browsing through the books. I still keep up this tradition and you can usually catch me at the bookstore at least one evening a week, browsing through the books as a reward for getting all of my homework done for the day. Talk about conditioned, thanks Pavlov. This is also something that has continued to be a thing my father and I do together when I visit him. My father has definitely been a key player and one of my primary literacy sponsors.

My literacy practices have evolved throughout the years. Although I still use book browsing and fun reading as a reward for getting my reading done, I have a more immediate reward system with my graduate school work, using skittles or other small candies to reward myself when I finish certain passages. I’m totally on some sort of Jane McGonigal level with my schoolwork.

I think one of the reasons that I have never had an appreciation for “conventional” and “standardized” writing styles is because of my prevalent access to reading materials and parents who encouraged creativity and rebellion. Although I would say that I am attuned to a “standardized” version of English, I’ve always been open to how different ideas and reading experiences shape our worlds. I’ve always been interested in how literacy practices affect someone. I remember watching a video on DNews (is that still a thing?) which discussed how your orbital frontal cortex swelled when you read, causing it to expand over time and strengthen your capacity for empathy.

I’ve talked a lot about literacy in terms of reading, but not so much in terms of writing. My writing practices are also pretty unique and personalized to me. Although reading is my number one love when it comes to literacy, I’ve always used writing as a way to cope with struggles. Currently, I have a blog titled “Academic Fails” that talks about my “fails” throughout grad school. It’s something that helps me laugh at myself and the clumsy situations I have throughout the day while helping me document certain aspects of my life.

Maybe it’s just with the frames I’m reading with, but I feel like a lot more of our reading is geared more towards writing. George Lakoff did state, however, that “Mental structures that shape the way we see the world.  As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act” (Lakoff, 2004) which I think is a very apt way of defining just about how everyone sees literacy, too. I think this plays into the idea that educators and students are often taught that there is a “right” way to read and write. Research from Dyson and Smitherson, speeches from Adam Banks, and blogs from our very own Chico State students help to disprove this idea. I am really interested on seeing how we can incorporate bidialecticism and bilingualism into our education practices and help students feel valued for the literacy practices that they have outside of the classroom.

Speaking of being outside of the classroom, literacy is a social practice. I recently learned in my linguistics class that school age children learn about 3000 distinct new words per year. This equates to 17 words per day. Only 400 of these words are learned in school. That means that 2600 words (85%!) that school children are learning a year come from outside of school. A lot of this is through incidental learning, which includes communicating with adults and the reading they do outside of school. Their vocabulary is often being shaped by their culture, lives, interests, why can’t we expect the same with their writing?

Something I found really fascinating was when Dr. Erin Whitney visited our class and talked about her research with Dis/Crit studies. The students she worked with were amazing and blew me away with their ability to use words as rhythmically as they did. Even still, they are seen as not being at the same level as other students because they don’t fit into some mold that has been deemed as the “standard” for literacy skills.

I’m really interested in accessibility to different literacy practices and how we can incorporate different social and cultural practices into our schools to better include and incorporate students’ personal experiences. How can we create a system where they are valued for their practices, especially in cases of bidialecticism and bilingualism and when their practices are so cool outside of education but they just don’t fit into this predetermined mold? How can we create an education plan that is taken seriously enough to get funding? How do we help our own students see the importance of their literacy standards and help to break them of the conventions that have been drilled into their heads since day one of “standardized” schooling? How can we help them to see that they are not defined by tests or what their grades are? How can we break them of thinking that they are “just not good at writing?”

Another thing that I am really interested in that ties into literacy being a social practice is digital literacy. The spread of information and a need to stay up-to-date on different topics within a social setting is encouraging people to read different texts and write different commentary and understand different situations.

“Literacy” may seem like a simple four-syllable word to some, but the idea behind it is considerably more complex than the 17x17x17 Rubik’s cube designed by Oskar Van Deventer. It doesn’t fit into a certain mold because there is so much to consider.

 

With a quick Google search, the noun’s definition appears on screen as “ability to read and write, reading/writing proficiency; competence or knowledge in a specified area.” Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it isn’t. While the read/write definition has been long-standing, it isn’t necessarily correct since it fails to consider how multifaceted the concept of literacy actually is in relation to those who do not fall within a/the general populace that the definition adheres to (if it adheres at all, which is a question that acts as a plague when attempting to define it).

 

Literacy studies, as I have come to understand, are hodge podge of educational theories and practices that are either supported or disputed with more theories and practices due to the multitude of objectives associated with them. But despite my lack of depth on the subject(s) there are still certain aspects that have resonated with me during my journey of literacy comprehension.

 

Here are just a few of the un-aligning (is that a word?) “Rubik’s Cube attributes” of literacy studies that fall within my realm of understanding thus far:

 

Sponsors

 

• A sponsor of literacy is just as broad of a term as literacy, but it applies to the influences that certain resources and conditions have over literacy practices and events. Sponsors basically advocate their disciples and either intentionally or unintentionally shape the literacy practices of those following their lead by example. For instance, parents or teachers shape those practices of children; even though the practices of the adults may conflict—which could pose a problem for the children trying to learn from their examples.  

 

“The Great Divide”

 

• One argument that I primarily understand about “The Great Divide” is that it essentially draws a line between what it means to be considered part of a “primitive” or “civilized” culture. And as part of the Western culture from an intellectual and/or psychological standpoint, this means certain expectations of literacy come into play when asserting a judgment of an individual’s or group’s intellect. If one does not comply with those Western expectations then one is not considered to be “literate.” This poses an immense problem when examining other cultures, sociecomonics, ideologies, etc. because the ideas of “global literacy” and “local literacy” conflict.

 

New Literacies

 

• Take into consideration of introducing technology to literacy practices and events. Technology has the power to enhance (or hinder, depending how you look at it) these practices and events, but that does not mean the same technologies will be used in the same methods from place to place, e.g., culture to culture. I remember reading an excerpt about a New Guinea tribe (right now, I can’t for the life of me remember the article I took this from) adopted literacy practices from missionaries. However, the global and the (limited?) local literacies were at odds and a hybrid literacy materialized as a repurposed practice that did not fit into either the “global” or “local” literacy “rules” previously put into place.

 

Just by these few examples, the question of “should ‘literacy’ be redefined?” may come to mind. I say yes, but you may ask “how”? To which I answer, who the hell knows. This is been a hot topic of debate amongst scholars—and whoever else attempts to make sense of the broad scope that is literacy—and there has yet been a conclusive result. However, insights into how literacy acts as more than an agency in social, cultural, political, economic, technological, and historical practices allow for plenty of exploration and understanding to how it surpasses the read/write definition. So, when it comes down to meaning, “literacy” can’t be deduced to a one-lined definition. It deserves a whole effing dictionary-length definition for itself. And the study of literacy is destined to be boundless forever. Forever, I tell you.

What do we want to say about literacy studies so far…

literacy practices

literacy events

sponsors and sponsorship

new literacies

context

social practices

social nature of writing

the great divide

oral vs written cultures and texts

civilized vs primitive

othering and east/west binary

our own literacy practices

digital literacies

situated literacies

autonomous

ideological

assimilation

“standard”

disrupting the idea of standards

bidialectalism vs bilingualism

rising literacy standards/changing practices