Literacy: The Evolving Beast
For years, literacy has been seen as such a concrete term in that there was only one real meaning, and that meaning would hold true for the rest of time. Still today, many think to be “literate” you must fit into a box of a definition that was created in the times of late Middle English, so roughly the 1300s. We, as a society, find it so crucial to be literate, so crucial that it is practically declared a “must have” to be fully successful. If we take it to be true that being literate equals the first step in becoming successful, wouldn’t we think that the meaning behind the key to being successful would evolve parallel with the change in times? Does being literate and successful mean the same thing it did over 700 years ago? Being literate in the 21st century is being able to adjust between different modes of text effectively, and also be able to understand the affordances and constraints of each. It is being able to understand a text, but also being able to construct an artifact of your own to leave for someone else to interpret. The key to being literate in this time is being adaptable and willing to evolve.
Literacy has always been seen as the ability to read and write. For instance, the ability to comprehend books, like the works of Shakespeare. Education was condensed to deductive reasoning and knowledge of the classics (2010, October 14), and for those to occur, one must be able to read and write. Isn’t there more to learning and being a positive contributor to society than just that?
I believe that the image above promotes the older definition of literacy. It shows the stages of the evolution of man grouped together, all the way from being a primate to today’s modern man, more specifically, a janitor, stuck on a cliff. Literacy is what separated the “primates” from the other man wearing a suit. Literacy is what gave the man the ability to fly and reach anything possible. He is holding books and newspapers, and we can assume that this represents his ability to be literate. This is not an accurate scale of literacy for the 21st century at all. There is not a hard separation in being literate or not, it is a scale with no gaps. Since being literate in the 21st century is about keeping up with the times, it is about constant growth by learning more about new modes.
In 1960 UNESCO began to understand that the definition of being literate needed expansion since, “the ability to read and write” was outdated even for that time. That was when they created the term functional literacy, and they defined it as, “tangible skills: reading and writing… using these skills in ways that contribute to socioeconomic development, develop the capacity for social awareness and critical reflection as a basis for personal and social change,” (I., 2006). This shows that there is more to being literate than having the ability to read and write, this shows that it is important how you apply those skills in your society. What good does it do if you know how to read the words out of a book and write words if you are unable to make it applicable to your life?
Being literate in the 21st century means to have mastered the art of evolving. In this day and age, to be considered successful one needs to be able to adapt quickly. There are so many innovations and changes that are coming our way, whether it be political, social, technological, or societal. In Hannover Research, they identified skills that were important for the 21st century, two of those skills being flexibility/adaptability and global and cultural awareness (13 Essential). What adaptability looks like for literacy is being able to adjust between various modes of text. Information is no longer solely relayed through traditional print text, there are forms of spreading information through text in countless ways whether that be an online article, a video, PowerPoint, visual, or chart. Truly being literate is being able to engage in various forms of texts, but also being able to evaluate those texts for what they are. Students should be able to evaluate the affordances and constraints of different modes. Being able to use different modes provides strength to the user because they are able to look through a larger pool of information to sort through and evaluate (Alvermann and Wilson, 2011). By them having these skills, it will help them design texts of their own. Bloom’s Taxonomy was created in order to promote higher forms of thinking by creating categories of cognitive processes. The divisions are made from the simplest process to the most complex, and the most complex of those being creating (Clark, 2015). This goal of having our students be able to create something out of what they have learned is very doable, but first, they must be able to see the benefits and drawbacks of different texts, then from that information they can form their own well-thought-out text.
In conclusion, being literate today does not mean what it did 700, 70, or even 10 years ago. Since the times change, the word of what we define a necessity for success needs to evolve as well. Being literate in the 21st century is an ongoing process that we all need to be focusing on maintaining. We must be able to evolve with the times so that we can effectively analyze various modes of texts, and therefore can create texts of our own for others to interpret.
Bibliography
Avermann, D. E., & Wilson, A. A. (2011). Comprehension Strategy Instruction for Multimodal Texts in Science. In Theory Into Practice (2nd ed., Vol. 50, pp. 116–124).
Clark, D. (2015, January 12). Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains. Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html
Greenberg, S. (1992, January 27). Literacy [Cartoon]. Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
H. (n.d.). 13 Essential 21st Century Skills for Today’s Students (E., Trans.). Retrieved from https://www.envisionexperience.com/blog/13-essential-21st-century-skills-for-todays-students
I. (2006). What is Functional Literacy. Retrieved from https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/literacy-integral-definition/36316
T. Changing Education Paradigms. (2010, October 14). Retrieved September 21, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=zDZFcDGpL4U
