Identifying Literacy: How Revolution

Our Network:

Our exploratory’s network for literacy focused on the overlapping and recursive nature of the major components we saw as coming up throughout our readings for this week, and throughout our discussions in class from past readings. We created what is essentially a multi-part Venn diagram. As we discussed how to illustrate these ideas, we talked about how they were connected to each other, and also how each element works toward the creation of identity. The diagram can be read both from the inside outward (Literacy out to the four components -- education, social, technology, and revolution -- and then out to the larger oval of identity, which encompasses everything) or from the outside in (Identity to Literacy), which helps establish their recursive nature. We included subcategories that we had discussed as we talked through the readings, but ultimately found that they were issues that were aspects of the larger category or interactions between categories rather than their own categories. We illustrated that through both the use of smaller ovals contained within the larger category’s oval as well as the use of arrows to show the movement or interaction between the categories.

Social and Education

The social aspects of literacy were illuminated in the discussions of changes in literacy acquisition from generation to generation (Brandt), the discussion of the role of church and the “moral character” that is tied to literacy (Ohmann), and the ways that language can other or create cultural identities (Keating). The education component we saw again with Brandt’s article in the discussion of how changing technologies afford different kinds of educational opportunities, as well as in Ohmann’s discussion of computer literacies and how education/literacy has historically been social capital (or lack thereof when illiterate). We also saw in Ramanthan and Vai’s article a discussion of how educational structures implicitly and explicitly privilege western, SWE to the exclusion of other cultures, and since we have seen how literacy is tied to “moral character,” this means a privileging of cultural values tied to the language. Richardson’s article also touches on this in her discussion of the “center-periphery model” that English-Only education uses, which inherently subordinates and colonializes learners to an idea of a “pure” English (that doesn’t even exist).

Technology and Revolution

The interactions between technologies and revolution also tie in with the ideas of social and education, but we put them on their own side together because they were more obviously affiliated with each other and then contributed to the social or education, and had less obviously recursive relationships (because for technology or revolution to inspire change, they have to first begin and then they can start affecting the social or educational spheres). Ohmann, Brandt, and Johnson-Eiola were the two theorists we pulled from most for these ideas, as they explicitly discuss technologies, but the ideas of technology and revolution underscore much of the discussions among the readings assigned. Ohmann ties technology to revolution through discussions of changes in the economy, changes in the classroom, and social changes as technology begins to alter the way that companies control and hold power, what kinds of knowledge/literacy is needed for a computer age in order to be an active and contributing member, as well as discussions of how literacy is tied to politics and political engagement via his example of Castro. Johnson-Eiola connects the social and technology and revolution by advocating for a technological revolution within the classroom that would move away from focusing on product and instead focus on how connections between texts are more vital, especially in a computer-laden world, than privileging authorship and text; he argues that students will be better off, both as consumers/composers and as individuals entering the workforce, if their education focuses on the communal creation of hypertextual compositions.

Literacy and Identity

Identity is at the heart of each of these categories we have chosen; each aspect is both formed by and forms identity of individuals and of disciplines. With the social category, we can see how a privileging of certain kinds of speech (read white, colonial) can be harmful to individuals’ and communities’ identities as they are told that their writing is bad or not good enough, with the implication that they are thus bad and inferior (or lacking moral character). We can see this play out both within the classroom and without; the way that education takes up these issues and either combats or buys into a system of disenfranchisement and colonialism plays an important role in how students form their identities both as writers through voice and as people who are politically engaged within their communities. Students construct their identities as composer, and the agency they build based on their literacy and voice development can alter how they engage with others. It can also effect how they acquire power throughout their lives, especially as literacy expands to include technological literacies that are required in order to engage with their world and get the kinds of jobs that give them power and social capital. They also can engage in revolutionary acts more readily, and be empowered through those revolutions, through literacy, becoming part of a community that is engaged and active.

Works Cited

Brandt, Deborah. “Accumulating Literacy: Writing and Learning to Write in the Twentieth Century.” College English, vol. 57, no. 6, 1995, pp. 649-668.

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. “Negative Spaces: From Production to Connection in Composition.” Computers in the Composition Classroom. Edited by Michelle Sidler, Richard Morris, and Elizabeth Overman Smith, Bedford/St. Martin’s, pp. 454-468.

Ohmann, Richard. “Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capital.” College English, vol. 47, no. 7, 1985, pp. 675-689.

Ramanathan, Vai, and Dwight Atkinson. “Individualism, Academic Writing, and ESL Writers.” Journal of Second Language Writing, vol. 8, no. 1, 1999, pp. 45-75.

Richardson, Elaine. “’English Only,’ African American Contributions to Standardized Communication Structures, and the Potential for Social Transformation.” Cross-Language Relations in Composition. Edited by Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu, and Paul Kei Matsuda, Southern Illinois University Press, pp. 97-112.