Literacy

Using stasis theory as a basis for a chapter on Literacy (designed for an undergraduate course in

Composition and Writing Studies)

The Chapter’s Template

• Section 1: Introduction/Existence/Definition (what is?)

• Section2: Quality/“Goodness” Question (what is good?)

• Section 3: Action/Procedural Question (what is possible?)

Section 1: Existence/Definition

• Student Definitions

• Dictionary definitions; Wikipedia.org• Functional Literacies and Technological

Literacies (from reading menus to writing a scholarly paper and from writing a sentence in Word to creating a complex website)

• Literacy Theorized: Literacy in three metaphors--Adaptation, Grace, Power (Scribener)

Section 2: Quality/Goodness

- (why care?) Language is epistemic; Language is Power

“Language has a key role in transforming power into right and obedience into duty” (Language, Society and Power 10)

- How is language affected by race, gender, age and class?

- Is there a dominant language, grammar, dialect, etc., in the United States?

Section 2: continued

- Do issues of literacy create a “good” vs. bad, and “us” vs. “them”?

- Two historical examples of attacks on literacy: French Revolution

“…British commentator Vicesimus Knox observed gloomily in 1793 that the ‘lowest of the people can read.’ Political debates once confined to the propertied classes, Knox complained, have now spread to the ‘cottages, the manufactory, and lowest resorts of plebeian carousel” (Trimbur).

U.S. Slavery“If you teach that nigger…how to read, there would be no

keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master” (F.Dougals in Trimbur).

Section 2: continued

- Two contemporary examples of attacks on literacies:

The English-only movement—Ron Unz“Following the passage of the California measure, he assisted Hispanic activists in Arizona in preparing and passing their own anti-bilingual education initiative, Proposition 203, which won by an even wider 63% landslide in November 2000. He has now established a national advocacy organization, English for the Children, to replace bilingual education with English immersion throughout the country” (onenation.org website)

Attack on Ebonics/Black VernacularCalifornia: Oakland School District attacked for incorporating Ebonics

Bill O’Reilly: “Every school official who wants to use Ebonics in any way should be fired immediately.” Bill Cosby: “Everybody knows it's important to speak [proper] English except these knuckleheads. ... You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

Section 2: continued

- Who is in charge of Literacy at the local, state and national level? (teachers, school districts, state legislators/tests, national policies, etc.)

- Why might literacy/literacies be attacked?- Hegemony- “Fear of downward mobility and loss of status…by the middle [and upper] class” (Trimbur 293)

- Student Responses: (1)What is literacy? (2)Why might literacy/literacies be defended?

Section 3: Action/Possibilities

• “…imagination and political courage are required if literacy is to be re-represented as an intellectual resource against injustice, a means to ensure democratic participation in public life” (Trimbur 294).

Section 3: contintued

• What has been done? What can be done?- Nationally: Bilingual and Dual Language Education

- Locally: Literacy Programs

- Internationally: MIT Unveils $100 laptop“ There is no other way that has been suggested of giving people a radical change in access to knowledge except through digital media” (Papert in Young).

- What can you (the student) do about the Literacy situation in your community, state, nation, world?

Section 3: continued

- Develop and implement a plan of action: do research, write letters, create a blog, tutor, develop software, develop a game, become politically active, etc., etc.