Raising Bar of Literacy

So far I have learned a great deal about literacy. Before taking this class, I assumed literacy encompassed just the ability to read and write. Little did I know that this reading and writing was only a small part of an extremely broad category; largely influenced by socioeconomic factors as well as those sponsors that surround those acquiring literacy.

The idea that literacy is not just reading and writing resonated with me and piqued interest. The example of Dwayne Lowery and his union work stuck out to me particularly. Dwayne was given a crash course in the literacy of negotiation and union work, which held sufficient for some time. Despite his seeming rags to riches story, the union work was soon met with oppositions from lawyers. This shift caused the literacy level to jump to greater distances than Dwayne could reach. Dwayne’s form of literacy quickly became outdated with the start of lawyers bringing legal documents into what used to be simple one on one negotiation. This perfectly exemplifies the fact that our current culture has placed a high value on literacy and that “more and more people are now being expected to accomplish more and more things with reading and writing” (Brandt/Sponsors of Literacy, 173).

Time and time again we hear the argument that students in inner-city areas that are set up for failure, only to be critiqued by those that say students that truly strive for success will make it. I learned this was simply not the case in the Sponsors of Literacy piece as before mentioned. As a future English teacher, I find it important that we should realize socioeconomic factors are of huge influence to the success of students. I need to be able to view my students and take into account their life at home. As a personal example, my Filipino high school girlfriend was incredibly intelligent. Despite her aptitude for school, she missed a great many of days of class and failed to make it into her UCSD because her family and culture valued time spent with relatives. Instead of studying over the weekends, her family would drive from San Diego to Los Angeles and she would help take care of her sickly grandmother or watch her nieces and nephews. Although the smartest of her friends, she did not make it into half the colleges that others did. I cannot begin to make assumptions on how her life will/has ended up, but it is not too great of a leap to assume she would have had more avenues and paths to travel if she went to a UC rather than her local community college.