Five

Prior to the readings, I usually just thought of literacy as being able to read and write, at least well enough to get through doing everyday things with ease. I thought of it similarly to how Scribner explains it as functional literacy. The reasons she gave for why that does not really suffice as a definition make sense though, because the things that people need to know to get through each day vary a lot between cultures and society. It seems almost impossible to come up with a definition for literacy that can be universal for all societies and cultures because peoples’ lives are so different. I agree that there are many factors that play into defining literacy and that it is a huge task. I also agree that there are different forms of literacy and that accomplishing the task of becoming literate varies depending on where and how you live. I liked how Lunsford took a more positive approach to looking at how the increases in technology are changing the literacy in the world today. It was really interesting to see how students are actually writing more now than they were before, and it makes sense because even if it is not traditional writing, people have a lot more opportunities to write about whatever they want whenever they want. I also liked how she emphasized the fact that most of the time students know when to differentiate the type of writing depending on the subject, because I have noticed that a lot with people in our generation. Lunsford and Scribner were definitely not as negative as Hedges and Carr in their outlook on literacy, which was a nice change while reading. I think one of the most pressing concerns is that while most people know when to formally write and when to write in their own style, some people do not and need to learn how to distinguish the two. I like thinking about the positive changes that technology is bringing to literacy and how people write because it is a lot better to think about than the negative ones.