According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary, the adjective, literate, has two definitions; the basic definition is simply to be educated or cultured, and to further explain the quality of being educated, it states, "to be able to read and write." The second definition says, "versed in literature or creative writing", and as I continued to read the description of literacy, it states that being "versed" in writings means one must have knowledge and competency of the text. In my opinion, the last part of the definition is the most important because without competence, the ability to read and write is useless.
To be a literate person, one must be able to read poems, essays, novels, newspapers, or any other type of text and understand it, as well as the quality of being able to write some type of response, reflection, or explanation of the text which can be easily understood by the implied reader. The ability to communicate effectively, not only write, and the ability to understand thoroughly, not simply read, is what makes an educated person literate.
The process of becoming literate is a more difficult task than passing a certain level of education. Becoming literate is about doing more than just dipping your toes into the ocean of literature. Becoming literate is about submerging all your thoughts and your whole mind into many different texts, soaking in each literary lense, and delving into every literary device. After this intellectual experience with a text, a reader must write, rewrite, and revise ten times over to learn to effectively tell a story; a story of which will only be retold an infinite amount of times across every nation.
To be literate you must know how to understand a story, read between the lines, know when a foreshadowing occurs, read a metaphor and look into all it's possible implications, write a letter, communicate effectively with written words. Because of the constant stream of media, whether it be a medical handout, subtitles on a movie, information from an advertisement, resume, or college application, without the characteristic of literacy, it is difficult to succeed in today’s society. According to a study done by the National Institute for Literacy in 2001, more than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level - far below the level needed to earn a living wage. A literate person uses their ability to code and decode an immeasurable number of times in every aspect of their life.
Maggie,
ReplyDeleteYou are right that literacy is as many-faceted competency. Just as you wrote, it goes far beyond reading and writing. Writing is thinking. Before a response or other written application occurs, a reader must think about the text. It is the goal of AP Literature to develop readers, writers, and, most of all, thinkers. You certainly seem to have a grasp of the process.
SBL
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you on this blog post. It’s unbelievable that there are adults out there who still read below a fifth-grade level. It is difficult to succeed in today’s society if you are illiterate. If you can’t read or write, you’re stopping yourself from so much opportunity in the world. I like how you said, “Becoming literate is about submerging all your thoughts and your whole mind into many different texts…” I agree with you completely on this. To become literate, you have to read literature. It’s impossible to improve your literacy if you’re not using the ability to read and write.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you have said. Literacy is one of the most important parts of being a reader. You must understand, comprehend, and discover the text. The shockingly low literacy in our country and in our youth threatens to destroy classic literature. The fact that twenty percent of adults read at or below a fifth grade level proves that passing a grade does not mean they properly understood what they were learning. Many more kids than people think are just being passed along because they are too old to be in the grade again. This makes classes easier so kids can pass them, therefore dropping literacy levels in students and adults.
ReplyDeleteWhen you said, "To be literate you must know how to understand a story, read between the lines…" you described what literacy is perfectly. In our culture, comprehending is a lost skill that must be found again. Kids are taught simply how to read a text and answer questions about the bare essentials of the plot; while this makes a good stepping stone into how to approach literature, for the plot is always important, it also handicaps their view. When the focus is solely on whether the child can read what is written and not on whether or not they are able to analyze the text, it hinders the child's ability to learn. Perhaps that is one reason that twenty percent of adults read at a fifth grade reading level; they were never properly shown how to approach a text.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree with most of your definition of literacy, I disagree on certain aspects. In my view, being literate is the ability to read and understand texts and then be able to discuss them. I understand this is part of your definition, but I believe yours is too narrow. Often times, a reader never needs to write a fully articulated response in essay format making sure to mention the ten different ways a metaphor shapes a story. The reader only needs to be able to have some sort of discussion about the text which may involve metaphors, but may also involve simply the plot and the characters. Literacy, in my opinion, is the ability to read and understand. Intense analysis does not seem vital on a day to day basis in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteCould your statement, reading, "the ability to communicate effectively, not only write, and the ability to understand thoroughly, not simply read, is what makes an educated person literate" have been any better? The most important aspect of literature is the ability to communicate thoughts from one person to another. As you mentioned, literacy is a process of delving into a piece of literature and understanding it on many components. When one reads a piece of literature, they must be able to both understand the communication between the author and the reader and also be able to communicate themselves through a piece of literature. That, as Maggie would agree, is literacy.
ReplyDeleteLike just about everybody's comments, I would have to agree that the way you gave a description of how literature is not merely being able to read and write was spot on. Being literate definitely does go beyond of the simplistic realm of reading and writing; it means, again like you said, to be able to throughly understand the text, its symbols, purpose and being able to accurately and educatedly respond to the text to convey your thoughts, what you liked and your questions. The statistic that more than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level is startling; however, even though I like to think I can read above a fifth-grade level, I still have much to learn to become a much more skillful reader as well as writer.
ReplyDeleteI was very surprised at your statistic of 20 percent of adults reading below a fifth grade level. This just proves even further that literacy has many tiers, and not everyone fits into just one. Reading comprehension is also different from literacy. A person can be able to read, but can they really comprehend the deeper meaning of the text? Only a few readers can fully grasp a text every time they read, so the human race is full of readers who only understand certain layers of a text. It is funny to think that 10 people could read the exact same book and get 10 different meanings from it, just from their literacy level.
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