Brandt's text
Literacy in American Lives, makes a case for stability as a driving force of literacy contrasting Raymond Branch's rise to computer literacy and Dora Lopez's struggles with Spanish literacy. Even though both individual's grew up in the same area and had father's working for a University, their circumstances were quite different. Raymond's father was a professor and Dora's a shipping clerk. Additionally, computer literacy was on the rise and interest in accumulating it was growing. Spanish literacy on the other hand was not as necessary nor largely sought to attain. Due to these differences, acquiring literacy proved much easier when presented with a need for it. This made me think about my experience with Spanish literacy. I took four years of Spanish in high school and one semester here at college. Furthermore my mother teaches Spanish to eighth graders as a living. Despite this, I never mastered the language, would never claim to be bilingual, and become extremely anxious at the thought of having to speak Spanish. Part of the reason I never mastered the language was the lack of necessity. It was always something extra, something to fluff up my academic record but not something that I had to excel at. My future did not require becoming literate in Spanish, and so I didn't. Though I would not claim to be technologically savvy, I do know how to use the web, Word Processor, and other applications related to my studies. My experiences largely support Brandt's findings. How does your own literacy acquisition correspond to the need/value relation? Besides familial influences, as illustrated with Dora, what else drives an individual to acquire a literacy not currently popular or necessary?
2 comments:
My experience with English literacy as a child and throughout my pre-college years was mostly based on necessity - of which there was very little. I could usually get away with reading and writing the bare minimum while still getting good grades. It was only when I came to PSU that I began to value what I was writing. The higher standard that college holds one to made me feel morally obligated to do my best work. It is somewhat ironic that while I'm here, where there is generally more freedom in writing assignments, I try my hardest to write well. I could easily half-ass my papers and scoot by with B's and C's but I feel that my time here would be wasted if I didn't push myself. On the other hand, when high school was a requirement, writing was just another assignment to be completed as fast as possible.
I think one thing that might drive someone to learn a new language would be to learn the language of their ancestors. I guess this is family related but bear with me. My first cousin and I are half Syrian and he recently bought the Arabic edition of Rosetta Stone. However, no one in my family speaks Arabic anymore. He simply had the interest to become more in touch with his ancestry and culture. I think this also says a lot about language and culture.
Interesting post.
I feel that in both your experience and David's, higher levels of literacy achievement would fall into the top two tiers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs... simply put: we have moved beyond the literacy of necessity and are now motivated to pursue literacy for self-esteem and/or self-actualization.
Once literacy reaches the point where we are adept at utilizing the resource, it is solely the motivation of the individual to excel and push our capabilities out of the realm of the homogeneous or accepted "norm/standard".
I realize it is not the goal of most individuals to write an epic poem (i.e. Rimbaud's "Une Saison en Enfer")or to write a Standard to be canonized (i.e. Don Quixote). I feel that as individuals we sometime set an arbitrary level of necessity literacy, hence the literacy of the Amish, etc.
So either way it's an interesting idea.
Cheers!
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