Literacy

Lunsford describes literacy by explaining how college students’ writings have changed over the years. She states that we are writing more today than we have ever written in the past and in addition to writing more our writing is more varied. She talks about how we can easily change from levels of formalities whether we are writing a Facebook message to a friend, an email to a professor, or a research paper. Lunsford discusses the impact of new forms of writing (texting, Twittering, Facebooking) and states that “rather than leading to a new illiteracy, these activities seemed to help them develop a range or repertoire of writing styles, tones, and formats along with a range of abilities”. Unlike Carr and Hedges, Lunsford believes that these new forms of technology and the writing that goes with them are not actually making us more illiterate but are actually helping us develop a range of writing styles.

Scribner focuses her essay more on trying to define literacy and the importance of it in our society. I really liked how she says that literacy is not an individual skill but a societal skill. She states “individuals in societies without writing systems do not become literate”. Scribner tries to define literacy by looking at three different metaphors: literacy as adaptation, literacy as power, and literacy as a state of grace. With these three metaphors, Scribner discusses how it is not simple to define literacy because it is such a complex idea that cannot be defined the same for the entire population. She talks about functional literacy, which is the level of literacy that is needed for an average everyday life, but does not believe that it can be defined for the entire nation but at the same time thinks it isn’t necessarily the right thing to do if it is defined by neighbourhood either. When discussing the metaphor literacy as power, Scribner describes “the relationship between literacy and group or community advancement”. I believe there is a lot of truth in this statement but only when looking at advancement as a western perspective. Early civilizations advanced as a group without being able to read or write. Yes, we advanced a lot more once we could read and write but not all advancements are because of literacy.

One of the main differences between Carr and Hedges’ and Scribner and Lunsford’s views on literacy is that Carr and Hedges have a more pessimistic view that our literacy rates our declining based on technology whereas Scribner and Lunsford have a more optimistic view that our literacy rates are not necessarily being affect by technological advances.