What is Literacy?

From Google.com:  competence or knowledge in a specified area. 

From Dictionary.com:  a person’s knowledge of a particular subject or field.

I’ve specifically chosen these definitions because they broadly define the term literacy as a general state of being knowledgeable about ‘something’.  I don’t view literacy as being tied to a particular subject like reading or writing.  It is the accumulation of information or education.  It is "created across spaces, across time" (Yancey, p. 791).  But further, literacy seems to really be a means to an end and that end is communication.  For being literate in any subject implies the inherent knowledge to communicate information about that subject.

To better understand how the term literacy came to be popularized, I investigated the history of the term and found an interesting paper by Amy Alexandra Wilson at the University of Georgia.  In her paper, Learning from Past and Present Uses of the Term Literacy¹, “the history of.………the actual word literacy emerged relatively late on the scene, first appearing in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Like its predecessors lettered and literate, the term literacy referred to more than the ability to read and write alphabetic letters, although this skill was still central to definitions of the word. Like lettered, this word was still paired with ways of being, which included being refined habits and tastes. Continuing the trend that had begun with the word literate, the term literacy was also often paired with large-scale political, social, and economic goals as well” (p. 7).

Knobel and Lankshear (2007), developed a dual definition of literacy as they distinguish between ‘big L’ literacy and ‘little l’ literacy.  According to the authors, “literacy, with a ‘small l,’ describes the actual processes of reading, writing, viewing, listening, manipulating images and sound…and using words and symbols that are part of…larger, more embodied literacy practices” (p. 220).  The term literacy in this definition is not limited to a facility with printed words, however it is firmly connected to people’s facility with reading and writing texts, albeit multimodal ones.  In contrast, “Big L Literacies are connected with identities, patterns, and ways of being in the world rather than solely with the acts of reading and writing” (Lewis, 2007, p. 240).

There are a multitude of examples of the use of the term literacy: scientific literacy, wine literacy, agricultural literacy, reality TV literacy, music literacy, etc.  The application of literacy is seemingly limitless.  This is an important point even when considering reading and writing literacy.  In fact, in the case of English composition, successful English literacy can possibly be achieved by the incorporation of other subjects with which a student is already literate.  In this case, the storyline has already been decided so there can be focus on content delivery or communication.

1.  http://www.americanreadingforum.org/yearbook/yearbooks/08_yearbook/html/

arf_08_wilson.htm

Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C. (2007). Online memes, affinities, and cultural production. In M. Knobel & C. Lankshear (Eds.), A new literacies sampler (pp. 199-227). New York: Peter Lang.

Lewis, C. (2007). New literacies. In M. Knobel & C. Lankshear (Eds.), A new literacies sampler (pp. 229-237). New York: Peter Lang.