I knew that literacy encompassed a lot of different aspects and categories, but I thought it was interesting in the concept of teaching technology. Looking back on my earlier education, I never realized how all of those computer classes Incorporated other concepts of my education such as math and English. I realize now that many of the subjects taught in school, especially during the earlier grades are integrated together and have a lot to do with the teaching of literacy.
I thought that it was really interesting to see how everybody's definition in class was different. I noted that the biggest difference was how specific some of the definitions were while others were extremely broad (which is the category where my group fell into). I never really thought of listening as part of literacy. I knew it was a component, but I never counted it as its own category. After discussing it, I see that it is a very integral part of literacy and has much of its own components to take into account. My linguistics class has especially shown me how complicated what we hear can be.
Along with the definitions of literacy offered in class, I realized that my own personal definition was missing quite a few components. I believed literacy was the ability to comprehend and proficiency in the use of written and spoken language. I now see how outdated my definition is and how the definition is always changing as we find more teaching methods and our own world changes. Things like technology literacy, left out in my definition, have an extreme pertinence in today's literacy teaching, yet didn't only a few short decades ago. And, with this technology comes a whole new group of literary elements to explain such as the informal and formal e-mail, instant messaging, and text message. You can also see this same comparison by Gibbons in one of our readings, though I cannot find the exact page.
Everything that I have read and that we have talked about, have shown me that it is nearly impossible to make a "correct" definition of literacy. It would be extremely hard to even incorporate most of the literacy concepts, let alone all of the other ones that are still researched or barely known. Somebody will always challenge and disagree with your definition, and I have come to terms with that. It is important to continue to challenge these definitions. Every child learns and encodes differently. It is our jobs as teacher to ever expand our definitions of these concepts so that we will forever try and reach those students that just don't get it yet.
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2 comments:
Caitlin,
While reading your post I noticed that many of the things I found interesting in week two’s discussion stuck out to you too. I was also very surprised how important listening is to literacy and how easily we all forget to include it. Why do you think listening is often overlooked as a main category of literacy? I agree that linguistic taught us a lot about listening and speaking. I think linguistics class will benefit us with ELL in the future, because we are now aware of many complexities of these forms of literacy.
As future teachers I believe it is very important we realize there is no “correct” definition of literacy. I like how you mentioned your definition was “outdated.” Mine was also very outdated and I never second-guessed it till this class. I think the readings and class discussions have expanded my knowledge so I include new components, such as technology, like you mentioned in your post. Your examples of technology literacy (informal and formal email, instant messaging, and text messaging) are so relevant in today’s society. Do you plan on teaching technology in your classroom as a form of literacy?
Overall, I thought your post encompassed many of the parts of literacy. I think it will be interesting to see how all of our definitions develop over the semester.
--Jessica
speaking from my own personal experience, i never started defining concepts in my own words until i was in high school..and then there was a much greater emphasis on defining ideas in college and being able to define a concept in multiple ways. so perhaps if we teach our kids how to define concepts from a young age, they will be able to think more broadly rather than specifically.
i'm interested to see what will happen when we are teachers-aka what components of literacy do you think will take a back seat to other components and what components we will always have to juggle in our curriculum?
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