Defining Literacy

This has been budding and unfurling for years now. Currently, my definition of literacy is "the ability to flexibly interpret and create print and other forms of language in such a way that it impacts a person's everyday life and the lives of others." Much of this definition comes from the Leland article, after seeing how much critical literacy can change a classroom culture, and the Gibbons text, particularly the statement that "Today's children are entering a world in which they will need to be able to read and think critically, to live and work in intercultural contexts, to solve new kinds of problems, and to be flexible in ever changing work contexts; in short, to make informed decisions about their own lives and their role in a multicultural society."

How does this definition translate into a learning environment? Cambourne's conditions of learning - immersion, demonstration, engagement, expectations, responsibility, approximations, employment, and response - provide a framework. Ideally, my students would live in, work in, and attend school in environments where they are surrounded with print, with literate people, with uses for literacy, and with tools that can engage them as literate or pre-literate individuals (see my post on the paraphernalia of literacy). For example, they may hear oral storytelling in a religious setting, help a parent or older sibling cook from a recipe, read the cereal box during breakfast, and use sidewalk chalk to describe objectives for their neighborhood (either through pictures or words). These tasks are not what are traditionally thought of as "literacy" and they are far from the school environment, but they are crucial to a full, integrated perspective of literacy.

I became aware of the importance of available print and of children viewing themselves as literate people when I read Other People's Words by Victoria Purcell-Gates, a book I recommend as worldview-shifting. I would argue that Purcell-Gates builds on Cambourne's suggestion that children need responsibility for their learn to imply that families and communities need responsibility for their own literacy learning, something that should be happening within a social action perspective on literacy.