Literacy Blog Project week !

Lacreshia Meadows


English 329

Blog Project

October 14, 2009

In the process of understanding literacy there are two articles the have been read that need to be taken into account. The first is Understanding Literacy as Social Practice, by Barton and Hamilton and En Los Idiomas, by Farr. These two articles cover literacy in different environments. And even though they cover different aspects of literacy they both explore issues that demonstrate literacy practices and how they affect the people who use them.

In Understanding Literacy, Barton and Hamilton explore literacy in a certain community. They start out by explaining how people use literacy. “Literary events are activities where literacy has a role” , “ the notion of events stresses the situated nature of literacy, that it always exist in a social context(7). This meaning that no matter how observers try to put a level on literacy is always exist because people communicate with each other which is a form of literacy. Barton and Hamilton also evaluated that the private at home literacy seems to be infiltrated by practices from many different places. As individuals , “ a persons practices can be located also in their own history of literacy” (12).

Proving that there are many sources to ones literacy, and people in the same community can have different literacy backgrounds. With individuals having different levels of literacy B & H found that “ If literacy is often located in unequal social relationships, this inequality is most apparent in the access to literacy resources which people have” (17).

In conclusion B& H consider that literacy as a whole has been and even more becoming ineffective. With society blaming teachers, B& H pointed out that literacy starts in a community and as a whole, “the dangers to children and the effects on education practice and on reading and book buying”(21), hold all parties accountable.

In En Los Idiomas,by Farr he explores the literacy in Chicago Mexicans which consist of three different back rounds. Farr chooses to focus on two groups which are the Mexican Americans whom are born in America and the “tejanos” which are the Mexicans who come from Texas to Chicago. Farr points out that many of these families don’t have the opportunity to learn because of family obligation, “older female siblings often had fewer years of school because they had to help their mothers in the home and older males had to help with the land to help support the family”. Farr also points out that people who speak English well still have problems with literacy because the way they talk is different then the standardized English that is taught in schools. Even though many of the Mexicans he studied did not get formal school training many of them self taught themselves how to read and write. After discovering a man who learned how to read English before speaking it Farr learns that, “neither learning reading first nor writing first is more natural, both can be acquired however without schooling as a part of everyday life”(22). In Farr’s observation being self taught or taught in a community is just as important in literacy as a school is.

Both of these articles hold valuable points in our learning literacy practices. With both articles in mind it holds the valid point that literacy is what you make it to be. If there is an opportunity for school then that’s fine but it still will not be as effective without help from the home, were as in Farr’s argument self taught literacy was just as valuable as an educational system. So it seems literacy is used in different areas according to what it is needed for.

This information is very helpful for educators because we have to know that even though teachers have a standard of literacy expected among its students, it will come in many different shapes and forms and it is up to the teacher how he or she deals with student who have unequal literary backgrounds.

These articles implicate that there will be many challenges in teaching literacy in a large groups.

This makes me wonder how as teachers will we deal with students who are not on the literacy level as to be expected in the grade in which is being taught.

These articles connect to my own literacy history because I got read to at home so when I got to school I already had an interest in books. I have seen kids that have only exposed to books at school who have a distant reaction to books. It also made me think that being self and school taught can make learning literacy an enriching experience for children.