What Literacy

Means to Me
Sean Perry

The word literacy could be one of the more diverse

words in the English language. A simple word like
apple may have different feeling associated with it,
but when it comes down to what an apple is,
everyone would agree that it is a piece of fruit that
grow off of a tree. Literacy on the other hand has
many different working definitions that come from
peoples different experiences with it. Every single
person has a different view and perception of what it
actually means that comes from their past
experiences with literature. When you ask someone
what literacy means, you may get a simple response
that correlates with the Webster dictionarys
definition, but if you ask them what it means to
them, you would most likely get a different response
from every person.
Deborah Bradit wrote an article called The
Sponsors of Literacy. In this text, she describes how
everyones view of literacy is shaped by the past
experiences they had with literacy. She then
introduces the idea of sponsorship to explain the
things that have shaped our view of literacy. A
sponsor is anything that has influenced us in terms of
literacy. This could be anything from a book that we
loved to read when we were a kid, to a teacher or
parent who introduced us to reading and writing. This
idea is key in understanding and interpreting the
different definitions of literacy to make one all
encompassing definition that can account for all the
diversity that comes with the term.
The first example I would like to give is Malcolm
X. Malcolm X was a criminal with very little education
before he went to prison. If you were to ask him what
literacy was before prison, he probably would have
told you that he did not know and did not care. While
in prison he had a very strong encounter with
literature and quickly learned to read and write
properly. He started to learn to read and write
through a dictionary, which was one of his main
sponsors. He was memorized with learning how to
speak properly in letters and who to understand a
sea of words that he had never heard before. He
started to read and write more and more and soon he
became very literate. Now before jail, people who
accept the dictionarys definition would say that
Malcolm X was not very literate. Malcolm, on the
other hand, would say that before prison he was very
literate. He may not have spoke properly but he
understood the street slang better than most. Just
because he was not literate in the literal sense, does
not mean he did not understand language. When
taking into consideration Malcolm Xs story, literacy
could be defined more correctly as not only being
able to read and write, but also being able to
understand literature also. Many people could read
an organic chemistry textbook and recognize the
words in the book, but that does not mean they
understand them also. To me, being literate also has
a understand component to it. Also, Malcolm's
experience with literacy was shaped because of his
sponsor. If he had not come into contact with the
dictionary, then he may have never had that deeper
connection with literacy that helped him form a more
in depth definition of literacy.
The second example I would like to show is Sherman
Alexie. When it comes to Sherman Alexie, I think that
he would describe literacy differently than Malcolm X.
Alexie a Native American who lived on the Spokane
Indian Reservation for the beginning of his life. There
is where he had his first encounter with literacy. His
father was a very avid reader and would read
anything he could get his hands onto. Because of
this, Alexie became a very avid reader also. He
started to pick up his father's books at an early age
of 3 and would just look at the pages. He could
understand the words but he soon began to
understand paragraphs. He describes them as a
fence that held words. He then started to look at
comic books and put together what words meant
according to what the pictures portrayed. Even
though he was not literate in the formal sense, he
started to become more literate as soon as he
started to understand the concept of paragraphs.
Now the whole reason that Alexie started his
endeavors was because of his father. His biggest
sponsor was his father. The love for his father leads
him to love literature. He had very positive
connotations associated with literature because his
dad loved literature so much. I feel like this gives him
a much deeper understanding of literature because
he knows it as such a personal and intimate level.
This may shape his view of literacy and cause him to
define it with more emotion than someone else who
did not have a sponsor that helped them gain a love
for literature.
As for me, I have a very different experience with
literature. My whole family is more focused around
science and math. The biggest influence was my
grandfather who is an engineer. From a very young
age I would go with him to his workshop and we
would build things together. He taught me how to
weld, wire electrical circuits, make wooden cabinets
and so much more. The more time I spent with him
the more I became interested in how things worked
and how I could build things. Before I even realized it
I started to see the world in a different way and I
wanted to understand how things worked. He is no
doubt one of my biggest sponsors because he
changed the way I looked at the world and shaped
me into who I am today. This may not seem like an
experience with literature but this is the precursor to
what happened in high school to really shape how I
see see literature and how i was able to articulate my
definition of literacy and literature.
My experiences with literature in the sense of
reading and writing has been mundane. I never had a
defining moment like Malcolm X or Alixe where I fell
in love with words and wanted to explore the whole
world of reading and writing. However, there was a
time where I started to see numbers as more than
just symbols on a page. Throughout high school you
are required to take different math classes. I didn't
like them the best, but they were not my least
favorite either. I was more indifferent about math
until eleventh grade. This is when I started taking
classes with my favorite teacher I have ever had,
Mrs. Taylor. She taught higher level math courses like
Calculus and Physics and in these classes, I started
to see number as answers to questions in the world
instead of just tedious symbols that would give you a
headache if you stared at them for too long. She was
the biggest influence on me to help me see that
math is actually enjoyable if you look at it the right
way. My view of numbers and math has grown
exponentially over the past few years due to the
spark that was lit inside of me by my highschool
teacher, Mrs. Taylor. She is one of the bigger reasons
that my major is Mechanical Engineering and not
Biology, because before I had her for 2 years
straight, I was planning to become a Biology major
and go to medical school. Now I am trying in
integrate my love for biology and math into one
profession.
Because we have already extended the term literacy
to be more broadly defined as understand reading
and writing, I think that it can also talk about reading
and writing numbers. Numbers depict a certain
language just like words, and even though everyone
isn't always fluent in language of Calculus, it doesn't
mean that it isn't literature also. I think that when
using the term literacy for math, it is more referring
to the understanding side of that definition than the
reading and writing side. This means that math can
be used in many different ways and the same ten
digits can create innumerable combinations and
possibilities. This being said, I would still argue that
both literature consisting of words has high
correlation to literature consisting of numbers.
Literature has a wonderful ability to describe the
world around us. I think that numbers have the same
ability, you just have to interpret them differently. If
someone were to say they say a car driving and it
almost hit a deer, but it slammed on the brakes and
the deer was spared. Using physics, I can explain to
you why the car was able to stop due to friction
between the wheels of the car and the road, and
various other forces acting on the car. Both
representations got the point across that the car
stopped and did not hit the deer, one was more
graceful and elegant, and the other more analytical
and informational. Nevertheless they both got the
point across and were able to get the information to
the viewer that the deer was spared and the car
stopped, they just used different methods to convey
that information. Because I am very curious about
how the world works, the math side of literature
appeals to me more. I love to understand how and
why things work.
As you have seen my definition of literacy and
literature is very different than those of Malcolm X
and Alixe. That is due to the fact that I had very
different sponsors than them. My two biggest
sponsors were my grandfather and my high school
math teacher. They shaped me into loving to
understand how things work and how math can tell a
story just like words on a page can. On the other
hand, Malcolm X and Alixe had sponsors that
encouraged them to read and write and so therefore
their definitions of literacy and literature differ
greatly from mine. This does not mean that one
person is wrong or right, but all of out definitions can
combine into one great definition that helps explain
the more in depth yet braod term that encompases
every defination of literacy. To conclude I would say
that through reading about different peoples
experiences with literacy and combining them with
my own that a better definition of literacy would look
more like this. Literacy is the not only having the
ability to read and write but also being able to
understand and what you are reading and writing. To
fully understand this definition you have to also
define literature because the two are directly
correlated. Literature is anything that is is written
that conveys information. This encompassed
eveything from words that tell fantastic stories about
dungeons and dragons to numbers that explain how
heat moves through metal. Regardless literature is a
very broad yet very deep and personal term that can
be used to help literacy become a much more
diverse and rich term. Literacy does not have to be
just for English scholars who have a large vocabulary
and read many books, it is for everyone who
understands their own form of literature. This
definition is a much better fit for what literacy is
because literature is shaped by so many different
things. Every sensor is different and therefore
everyone's expression of literature is different.
Hopefully exploring what literature and literacy really
is has opened you eyes to a more diverse view of
what literature is because it has surely opened my
eyes to see so many different perspectives and the
more you can see through others eyes, the better will
be able to understand the term.