Literacy is defined by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary simply as, “The ability to read or write.” However, to be truly literate, one must be able to do more than just read and write. To be completely literate someone should be able to read, write, comprehend, and build upon what they have written or read. If everyone were to just read and write things without thinking, many of the beautiful pieces of literature that are considered to be classics would not be the fantastic pieces of art we have come to recognize them as. Great and complex writing would be basically nonexistent. Being a literate person entails being capable of performing the four tasks previously listed. To become literate, one must immerse themselves in various pieces of literature from all different time periods and genres. A literate person considers meanings beyond those of surface value. For example, the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock in The Great Gatsby represents many different things to different literate people. People who are truly literate can recognize motifs, symbols, metaphors, and allusions without having to process the writing for a long period of time. Literate people know how to uncover the true purpose of a passage or novel without understanding the authors intent beforehand. A literate person thinks far differently from an illiterate person or a person who can only read. They are constantly and consistently analyzing any text that they come into contact with. The abilities of those that are truly literate are precious and extremely important.
It does take much more to be literate than what that definition states. You accurately said that it requires the ability to comprehend and build upon what has been read to be literate. You also mentioned that we would not have the classics that we do today if the authors of those works had not comprehended what they had read before and wrote themselves. It is a strange world to imagine without books like The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men. What if Steinbeck had not understood the flow of the King James Bible which he credited part of his writing and foundation for The Grapes of Wrath on? The book might not have been written or if it did it might not be such a classic as it is today. It is a very interesting thing to think about.
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