Julie Steinberg

September 25, 2014

C&T 5037
Reflection
What is Literacy?
As I read the many discussions of the powerful question, What is literacy? and
thought about the many definitions literacy can have, forms it can take, and factors it can
involve, I made many connections as well as realizations about literacy. One of the most
prominent ideas related to literacy is its relationship to identity. In his article, What is
Literacy? Gee discusses discourse as an identity kit and the idea of literacy through
acquisition as opposed to, or balanced with, literacy through learning (Gee). The
suggestion that many children have conflicting discourses of school and home in their
lives, means that they subsequently have different identities affecting how they acquire or
learn across those places. This idea in itself is a challenge to the definition of literacy.
In the article, What we mean by multiple literacies, Bloome and Enciso further
examined such places and spaces where literacy occurs and relates to identity. We
interact with literacy in all kinds of spaces in our everyday lives, in and outside of home
and school. If then we are to understand a place, we have to understand the diverse
literacy practices that enable and constrain its economic, social, cultural, political, and
educational life and reciprocally we have to understand these places as complex
activities and movements through place and time (Bloome & Enciso). As we recognize
multiple literacies across spaces, we have to understand relationships among people and
texts and participation in shaping literacies becomes even more important than acquiring
literacies (Bloome & Enciso). Multiple places involve multiple complex literacy
activities, in which culture and identity matter and literacy is shaped.

When exploring the question of what is literacy, I also found reoccurring

importance placed on the shift to increasingly multimodal, complex, and intertextual
texts with which our children engage (Carrington). In her article, Im in a bad mood.
Lets go shopping, Carrington points out that print literacy is no longer sufficient
enough to ensure successful participation in civil and social life and being literate is
about having the skills and knowledge with which to participate in and transform ones
social and cultural context (Carrington). In Carrington challenges us to think of literacy
in a broader context, which she calls glocalized literacy, in which even toys children
play with are texts from which they can make meaning. I agree with her idea that
glocalized literacy would equip children with the necessary cultural and social
literacies to navigate successfully through knowledge and power scapes. In her article,
The textual shift, Walsh adds that we need to understand how readers construct
meaning from these multimodal texts to inform relevant pedagogy (Walsh).
Finally, in Historical Considerations, Willis reminds us that, as teachers, we can
work with these broader definitions of literacy and purposes for literacy that respect
differences within culture and identities. She urges us that now is the time to dismantle
and deconstruct definitions and purposes of literacy (Willis). Willis states, there is no
singular history of literacy, nor is there a singular definition of literacy and whether
literacy is acquired (Gee) or shaped, (Bloome & Enciso), I have found that all these ideas
surrounding literacy relate to three main themes: power, culture and identity. As teachers,
our awareness and mindfulness of all considerations around literacy and the identities our
students live will help us to be part of the ongoing process of deconstructing and
reconstructing the definition of literacy.