Response to Readings for 21 Apr 08

“Protean Shapes in Literary Events: Ever-Shifting Oral and Literate Traditions” by Heath

Heath argues that, rather than seeing orality and literacy as having fluid meaning in contexts of their own, traditional theories have set orality as a binary opposite to literacy. In other words, orality has traditionally been placed at one end of a continuum that had fixed points which worked up to literacy. In contrast, Heath believes orality and literacy should be points along their own individual continuums because communities decide when and to what extent they will practice either one.

In a very interesting example, Heath explains the “literacy events” (445) that took place in Trackton, a town in the Carolinas. Although the people of this community knew how to read and write, they typically chose oral communication to discuss events and experiences. They were able to gather more information and meaning through social interaction (talking to neighbors instead of simply reading a letter or instruction manual). As Heath mentions, reading was mainly done on a functional level, meaning the Trackton residents only read what they absolutely needed to in order to gain information about addresses, street signs, etc.

I like what Heath had to say because I have always felt that people want to know the practical value of anything they learn. For example, I think students retain information better when they know how the topic is directly applicable to their lives. Otherwise, they often see no need to practice writing, etc. I was also particularly struck by the transcription of the prayer that Heath included in the article. The fact that the Trackton schoolteacher took the time to write out a version of the prayer in SWE but delivered the prayer in AAVE shows that Heath is correct in placing orality on a parallel line with literacy. Even thought the vernacular would have been considered lower on the traditional orality-literacy continuum, the schoolteacher used a higher level of ability (on a purely oral scale) by using complex sentences and phrasing.

“Sponsors of Literacy” by Brandt

Brandt’s conceptual approach is that economic development goes hand-in-hand with a person’s literacy development. Coining the term “sponsors of literacy” (166), Brandt explains how the people and factors in our lives have a huge influence – and thus sponsor us – on the literacy that we acquire (or do not have the opportunity to acquire) throughout our lifetimes. To illustrate her concept, Brandt uses several real-life case studies which bolster her argument that the sponsors of literacy can both help us grow and hold us back.

I found myself relating to Brandt’s article because I know my own literacy has been influenced in ways that sometimes worked in opposition. For example, as a military dependent, I moved quite often as a child. In fourth grade, I moved (once again) to a new town and found myself in a classroom with a teacher who automatically assumed that, since I moved around so much, I was probably an average reader and put me into a corresponding reading group. This group used very basic flash cards to learn new words, etc. What this teacher didn’t realize was that I had a powerful literacy sponsor in my mother. (My mother always insisted that we travel from one base to another with a box of challenging books in the back of our station wagon. My siblings and I were required by my mother to read a certain number of books by the time we arrived at our new residence.) After about a week, my new fourth-grade teacher saw my actual level of literacy and moved me to the most advanced reading group in the class. In this advanced group, we used a machine (a very early form of computer) that helped increase our reading speed, etc. I often wonder about how the differences between the methods used in my fourth-grade reading groups affected the literacy of the students.

“Hearing Other Voices: A Critical Assessment of Popular Views on Literacy and Work” by Hull

Hull takes popular assumptions of literacy in the workplace to task because they discount the experiences of the very people – U.S. workers – that they profess to be helping. Hull points out, for example, that a lack of literacy in U.S. workers is often blamed for a sluggish economy when other contextual elements are really more often the culprit. Researchers and curriculum designers then compound this misconception by designing literacy education that completely misses the objective. As a result, workers spend hours in expensive literacy training that offers no real functionality for their personal lives.

I’m sure it will come as no surprise that I found Hull’s examples of literacy testing in the military to be an interesting part of this reading. Hull’s comment that “literacy performances that appear flawed on the surface do not necessarily imply a lack of intelligence or effort by the writer” (671) matches what I saw in the people with whom I worked. I know people who scored low on verbal and reading tests, for instance, who were excellent leaders because they intuitively knew how to relate to workers in a manner that inspired others. Conversely, the military has its fair share of educated officers and enlisted personnel with multiple graduate degrees who cannot function well in a leadership role because they only have “book knowledge” and don’t seem to be able to translate this education into action.

I believe what Hull is saying is that we need to pay attention to the first rule of Instructional System Design (ISD) – accurately determine what type of education is truly needed to fill a void – before we move on to curriculum preparation. We can only do this if we talk to the people who will be receiving this instruction and really listen to their concerns.

“A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing Across the Curriculum” by McCarthy

Using an inductive approach, McCarthy conducted a two-year study of one student’s experience with writing as the student progressed through three different college courses. McCarthy admits that she had “no hypotheses to test and no specially devised writing tasks” (236) at the outset of the study. Instead, McCarthy observed what the student, Dave, wrote and thought about as he was writing for each class and talked to Dave’s friends and teachers.

McCarthy’s conclusion is that academic writing is “context-dependent” (261) in a couple of ways. First, different classes often do have different ways of writing as they construct meaning within a particular discourse community. Students will feel as if they don’t fit into this community if teachers do not offer some assistance. Second, even when academic writing is similar between classes, students will often perceive the writing as being unfamiliar. In that case, teachers can help students by reminding them of other situations in which they wrote successfully.

I thought McCarthy’s article was useful, and she explained her study and methodology well, but I wondered why she chose to follow Dave’s writing in his Cell Biology class. The Freshman Composition and Introduction to Poetry classes were entry-level courses and easily showed Dave’s discomfort with what he perceived as being a new form of writing. The Cell Biology class, however, was Dave’s “third semester of college biology” (236). Wouldn’t Dave have felt a little more comfortable with the writing in the biology class? If so, this might explain – along with his interest in the field – how Dave could be more “successful” in that course.