Mid-Term Exam Questions

Your midterm exam will ask you one or more of the questions listed below about the topics, information, and issues raised in our
readings and class discussions thus far this quarter.
The primary sourcesi.e., the actual articles and scholars weve read and the films weve viewed in classwill serve as your main
sources of evidence to answer these questions. That said, many of the articles weve read have focused to varying degrees on
summarizing key research and researchers in the field of literacy studies and you are encouraged to use their ideas in your exam
answers as well (we will discuss in class before the exam the particular secondary sources that seem the most central to our
investigations thus far).
Other rules & logistics
You will take the midterm in class on Monday, February 6, 2011.
You will write your answers on laptop computerseither one you provide or one from the cart in McGaw 205.
I will require you to turn off the wireless network feature of the computer you use and periodically check to make sure you
do not access the Internet during the midterm.
I will also periodically check to make sure you do not access any other files on your computer for use in your answer.
Cheating on the midterm is grounds for failing the course and, more than that, is unethical and unfair.
All of this said, because I want the midterm to help you learn and synthesize our course content thus far, I am not only making all
the potential midterm questions available to you prior to the test, but
I allow and encourage each of you to bring one page of notes you can look over while you answer the
midterm questions.
Your page of notes must be printed out. You must show me the page before the exam begins. Notes can fill one side of
the paper, and must be printed using regular-size fonts, 10pt or higher. If your notes fail to meet these requirements you
will not be able to use them during the midterm.
The Potential Questions
1.) How do scholars of literacy define the term literacy?
a.) Are there areas of general agreement among the scholars weve read in defining literacy?
b.) Are there areas of disagreement or difference among the scholars weve read in defining literacy? What are
they?
c.) How and why are particular scholars definitions of literacy different that those of other scholars?
2.) In his piece on the history of literacy, Carl Kaestle asks the following question: Did the introduction of writing create a great
watershed in the history of culture and consciousness? (16).
a.) For those scholars that answer yes! to this question, what claims do they make about how literacy fundamentally
altered the culture(s) in which it arose?
b.) For those scholars that answer yes! to this question, what claims do they make about how literacy fundamentally alters
human consciousness?
3.) According to the scholars weve read, how are reading and writing similar or different? How do readers differ from writers?
4.) What is an alphabet?
a.) How does an alphabet differ from other representations of human language like syllabaries, logographic writing
systems, or hieroglyphs?
b.) What alphabet(s) are the foundation of our English alphabet and what claims have scholars made about the efficacy or
efficiency of this alphabet?
5.) How and why did writing emerge, according to Schmandt-Besserat? What assumptions about the definition of writing must
be true for scholars of literacy to accept Schmandt-Besserats account of the invention of writing?
6.) What material and cultural factorsaccording to those scholars weve read thus farinfluence literacy practices?