Fail!

Ok, admittedly, I’ve had a tough time getting in gear this semester (last semester nearly killed me–literally. Ok, maybe not literally, but it sure felt like it) and getting a handle on things with my classes. I’m determined to fix this and not be late on my subsequent posts.

I think the authors, collectively, are saying that literacy is very social. Meaning, literacy is something that evolves with time as our world advances forward, backwar (I know–advance backward??? HA!) , upward, downward, and to the side. Whatever direction our world moves, literacy also moves.

Deborah Brandt states, “the current climate is not so much a demand for literacy .  .  . but rather the challenges faced by all literacy learners in a society whose rapid changes are themselves tied up so centrally with literacy and its enterprises” (Accumulating Literacy 651). Brandt acknowledges that literacy is an ever changing, vital component that is constantly “challeng[ing]” society.

In her article “Sponsors of Literacy,” Brandt states, “these developments should be seen more specifically, as outcomes of ongoing transformation in the history of literacy as it has been wielded as part of economic and political conflict” (176). Again, Brandt argues that literacy is always changing, morphing.

Bronwyn T. Williams states that some people, when arguing about the lack of literacy among today’s youth, use the standardized test scores to prove their point (Why Johnny 179). The problem with these standardized tests are that they are standardized. Standardized equals inflexible. However, literacy equals malleability. So, how can something that is malleable be standardized?

Williams goes on to say, “more comprehensive and complex ways of assessing literacy, which cover a range of students’ literacy practices .  .  . are usually too expensive to implement and are criticized for their very complexity and nuance .  .  .” (Why Johnny 179). Is the fact that money is the bottom line for altering a known-to-be poorly constructed test a surprise to anyone? And, those sticklers for “standards” are probably also those who refuse to acknowledge new words which are added to the dictionary.

My mother is one such person. My mother believes that we should only be using words that are in the dictionary. What she and others like her fail to recognize is that many of the words used in daily communication were created after the first dictionary was produced–which was in 1604 (dictionary.com). Benjamin Franklin was born almost 100 years after the first dictionary. He is a well-known inventor and discoverer who had also created words that we use regularly–battery, brush, charged, condense, conductor, plus and minus, positively and negatively (franklinbusybody.com). According to Franklinbusybody.com, Franklin created these words during his work with electricity. So, if those sticklers had their way, we would not be able to use any of those words because they weren’t in the original dictionary.

Maybe I got off course here, but I’m just trying to demonstrate that literacy is very social and very dynamic and the authors have effectively pointed this out. I’m wondering though, do we need to now define social?

In every aspect of human life, literacy is something that we notice to be non-static. In the world of literature, “literacy” would be the dynamic, round, main character. Literacy is central to our existence, yet, we don’t even know what it really is. We know it’s social. We know it’s dynamic. We also know that we don’t know.