Yulin Hong
Professor Pearsall
UWP 1Y
29 July 2016
Connection Between Different Literacy
Most kids start to learn literacy at a very young age. Literacy is the key to modern society. Without literacy, one can barely make a living in the 21st century. Literacy becomes more complex as human society grows bigger. Books are no longer the most common way for human beings to access literacy, since technology, Facebook, Google etc., makes literacy convenient. For modern society, real life literacy is still too complicated to be defined. Therefore Knoblauch’s definition of different forms of literacy: functional, cultural, personal growth and critical literacy, in his Literacy and Politics of Education, seems a bit simple (Knoblauch). Knoblauch develops his essay on the condition that those four kinds of literacy forms exist independently from each other, because he talks about different literacy forms separately. Knoblauch does not mention any relationship between those four kinds of literacy, yet from my inventory log, which records my literacy acts in 48 hours, and life experience, I observed different literacy forms might interconnect with each other. Complex literacy acts, such as studying a new subject or criticizing an opinion, usually requires certain knowledge of each literacy form to complete.
The most simple literacy form, functional literacy, appears frequently on my log and in real life. Functional literacy is the base for most of our daily activities. When I read menus, road signs, Google Maps or text my friends, I carried out functional literacy. People value functional literacy so much in fact that in my homecountry, China, government provides free public education from elementary school to high school, seeking to reduce the illiteracy rate. Billions of Yuan has been spent on the educational program annually. Among those twelve years of literacy education, about nine years focus just on functional literacy, teaching students about words, sentences and writing functionally. As part of this education program, I started to learn functional literacy at a very young age. Daily activities that I take for granted now, such as signing my name, shopping at Trader Joe’s or posting photos on Instagram, are all closely connected with functional literacy. I agree with Knoblauch that functional literacy is not enough for educational purpose, since functional literacy only requires basic writing and reading skills. Nevertheless, I would rather view functional literacy as a ground base for other more sophisticated literacy forms, because complex literacy acts always develop on simple ones.
Literacy for personal growth depends on functional literacy but a bit more complex than functional literacy. After I received a long time education in functional literacy, I could finally read and write without help. I tended to read a lot at high school, from classic Chinese poems to contemporary Japanese detective novels. I started to read for personal growth. My world is widened when I absorb different perspectives as I read different books. It never stops expanding because I engage with personal growth literacy everyday. Judging by my log, I spend a lot of time online. My classmates’ logs also suggest the same result. Internet is the fastest way to engage with personal growth literacy, because all kinds of information can be accessed within seconds. I no longer need to read books to find out the impact of British leaving the EU. Just simply Google it; opinions on different perspectives will present on the screen. In fact, I did not even bother to Google it since people reposted articles from scholar and their own opinion about it on social media during this historical even happened. Whenever I log into my social media account I start a liberal reading journey. Without basic knowledge about words and sentences, which are the focus of functional literacy, I could never access to online information easily.
Although I do spend considerable amount of time online everyday, as a college student, I spend most of my time reading and writing academic literacy. From what I observed from my classmates’ logs, the situation is the same. Academic literacy, the most important form of literacy for college students, seems not included in Knoblauch’s definitions for literacy. Knoblauch considered functional literacy to be just enough for daily activity and minimum wage jobs. Academic literacy may seem functional in academic life, but it is more sophisticated and requires a lot more knowledge than functional literacy, because high-level academic learning is a sophisticated process. Therefore I consider academic literacy the combination of functional and personal growth literacy. Academic literacy not only serves as a tool in academic life, but also provides knowledge and opportunity to achieve personal growth. I started to learn C language recently and spend a lot of time on reading textbooks and writing codes. My experience shows that I need to read and watch all kinds of online resources to truly master this subject. Textbook reading is not enough when it comes to academic literacy. Students are usually encouraged to read extra material in order to completely understand academic topics, because education becomes deeper and more abstract. All the extra reading resources could be considered as personal growth literacy and all of them finally help me to achieve certain functional value, which is writing code. Therefore, academic literacy is a special form of literacy among the highly educated student, a combination of personal growth and functional literacy.
Critical literacy is the most complex form of literacy. From my past experience, it usually requires the combination of all kinds of literacy listed above to criticize an idea. The news I read few days ago about GMO food reminds me of a sensational genetic modified food documentary in China. Few years ago, a Chinese reporter gave up his job to make a documentary about genetic modified food and demand government to ban GMO food in China because he believed it was harmful. Many people believed in him because this man was willing to sacrifice his future to reveal what he believed “the truth” about GMO food. GMO food became the hottest topic on social media. On the contrary, what I learnt from biology class about genetic modified technology was nothing like he described. For me, this technology brings food to millions of families who struggle to live, because genetic modified crops is more productive and easier to plant than normal crops. I posted my opinion on social media and suggested people should have more faith in scientists. Some people agree with me, but most just criticize me for being blind by lies of governments and scientists. Then news came a few days ago that about 107 Noble laureates asked Greenpeace to stop bashing GMO food. When I read it online, I realized my doubt about that documentary was reasonable. My knowledge acquired from reading biology books provided me a different view from what other people believe was “right”. This incident happens to reflect the combination of functional, academic, and personal growth literacy. Reading a biology book, both a personal growth act and academic literacy act, cannot happen without functional literacy, and it gives me power to question the authority and achieve critical literacy.
Examples above reflect my opinion that functional literacy, liberal literacy and critical literacy do not exist independent from each other. Comparing real life situation to Knoblauch’s definition on literacy, I find literacy is hard to define in independent category. Literacy forms are usually too closely connect with each other that the existence of a pure literacy form is so rare. Although we cannot find a universal way to classify it, literacy is important for everyone no matter what kind of literacy he might use. Looking back at my log, I had to engage with various literacy acts for about sixteen hours per day before I went to bed. How boring and depressive my life will be, if I live illiterately. Life without literacy is really hard to imagine.
Work cited
Knoblauch, C.H. “Literacy and the Politics of Education.” Composing Knowledge. Ed.Rolf Norgaard. Boston: Bedford, 2007. 198-205. Print.
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