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What Literacy

Means to Me
What is literacy? Does literacy have a specific
definition or is it specialized to each persons
experiences? These are two questions that I would
like to explore Literacy is defined by the Webster's
dictionary as the quality or state of being literate.
It then defines literate as able to read and write. If
we interpreted the dictionarys definition as complete
truth then we could conclude that literacy is just the
ability to read and write. I think that the word literacy
is a lot deeper than just reading and writing and
there are some people who will back up my
hypothesis.

Something about the sponsors of literacy text.???

Malcolm X was a criminal with very little education


before he went to prison. If you were to ask him what
literacy was before prison, he probably would have
told you that he did not know and did not care. While
in prison he had a very strong encounter with
literature and quickly learned to read and write
properly. He was memorized with learning how to
speak properly in letters and who to understand a
sea of words that he had never heard before. He
started to read and write more and more and soon he
became very literate. Now before jail, people who
accept the dictionaries definition would say that
Malcolm X was not very literate. Malcom, on the
other hand, would say that before prison he was very
literate. He may not have spoke properly but he
understood the street slang better than most. Just
because he was not literate in the literal sense, does
not mean he did not understand language. When
taking into consideration Malcolm Xs story, literacy
could be defined more correctly as not only being
able to read and write, but also being able to
understand literature also. Many people could read
an organic chemistry textbook and recognize the
words in the book, but that does not mean they
understand them also. To me, being literate also has
a understand component to it.
When it comes to Sherman Alexie, I think that he
would describe literacy differently than Malcolm X.
Alexie a Native American who lived on the Spokane
Indian Reservation for the beginning of his life. There
is where he had his first encounter with literacy. His
father was a very avid reader and would read
anything he could get his hands onto. Because of
this, Alexie became a very avid reader also. He
started to pick up his father's books at an early age
of 3 and would just look at the pages. He could
understand the words but he soon began to
understand paragraphs. He describes them as a
fence that held words. He then started to look at
comic books and put together what words meant
according to what the pictures portrayed. Even
though he was not literate in the formal sense, he
started to become more literate as soon as he
started to understand the concept of paragraphs.
Now the whole reason that Alexie started his
endeavors was because of his father. The love for his
father lead him to love literature. He had very
positive connotations associated with literature
because his dad loved literature so much. I feel like
this gives him a much deeper understanding of
literature because he knows it as such a personal
and intimate level. This may shape his view of
literacy and cause him to define it with more emotion
than someone who has just had experiences with
literature in school because they had to.
As for my experiences with literature, there has not
been a defining moment where I fell in love with
words. However, there was a time where I started to
see numbers as more than just symbols on a page.
Throughout high school you are required to take
different math classes. I didn't like them the best, but
they were not my least favorite either. I was more
indifferent about math until eleventh grade. This is
when I started taking classes with my favorite
teacher I have ever had, Mrs. Taylor. She taught
higher level math courses like Calculus and Physics
and in these classes, I started to see number as
answers to questions in the world instead of just
tedious symbols that would give you a headache if
you stared at them for too long. She was the biggest
influence on me to help me see that math is actually
enjoyable if you look at it the right way. My view of
numbers and math has grown exponentially over the
past few years due to the spark that was lit inside of
me by my highschool teacher, Mrs. Taylor. She is one
of the bigger reasons that my major is Mechanical
Engineering and not Biology, because before I had
her for 2 years straight, I was planning to become a
Biology major and go to medical school. Now I am
trying in integrate my love for biology and math into
one profession.
Because we have already extended the term literacy
to be more broadly defined as understand reading
and writing, I think that it can also talk about reading
and writing numbers. Numbers depict a certain
language just like words, and even though everyone
isn't always fluent in language of Calculus, it doesn't
mean that it isn't literature also. I think that when
using the term literacy for math, it is more referring
to the understanding side of that definition than the
reading and writing side. This means that math can
be used in many different ways and the same ten
digits can create innumerable combinations and
possibilities. This being said, I would still argue that
both literature consisting of words has high
correlation to literature consisting of numbers.
Literature has a wonderful ability to describe the
world around us. I think that numbers have the same
ability, you just have to interpret them differently. If
someone were to say they say a car driving and it
almost hit a deer, but it slammed on the brakes and
the deer was spared. Using physics, I can explain to
you why the car was able to stop due to friction
between the wheels of the car and the road, and
various other forces acting on the car. Both
representations got the point across that the car
stopped and did not hit the deer, one was more
graceful and elegant, and the other more analytical
and informational. Nevertheless they both got the
point across and were able to get the information to
the viewer that the deer was spared and the car
stopped, they just used different methods to convey
that information. Because I am very curious about
how the world works, the math side of literature
appeals to me more. I love to understand how and
why things work.
To conclude I would say that the definition of literacy
is unique to every single person. The past
experiences with literature, sponsors, shape a
person's view of literature and literacy. Literacy is not
exclusive to people who can just read and write. Just
because someone is blind and they can not write
does not mean they are not literate. They have other
forms of communication and they still can
understand literature, they just take in the
information a different way.

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