...thinking about this project, I had plenty of opportunities to read other people’s papers and compare them to mine. I found out that everyone is different; their views on the subject of literacy varied a lot from one person to the next. I experienced the difficulties that one encounters when you try to define such an ambiguous term. How do people set the standards for this? And how do we know which definition is the correct one if everyone will debate the term because of their different views on it. The readings helped a lot because they served as a base for my argument. Brandt is more interested in the way people view the different aspects of literacy rather than arguing the standards she would set for the term. Young and Kendall also impacted my arguments because they see literacy in a rhetoric way speaking about the importance it carries and the ambiguity it possesses as well. As hard and complex as it was for me to begin this paper, I decided to speak of literacy as a process in everyone’s life. Starting from reading and writing and ending with our employers who are most likely the ones who will be setting the standards for our literacy level. As I read, I saw that the paper wasn’t flowing smoothly and I tried focusing on transitions from one idea to another as I went on to my final draft. As I see literacy as a process that is constantly evolving and flowing through out education and our lives, I thought that my paper should also be a flowing process that allows one idea to follow...
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...What does Literacy mean to Alexie? It all started out with a comic book; a superman comic book that opened up three year old Alexie’s eyes to success. Along with learning to read by himself by looking at comic books and trying to associate words with pictures came different struggles, his parent’s not being able to afford great books, spending his whole day trying to learn how to make the words become real to him, and of course the biggest struggle; his peers making fun of him for being smart. For Alexie to go through all of these struggles alone; learning to read and write must mean something more than just scanning through words on a page or writing the alphabet mixed up in different combinations, it must mean something much greater. The first thing that shows that Literacy means something more to Alexie is that it means being sufficiently educated with his writing and reading skills. Alexie’s wild adventure began with opening a comic book back when he was three years old. He had tried to associate the words and the pictures to try to teach him-self how to read. To this day, he cannot recall exactly what the comic book was, but he was indeed successful. After trying to read that comic book, Alexie wanted more, he didn’t want to learn how to read; in his mind, he had to. Alexie’s Father was an avid reader and I believe that Alexie got the idea to teach him-self to read because he wanted to be just like his father. The family was not rich; very far from it, but Alexie’s...
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...Park Ulrich English 225 September 3, 2009 WHATS LITERACY GOT TO DO WITH IT? RESPONSE This essay had a less dramatic effect on me than the previous ones. The diction of it made it very hard for me not to comprehend it, but to really have it commutated well to me. The points weren’t as potent just because the words were just unnecessary. They distracted from the issue that was being discussed. Anyways, from what I understood the point of the article was the education system and literacy in America today provides no room for movement along the social ladder, that the American dream is a fallacy. There was evidence to prove this point and I came to agreement with it. What kind of environment you’re born into doesn’t make you, doesn’t shape, and doesn’t set your destiny. But it sure does have a big influence on you. There was a statistic given that only one in five men go on to surpass their fathers income. Well, that just goes to show how difficult it is to move up in the social ladder. Sometimes hard work isn’t good enough. No matter how hard we would like to believe it, it doesn’t make it true. Now other side to article is that the educational system and literacy in the country only add to the social gridlock. By having no room for movement in school system, there is no room for growth to lower classes and no way to move up. There are some facts given about Ivy League schools, their success and difficulty of acceptance. They have a startling rate of leaders, CEO’s, ect...
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...People and their personalities are sums of all of the experiences they have had in their lifetime. I am who I am because of all the people I have met, the situations and circumstances I have been exposed to, and the activities that I have engaged in. In What Is Literacy written by James Gee, he discusses that individuals are simply meeting points of multiple, and sometimes conflicting historical and social discourses. This statement really hits home with me, especially the word conflicting. I am an Egyptian-American who was raised in a very cultural and traditional family, but went to school and made friends in a community that felt almost entirely different. My friends never understand why I go to church with my family three times a week,...
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...Dear Class: According the textbook chapter 6, “Preschool children’s emergent literacy behaviors can be categorized into eight specific areas: (a) Awareness of sound patterns and individual sounds in words, (b) associating sounds with letters of the alphabet, (c) focusing on specific features of letters and discriminating between the letters, (d) creating narratives, (e) developing a concept of book language, (f) developing a concept of how to read, (g) developing book-related concepts, and (h) developing a concept of how to write.” (Otto, 2008). Here are some examples: -Awareness of sound patterns and individual sounds in words: Preschoolers can follow the rhyming when they do the sound play as “Dog, Mop, Pot, and Dot”. -Associating sounds with letters of the alphabet: Preschoolers can make connection with letters. For example: “A is for Apple, E is for Emma (classmate’s name)”. -Focusing on specific features of letters and discriminating between the letters: Preschoolers may make mistakes when they read the letters, such as “ numbers 1, and upper letter I”. Parents and teacher should work on the special parts with each letter and number to identify the difference. -Creating narratives: Preschoolers can tell the story in their own words or add on their own idea after the reading. Their story might be different from what the event or the book really about. They could have some parts missed or mixed order. -Developing a concept of “book language”: Preschoolers can aware...
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...Aysha Qureshi Teacher Faisal HSC4M Why is the global literacy rate higher for boys than for girls? What beliefs do such literacy statistics reflect? Worldwide, only 30 percent of all girls are enrolled in a secondary school. The cause of the low literacy rate for girls has been due to global issues such as gender inequality. In most countries around the world girls are brought up with the mindset that they must not think like a man rather a mother and a wife. This has brought about a decrease in the number of girls being allowed to go to school. Early marriages also have a great impact on the decrease of literacy rates among girls. The global literacy rate that has been higher for boys than for girls is a result of girls not being allowed to go to school, being married at an early age and compelled to have the attitudes of a mother and wife. In many countries around the world, girls are not allowed to go to school for various reasons. One such reason is the society's mentality, that boys are superior to girls. Quite a few people out there-- mostly men-- think that girls can never, and should never compete with boys. Even in countries with high literacy rates for girls, boys still can’t get used to the idea of having a female boss. Patriarchal societies discourage the idea of girls getting an education, because they know that if these girls become educated, they will fight against the injustice done to them. The high[->0] [->1]rate[->2] [->3]of[->4] [->5]child[->6]...
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...Although I am not a very big fan of writing and reading, I learned a lot of things in literacy class. I learned how to write journals, opinion essays, read a news report and also worked with some difficult vocabulary. I found the news report writing very hard to write because I have always struggled with writing news reports. Along the way I learned how to do it so it became easier and easier. In the starting of the class I was not a big fan of reading books while I went along I started reading more books and I actually liked it a lot. Opinion essay was never a huge problem for me to write but it could always use improvement and in the class it did get improved. My goals at the starting of this class were that I improve my reading and writing...
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...Shakespeare February 18, 2014 Synthesis of Literacy According to Street (2006), what may be deemed as the “New Literary Studies” may in fact represent a new tradition about the nature of literary, stressing not so much on literacy as a mental technology (applied technology) or a set of qualified skills and competencies but rather on “what it means to think of literacy as a social practice”. In their paper “Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging from the Internet and Other Information and Communication Technologies,” Leu et al. (2004) arrive at the same conclusion. According to them, the three basic elements of literacy – reading, reading instruction, and literacy instruction – are undergoing abrupt changes as new technologies acquire new literacies to fundamentally alter the ways in which literacies are exploited for the good. Street’s model does not isolate cultural and ideological assumptions that underlie this ‘new autonomous model of literacy.’ The purpose of which cannot be overstated. Recent research in new literacy studies suggests literary practices vary across cultural spaces and thus the effects of the different literacies vary by context. For Leu et al. (2004), new literacies not only change intermittently (with the emergence of new communication technologies) but also as responses to certain cultural challenges. However, the emphasis is different. In Street’s paper, the emphasis is on engaging social literacies with social acts (inside and outside the classroom...
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...the sustainable literacy mastery of one generation to the next generation. Literacy is really needed to speed up the development or the progress of a country especially in this era of globalization in which technology advance and rapid economic development requires everyone to be competent and to have good skills. Everyone should be literate and be able to read or write at least. In line of this, Hussain (2005) said: “Access to quality literacy learning opportunities and the development of literate environments are essential components of strategies for poverty reduction, equality, economic development and environmental protection, and for achieving democracy. Literacy is a fundamental human right and a prerequisite to the empowerment of the individual and development of society”. It is fully essential to social and human development in its ability to transform lives. For individuals, families, and societies alike, it is an instrument of empowerment to improve one’s health, one’s income, and one’s relationship with the world. Literacy education is one of important aspects which should be applied in order to foster an interest and latent talent in order to get that empowerment of the individual and development of society. Through informal or formal education at school, students especially can know how to read and write well. When they know how to read, they are expected to possess good knowledge by reading books or many other medias such as internet. Literacy is not obtained...
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...What is literacy? Maybe one of the most important words in life has a very simple definition. Literacy defined as the ability to read and write. Literacy is important because illiteracy does not just affect those who are illiterate. A person’s quality of life has been shown to be related to an individuals self esteem, confidence and personal empowerment. Literacy helps every aspect of our lives. It can also affect a child’s success in the future. Literate parents are able to actively participate in their children’s education and help their children through school, thus ensuring a future workforce. Increased literacy skills have been shown to strengthen family relationships, improve parenting skills and improve the overall quality of life. Literacy has different components, they are phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, fluency, language, vocabulary, and comprehension. Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness in which listeners are able to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes, the smallest units of sound that can differentiate meaning. Phonological awareness includes this ability, but it also includes the ability to hear and manipulate larger units off sound, such as onsets and rimes and syllables. Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension. Because fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding the words they can focus their attention on what the text means. Vocabulary and language skills are...
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...Balanced Literacy Instruction Grand Canyon University: RDG 512 May 28, 2015 Abstract The purpose of this essay is to explain a balanced literacy program and how it will be organized in a classroom. Students need a balanced literacy program to become fluent readers and comprehend text. Two instructional approaches: language and literature based are presented as approaches that would be included in the plan. These approaches will aid in the plan giving a glimpse of how the lessons will be implemented. Explanations of approaches show how they will benefit the program and students learning. These approaches are then compared to components of balanced literacy, based on where they fit in the framework. As a teacher my personal beliefs will be discussed about how I think students learn best through interactive lessons and examples. Introduction A Balanced Literacy program helps to create an environment that fosters the necessary language and phonic develop that students need in literacy. Through balanced literacy it will instill in students the necessary reading skills that they need in order to grow into proficient readers. Balanced literacy is made up of five different components that cater to individual needs for students to become lifelong readers. These components are the read aloud, guided reading, shared reading, independent reading, and word study. Researchers of education have stated that successful implementation of a balanced literacy program has to be teacher...
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...In this essay, it will explore literacy components of reading and writing. Through this essay, it will mainly discuss 21st-century literacy learning, approaches to teaching reading and writing, and multi- literacies. As well as these topics a curriculum analysis will be performed on both the Early Years Learning Framework and the Australian Curriculum, Assessment in early years and primary and government policy. To being the journey of understanding these areas associated with reading and writing, it is important to know what literacy means in today’s society. Leu & Kinzer, 2000) points out, literacy can be thought of as a moving target, continually changing its meaning depending on what society expects literate individuals to do’. Just important...
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...Zahra Arraya Professor George Lambert English 201: Writing in the Disciplines 17 April 2016 Dysfunctional Definition of Literacy The ex-Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan once said in one of his speeches during his term that, “Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope” (Unesco). Thus, being illiterate is not the way to get out of that dark hole especially when you have the access to learn it. However, one might think of being literate as a way to simply get jobs or to survive, and I would not disagree with that, but I think that literacy cannot just be defined as the one only might think of it as. Furthermore, the connection between literacy and the form of literacy itself, which people use as a necessity, was also mentioned in Literacy and the Politics of Education by C.H Knoblauch as a functional literacy, and he basically explains that this kind of literacy used when people process the information, such as “reading sets of instructions” (Knoblauch 76). Even though Knoblauch agrees that this type of literacy is the most familiar one, I believe that there are still ups and downs of defining literacy in a functional way. Ultimately, defining literacy as a functional literacy does not really enclose the process of being literate completely, and there is also a limitation with seeing literacy this way because it simply ignores other purposes of being literate such as helping people who are in need. There are numerous of people that I personally...
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...“No skill is more crucial to the future of a child, or to a democratic and prosperous society, than literacy” (The Literacy Company. 2016). This quote could not be truer than it is in today’s world and with today’s economy being as demanding as it is. Rafael Heller tells the readers of his article, “The Scope of the Adolescent Literacy Crisis,” that a two-year college education is almost necessary for a person to get a decent paying job (2016b). Recently, reading and writing professionally have become part of the job requirements and many young adults graduating from high school fail to have the literacy skills required to fulfill these requirements. As someone who has had difficulty in the past with professional reading and writing, and as...
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...Technology with Adult Literacies Learners in Scotland A overview of the E-learning Support Project August 2007 – March 2008 Scottish Government Peter Lanigan Development Co-ordinator Learning Connections [pic] Background to the Project During the period 2004 to 2007, funding was provided by Learning Connections for some 26 innovative projects around Scotland using ICT in adult literacies learning. The funding provided small grants of up to £6000 to support developments and has encouraged the use of ICT / e-learning in various different context and locations. In reviewing this programme in 2007, we decided to adopt a different approach for 2007/8 which would encourage and support local integration of e-learning into literacies learning. We engaging the services of Sheerface Ltd. to work with individual literacies partnerships across Scotland. Project Aims The contractor appointed worked with Learning Connections to develop and support local initiatives for integrating ICT / e-learning into adult literacies learning in their particular area. Funding was available to support local initiatives to try out ideas for using ICT which were new to their literacies partnership. The aims were • to raise awareness of the lessons learned from the ICT Innovations projects undertaken 2004 to 2007, and other work undertakes by Learning Connections during that period • to promote and encourage the use of e-learning in literacies provision. ...
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