Network of Literacy Concerns

Network of Literacy Concerns

Schema:

Our schema looked at how people build literacy individually but also socially through community and history. We were most concerned with the issue of access and how power dynamics played a role in the construction of literacy. Community and literacy are shown as having a symbiotic relationship in which the graph could begin at either section. Community played a significant role in our construction of literacy and how we understood these connections. In this sense, we created a network focusing on three main concerns: Subjectivity, Interaction, and Values. We identified each through our readings of the texts believing that they had a role in complicating how literacy has been perceived and analyzed. Additionally, these concerns were areas where we would have liked to see more analysis within the texts as a whole. Our graph is inundated with hyperlinks to show where we saw the gaps ad how these could have present day connections.

Connections/Misfires:

Our readings this week complicated how literacy was, and still is, viewed in modern society as the process of reading and writing. When looked at more closely, literacy is better viewed as a product of our hegemonic, social, and economic systems as a way to divide individuals by class into those who have literacy and those who do not (Ohmann). Ohmann described literacy as being a top-down phenomenon determined by the upper class as a way to control how the lower class produces interacts with cultural material and creates knowledge. Ohmann argues that literacy is viewed through the concept of monopoly capitalism in which major corporations have created a monopoly on the product of good and materials. Monopoly capitalism underlies our economic structure and dominates the flow of cultural/technological materials. Ohmann places emphasis on how technology has been developed to raise production and not to increase access. He states, “Questions of literacy and technology are inextricable from political questions of domination and equality” (675). In some cases, technology has helped to produce and reinforce class distinctions, as individuals now need to be literate as well as “technologically literate”.

For Deborah Brandt, the focus is not only on interfaces and media but also how interactions within these interfaces are shaped by cultural-material affordances and historical developments. Brandt argues that new practices take shape in response to older literacy practices. She states, “while a society’s older forms of literacy may be superseded by new ones, the old ones don’t disappear. Print lasts and artifacts accumulate- that is their appeal and power- littering the material sites of subsequent literacy learning and shaping future interpretations of reading and writing” (659).  Brandt connects the idea of “collaborative writing” as a way for individuals to maintain community through interaction during the Great Depression. She states, “skits, plays, circus routines, and secret messages was a way for children to build and maintain community during this transient time” (656). Additionally, she looks at the way that individuals are converging with mass literacy and institutions through the use of materials. She asserts that, “Materials to some degree always will reflect how individuals, including students, are intersecting at a certain time with the ongoing, official history of literacy and the institutions that have controlled it” (666).

Meanwhile, Johnson-Eilola discussed how meaning comes from connections through analyzing the interaction between fragments. He draws on postmodern and social constructivist thinking to argue that we need to move away from linear texts and place value on utilizing hypertextual material. Additionally, he emphasizes collaborative writing and a move towards “a notion of composition that values arrangement and connection/disjunction"(458). In this sense, Johnson-Eilola problematizes singularly authored texts as value is placed more on embracing spaces where “knowledge production” is culturally based through hypertextual collaboration (Johnson-Eilola 458). Ultimately, coming to the conclusion that writing is a social process and arguing to reverse the assumption that a text only has value by what the writer adds to it (466).

Elaine Richardson discusses African American vernacular as it viewed in the United States and works within the African American community. For Richardson, interactions are based on the relationship between the intersections of resistance, language, and identity.  She states, “African American vernacular expression is created, in part, by resistance to oppression.” (103) Richardson argues against the English Language Unity Act of 2005. She connects this act to the degradation of African American Community and minorities by colonizers since the 1800’s. She makes the point that African American culture and language has been regarded with disdain while on it’s own but is then appropriated through cultural artifacts (i.e. Blues, Jazz). She states, “Because language is situated in context, language use is linked to and framed by something broader, linked discourse, linked to ways of being a certain type of person, coming out of a certain historical situation” (105). For Richardson, community is then constructed as a part of a larger historical, cultural and linguistic context. In this sense, linguistic context is related through cultural productions and literacy as she goes on to say, “When we talk about the written word, culture, identity, history, worldview, and context remain key for both readers and writers.” (101). Richardson problematizes the view that a single language would hold all the power when in reality language is constructed through social interactions. It is political and economic hegemonic structures that keep language expression restricted and confined to a single identity.

Overall, as teachers and sites of knowledge production for our students,it is important to recognize how narrow our view of literacy has become and what structures underlie these concerns. Brandt states, “Rapid changes in literacy and education may not so much bring rupture from the past as the bring an accumulation of different and proliferating pasts, a piling up of artifacts and signifying practices that haunt the sites of literacy” (665). In this sense, we need to understand that while new literacies can be fragmented and hypertextual they are building upon previous cultural material and histories. As society builds toward a more technological based model of communication, it is important to recognize that not every student will have been afforded the same access, opportunities and material. While these structures are in places, the gaps may continue to expand.

Works cited:

Brandt, Deborah. “Accumulating Literacy: Writing and Learning to Write in the Twentieth Century.” College English 57 (1995): 649 - 68.

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. “Negative Spaces: From Production to Connection in Composition.” Computers in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook, edited by Michelle Sidler, Richard Morris, and Elizabeth Overman Smith, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007, pp. 454-468

Ohmann, Richard.“Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capital.” College English 47.7 (1985): 675-89.

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, 2010, pp. 97-112.