What does literacy mean to you?

Cortmg23

Cortmg23

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My teacher defines literacy as "making and participating in meaning". What does it mean to you?
 
literacy means you can read and write
 
I think that makes sense, Cortmg23http://www.alldeaf.com/members/cortmg23.html. I guess I'd never thought of literacy in quite that way altho' I know full well that oral histories can be fully as meaningful as anything that could be found in a book.

I don't sign and don't know much about it so if your question is in that direction, it has gone right over my head.

Your teacher is thinking that art of any kind can be a part of literacy for both the audience and the artist. Is that right? Really, unless we are just pointing or barking commands, communicating ideas involves some sort of aesthetics. They might not even be ours but just part of our personal culture. "The way Dad would have said it" kind of thing.

But anyway, I'm not a very creative person so all this has meanings that aren't very easy for me to come to grips with . . .

:hmm:
 
Literacy to me just means you can understand what's written.

But, in order to demonstrate you understand what you read, you have to be able to explain what you read by communicating back to me what you think you read.

...so it probably does help if you can write or tell me, or have some other way to communicate reading comprehension.
 
Jiro said:
literacy means you can read and write
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That's exactly what my friends and I said. But my English teacher gave us such a broad definition of literacy to explore, that I was immediately drawn into conversation about how deaf people think of literacy. Visual literacy does include interpretation of body language, gesture and symbol.I think you can "read" people's emotions much more readily through sign language than you can through written word.
 
Cortmg23 said:
That's exactly what my friends and I said. But my English teacher gave us such a broad definition of literacy to explore, that I was immediately drawn into conversation about how deaf people think of literacy. Visual literacy does include interpretation of body language, gesture and symbol.I think you can "read" people's emotions much more readily through sign language than you can through written word.
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your English teacher should stick with the word "fluency" rather than trying to reinvent the word or something.
 
Extinguish my sight, and I can still see you;
plug up my ears, and I can still hear;
even without feet I can walk toward you,
and without mouth I can still implore.
Break off my arms, and I will hold you
with my heart as if it were a hand;
strangle my heart, and my brain will still throb;
and should you set fire to my brain,
I still can carry you with my blood.

This guy expressing any emotions?
 
AdamFencepost said:
Extinguish my sight, and I can still see you;
plug up my ears, and I can still hear;
even without feet I can walk toward you,
and without mouth I can still implore.
Break off my arms, and I will hold you
with my heart as if it were a hand;
strangle my heart, and my brain will still throb;
and should you set fire to my brain,
I still can carry you with my blood.

This guy expressing any emotions?
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Absolutely. That is amazing and I'll definitely save it. I didn't say written word was void of emotion, just that emotions seem to be more readily available when you're looking right at someones face and they are speaking through gesture. It seems more universally understandable, whereas written word is more open to interpretation. Maybe I should have said emotions are expressed differently?
 
it means you nearly have the same amount of social power as the hearies does...to a point...
 
its a representative of a social power, a form of it if you will. It provides access to capital and cultural capital. Reading is not about just accesss for communication, but also access to knowledge, therefore power.
But then herein lies the culprit of power, knowledge are laden deeply in layers of knowledge upon knowledge, and to have access to these special knowledge, one must require a certain membership of particular social group which possess these knowledge in living people, not written words.
 
Cortmg23 said:
My teacher defines literacy as "making and participating in meaning". What does it mean to you?
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Literacy means to be fully engaged in reading and the written word. A person might get by reading road signs or looking something up in the dictionary, but that doesn't mean the person is literate or knows how to read. Being literate is to be involved; it's being able to form your own perspective as to what the writer has intended.

Laura
 
Bottesini said:
We must have the same dictionary! :wave:
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Incomplete, it also means to be knowledgeable in a field, in addition to, pertaining to language not just written(spoken).

The teacher is using that definition to encompass all things.
 
That's an interesting take on what the teacher had to say: It might not even be just the jargon of a science but a deeper understanding, as well.

I'm still wondering if the teacher was talking about art. Cortmg23 was talking about emotion. There isn't much emotion to science and we usually separate art and science just as written communication is separated from other forms of communicating.

I "read" context into most everything but especially when someone is communicating orally with me. Without context, the information is usually 99% lost.
 
Cortmg23 said:
I'm not sure I understand. Do you think literacy is solely a form of social power?
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I do , if my dad had never learn to read when he came here from Russia as young boy he would had not become as successful as he was and have the social power he had. I bet the government would love to have more people be
illiterate then it would be easier to control the public.
 
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