Jarvik Joshi English 101 Mrs.

Keaton September 19, 2012 Spectrum of Literacy

If somebody were to come up to me four weeks ago and asked me what literacy is, my vague answer would be, Its an ability to read and write. As clich as it is, the reason why I would have given that answer is because that is what the technical definition in the dictionary is and that is what I was told. After spending four weeks reading other peoples definition of literacy, having variety of group discussions, and doing a lot pondering I have come up with my definition of what literacy is to me. I am not yet going to say it but instead going to explain my thought process and how I derived my definition. One thing I was really astounded by was hearing others definitions of literacy. I had no clue that one can consider having literacy in one specific subject like math. From what I heard and agree to is you could be literate in lets say math but not be as literate in chemistry. For me, I can say that I am literate in math because I scored higher in that section compared to other sections. So part of my definition relates to different types of literacies one can have and it doesnt have to do anything with being focused on one specific subject. From one of our reading, Dnielle DeVoss can be considered literate in computer science because she wrote codes for video games (DeVoss, 397). At the same time, she wasnt as literate in social skills because the way she communicated with other people was through chat rooms which made her lack those social skills.

Another piece of my definition of literacy has to do with an ability to comprehend. Being able to figure out or understand what a certain object is trying to say or convey. In one of our discussions, some of us talked about a picture being worth a thousand words. A picture can portray many types of feelings, thoughts, ideas, and emotions. You dont necessarily need to know certain words to make you feel sad or happy, it is that innate feeling you get from those emotions and expressions. That is why, despite having more than 6000 languages in the whole world, people across the world can relate to emotions. If you are smiling, you are happy. If you have a frown on your face, obviously you are sad. That is why you dont have to know words in order to understand everything. A great example would be dogs. How do dogs know when you are sad or happy? If you are happy, a dog will also be joyful and will play with you. If you are sad, then a dog will try to solace you. Now a dog cannot read or write but it is able to understand human emotions so according to my definition of literacy, he would be literate in reading emotions. The type of literacy I talked about above is acquired through experience and also everyone is born with it to an extent. Some people are very literate in reading emotions and we all can attest that our moms are prime examples. The final part of my definition has to do with communicating. This is a small world where everyone is interconnected somehow. In order for a human being to thrive, it is necessary to communicate and get a message across. For this one might be required to read and write thus the technical definition of literacy isnt hundred percent wrong. As I said earlier, there are more than 6000 languages around the world. It becomes hard for everyone to communicate since we all understand and speak different languages. If we were nave enough to think that everyone understands English, we would be wrong. These days you need to know at least 2 or more languages to effectively communicate around the world and that is why schools these day have

many options for students to learn foreign languages. I learned Spanish in my high school so that I can effectively communicate and understand people who speak fluent Spanish. One can argue that we can use sign language which is universal but not everyone knows sign language. Summing it all up, my definition of literacy is being able to comprehend and communicate information or a message, may it be in one specific area or wide variety of areas. An individual can be literate in a specific subject but may not be literate in others but as long as individual is literate in one subject; they are a literate person to me. Different people having different literacies make this world run efficiently because a person cant do everything all at the same. Think about it, if a person was literate in everything that existed in this world, he wouldnt buy a TV from best-buy, he would make it himself. He wouldnt get any medicines from the drug store but make it himself. He wouldnt go to a doctor because he would treat himself. He wouldnt buy a car, he could assemble it himself. Can you imagine a person doing everything? That is why we have different professions and different jobs in which people are literate and well at doing their jobs thus, as I mentioned before, making this world of ours run efficiently. Literacy is very important and as long you are literate in one thing, you can be a part of this amazing world.

Questions Why do some rappers manipulate some words so that those words dont have defined meaning but yet audience seem to think those words are real? Is it because that their audience is not literate or is it because they are just ignorant enough to only care for the money and not how they are impacting the community? I understand the words that they come up with go with whatever they are saying but if a young child listens to the rapper and grows up listening to wrong words, wouldnt it affect its ability to read and write? Is technology really effecting how we write and read? I mean texting had definitely changed the way we talk to people. In order to efficient, we abbreviate things and writing everything in short sentences. Not only that we have software that will auto-correct our written words so we really dont pay attention on writing the word right assuming the computer or phone can change. Is technology being a negative factor in being literate? Why is it that now a days you need to have a decent education (at least a bachelors or masters degree) to get a decent living? Is it forcing people to be smarter? Obviously there is a lot of competition these days and everybody is trying to get an education so that they can better their lives. What happens to people who are academically challenged but have some sort other talent that cant be expressed by a degree?