Klemser 1

Thomas Klemser
Nancy Roche
Writing 1010-018
8 October 2014
Literacy Broken Down
Literacy is a form of spreading ideas throughout history. Literacy practices are an
important part of everybody's dynamic lives. Literacy is constantly recurring and always leaving
its marks in the past. Literacy practices are unique to an individual and are a part of your
everyday background and culture. Literacy is dictated by social place and any changes in your
society will cause a change in literacy. This is shown in the main point of the article by David
Barton and Mary Hamilton when it says, Literacy practices are culturally constructed, and, like
all cultural phenomena, they have their roots in the past. Literacy practices are as fluid, dynamic,
and changing as the lives and societies of which they are a part of (Barton and Hamilton 13).
What is about literacy practices here is that literacy practices are based of off your culture and
are always changing but do leave significant mark in their past. Literacy practices are not just
reading and writing but more importantly are made up of context, text, domains, practices,
discourses, social society, and events.
As Barton and Hamilton go on to explain in their article one of the key elements of
literacy practices is text and context. Texts that are part of your everyday life and that are
personal to you as an individual are what is studied of literacy practices. This is explain in the
article when it says, The study of everyday literacy practices points attention to the texts of
everyday life, the texts of personal life; these are distinct from other texts (Barton and Hamilton
9). What is being said here is that texts have multiple roles and can be very broad, but because

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its broad it can fit into specific roles that are personal to oneself. Also literacy changes in
context and this is shown in the article when it states, Looking at different literacy events it is
clear that literacy is not the same in all contexts; rather, there are different literacies (Barton and
Hamilton 10). What this quote means is that context is based off of events that happen daily in
your life which result in different forms of literacy.
Events are important when literacy practices are studied because they give it a function.
Text and context according to Barton and Hamilton are what is the major stake in an event. In
Bartons and Hamiltons words, Literacy events are activities where literacy has a role. Usually
there is a written text, or texts, central to the activity and there may be talk around the text
(Barton and Hamilton 8). This means that literacy activities or events are embedded in social
practices and that text and context is the major stake that events are created by. What literacy
practices do is it shapes the event that is occurring. Events can be in form of written or spoken
but are primarily based off of text and context of literacy practices. These events and activities
are a form of literacy practices that are observable.
Another major part of literacy practices is the domains and discourses that are associated
with them. A domain is a group or community that is defined by their written language and a
discourse is how the group use it. These can vary from family to religion and many more.
Barton and Hamilton explain how domains play a huge role in literacy practices when they say,
Domains, and the discourse communities associated with them, are not clear-cut, however:
there are questions of the permeability of boundaries, of leakages and movement between
boundaries, and of overlap between domains (Barton and Hamilton 11). What is being said
here is that domains serve as a function in the way that they form context for literacy which can
be learned from studying them. What Barton and Hamilton explain is, there are different

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literacies associated with different domains of life (Barton and Hamilton 11). In other words
this simply means that your community and your culture influences your domain significantly
which is why there are so many different domains throughout the world. Different domains
include things such as family, religion, organizations, workplace, education, and many more
which cause discourses that are unique to every person.
Literacy practices are kinetic in the way that they are constantly changing and new ones
are being devised all the time. Literacy practices do indeed leave a trail through history which
people can study to learn more about specific topics. An example of a literacy practice stake that
leaves its mark in history, as Barton and Hamilton explain, is text which is very broad but can
also be specific and play a role for yourself, and also context which is based off of the events that
you partake in in your life. Barton and Hamilton later go on to explain that domains which is the
community or group that you belong to based off your written language and discourses which are
how you use them. An example being a religious group or family member; Although it may
seem less important to some people more than others, domains and discourses are what defines
you as a human being and what way makes you uncommon. Events are additionally important
because they involve written and/or spoken activities that shape literacy practices in general.
These literacy practices are ingrained in social practices, which any changes in social result in
changes in literacy, and change based off of formality and informality. That is why as Barton
and Hamilton ultimately explain it is crucial to your learning to get the exposure to these literacy
practices and learn new ones that come about, which is all learned through education and
schooling.
Works Cited
Barton, David, and Mary Hamilton. Situated Literacies Reading and Writing in
Context. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.