Thursday, June 11, 2009
Literate v. Illiterate
During my course of reading ways with words, it has become clear that Heath is clearly defining literacy as reading and writing. In fact, one chapter is entitled "literate traditions." I think it would be fascinating to trace the definition of literacy and see how Heath's own book may have changed how people view literacy, and the fact that it is socially situated and contextualized.
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I think that would be an interesting historical tracing - Maybe looking to see how many authors writing about literacies (as opposed to literacy) cite Heath and how.
ReplyDeleteI also recently read an article that introduced a new term to me: aliteracy. I understand this term as referring to people who are able to read and write but for various reasons choose not to. I think this term definitely aligns itself firmly with the idea that literacy is first, foremost, and even ONLY a concept experienced through interaction with print. I think it would also be interesting to analyze articles written about "aliteracy" to try to determine how those authors' definitions of "literacy" situate and likely privilege print. I am not disavowing print as an important part of developing literacy, but the fact that "print literacy" is no longer a redundancy underscores the importance of acknowledging multiple types of literacy. (How those non-print types of literacy differ from the general concept of cognition, I'm not sure....)