In Context

When I was in high school, I had to write a paper for a philosophy class. I cannot quite remember what the paper’s thesis or arguments were (although I remember the topic being communism), but there was one part of the paper which I do remember. In my writing on the topic I used the abbreviation “ok”, rather than using the correct “okay.” As I argued with the teacher, I was struck by how often I used “ok” or just “k” in everyday life. In my texts, emails, and Facebook posts these words were quite common. In fact, it took me about two minutes to realize what the error was. I had no issues with reading a book, or forming a basic argument, but presenting them in a way that was proper in my specific context was not yet fully matured. Had I used “ok” in a text or Facebook post, no one would have looked twice; it would have been deemed correct by most individuals in my social circle. This is an example of one literacy getting confused with another. In an academic setting literacy has a different meaning than in a non-academic setting. This problem is spread beyond just texting and school. In differing branches of mathematics, the same term may have two very different meanings. Definition is essential to proper communication of ideas in the subject. Literacy is often far more complicated than simply reading and writing. Being able to read a word, equation, or picture far less vital than understanding the meaning behind the words, equations, or pictures. One can be incredible at reading, writing, and understanding one type of literature, yet be terrible at another. It is the context, that decides whether a person is literate.

Shortly before I began writing this paper, I watched a video on complex analysis from MIT Open Courseware. This video presented a far different way of learning the subject than reading a book on the subject, or listening to the words the professor was saying. While working through one of the problems, I found that I understood the strategy to solve the problem far better than if I had I simply read an example (Gross, 2012; Spiegel, Lipschutz, Schiller, & Spellman, 2009). Watching the professor teach the concept allowed me to understand how to do the problem. I believe this is because of my classroom literacy. I spent years in classrooms, and was forced to learn in the method and spent years learning in a way that the video more closely approximated. While books were used in school, I rarely had to teach myself. The book existed to supplement the classroom. The way I learn is based on what I have experienced. This, I believe gives another example of multiple literacies, and one that is quite common among students. As I work with my students, many, instead of reading the books, will watch YouTube or Khan Academy videos. They tend to find these far more helpful than looking up examples in the textbooks. This new avenue for learning and teaching is opening new realms of possibility for everyone with access to a computer device (or smartphone, tablet, etc.) and internet access. In many ways, it far extends the potential of education and literacy to those that have not had it in the past. As Gee writes, “we need parents, teachers, more advanced peers, and social groups and institutions that supply, mentor, monitor, and assess the ways in which learners marry language and experience. (Gee, 2015, p. 81)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVvGqWyQB_0&t=1760s

When a student reads an equation, they are displaying a different literacy than someone reading a book. Several of my friends read complicated books on philosophy, but can not understand the simplest of equations. Literacy goes far beyond the simple disciplines. It also goes into social and visual literacies, oral literacies, disciplinary literacies, as well as the more classic literacy. As Cappello and Lafferty write in their paper “The Roles of Photography for Developing Literacy Across the Disciplines”: “Children know that a pictogram of a man or woman indicates a restroom before they can read the words men or women. They easily manipulate icons on touch screens, interpreting their meaning often before they can explain it in words” (2015) Many individuals learn the images and gestures far faster than they learn the print based literacies. We can often see far further into a concept by synthesizing differing type of literature. The use of images, illustrations, equations, examples, video and text can often lead to a far higher level of understanding. In Unflattening, Sousanis writes (and illustrates) this idea. He writes about how the hybrid form (of comics) can lead to higher understanding. On page 61 of his book, he states: “The very fabric of our experience emerges from the interaction and integration of each hemisphere’s separate means of perceiving.” (Sousanis, 2015) Here Sousanis makes mention of the how we can better ourselves using separate types of literacy in order to attain a higher perspective.

Literacy is far more than just being able to read from a page on a textbook. It is being able to understand a lecture, read some engineer’s math work, read from a barometer, or even to read a menu. There is a lot to literacy. Take anyone, and they are likely literate in some area, and almost certainly illiterate in another.

Bibliography

Gee, J. P. (2015). Literacy and Education. New York, NY: Routledge.

Gross, H. [MIT OpenCourseWare]. (2012, March 29). Calculus of Complex Variables [Video File]. Retrieved 22 May 2017

Cappello, M., & Lafferty, K. E. (2015). The Roles of Photography for Developing Literacy Across the Disciplines. The Reading Teacher, 69(3), 287–295. doi:10.1002/trtr.1418

Spiegel, M. R., Lipschutz, S., Schiller, J. J., & Spellman, D. (2009). Schaum’s Outlines –

Complex Variables: with an Introduction to Conformal Mapping and its Applications; (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Sousanis, N. (2015). Unflattening. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.