Changes in Definitions of Literacy

After the first few weeks of this class, my idea of what literacy is has drastically changed. Before this class, to me literacy was simply whether one could read or write in any language, and that there are varying degrees of how literate an individual is. I have found that literacy cannot be defined so easily, and these ideas have changed after reading the several articles that were assigned. The one that had the most effect was the Szwed article “The Ethnography of Literacy.”

A main aspect of Szwed’s literacy that I picked up from her article is that there is much more to literacy than just reading and writing, and that it is fairly difficult to assign a concrete definition to literacy. Szwed outlines the many different ways individuals measure literacy, and this makes the term even more abstract, and hard to pin down. Some measure it in how one uses reading and writing, and some measure it in what you read. This article seems to pose more questions than answers, and it serves to show that literacy can be seen in many different ways, and how broad the term really is.

What I have taken from this class so far is that there are many different literacies. It seems to me that there is a literacy to everything that we do on a day to day basis. For instance, riding my bike to school requires me to be literate in several different fields all at once.

1. I need to be able to ride a bike.
2. I need to be able to navigate through Chico.
3. I need to be able to read and understand street signs.
4. I need to be able to manage my time, and give myself enough time to get to class.
5. I need to be able to interact with others on the road in a quick and effective way.

These are just the things off the top of my head that all go into merely riding my bike to school. I still believe that there are varying degrees of literacies, as an individual can get really good at doing all of these things with practice. I think that you can become literate at anything you can get good at. Being “good” at something seems to be just that: Literate. After riding my bike to class every week day, I have gotten pretty good at all the aforementioned fields.

This class so far has completely changed my ideas of literacy, and I have started to become more aware of the many fields I am literate in, and to what degree those literacies are experienced. Now I just need to decide on a day to day basis: What do I want to become literate in today?