Literacy
...English. According the conference website, the event will emphasize the need to understand literature and composition relative to a changing world. At the conference, many questions will be raised. How do we define literacy? How has literacy changed? What are some new literacies? How can influential writers like Richard Rodriguez and Paulo Friere help us broaden our understanding?
For some, literacy may be the ability to read and write. To others, it may be the ability to speak a language or use a computer. We can try to make a universal definition for literacy, but it is impossible to be too specific. This is because literacy changes with time, and differs from place to place.
The best attempt at defining literacy would be to use more of a universal version. For example, according to an Ohio State English website, literacy is the set of a socially constructed combination of skills and understandings that are effective for communication in a specific time and place (Literacy and Computers).
Let's begin by looking at the literacies of specific time. "Old literacies" are literacies of our past. If we go back far enough, children were often taught those oh so famous 3 R's: reading, writing, and arithmetic (3 R's roll off the tongue easy enough to justify it being inherently incorrect). Computers and Televisions were nowhere to be found but pencils and paper were plentiful.
Interestingly enough, this education was sufficient. Many years ago most people were either farmers or factory workers anyway. Many jobs didn't require that much education sans doctors or lawyers. In fact, Andrew Carnegie, the richest man of the 1800s/1900s didn't continue to pursue formal education after elementary school. However, this began to change. A quote by Mike Rose from his book Lives on the Boundary sums up some changes in literacy...
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