Literacy as a Saving Grace: A Retake

By March 13, 2016 BlogPost No Comments
fake

Literacy (the big ‘L’ overarching concept acting as an umbrella for literacies (little ‘l’ subject/content driven understandings)) is and should be considered a saving grace.

To explain this concept further I must qualify my statement by stating that I believe that Literacy is the combination of the literacies possessed by an individual that helps said individual exist and survive in the society and world in which he or she lives.

I’ve used the double-edged sword metaphor for Literacy before. I believe that it is also valuable in this post. Literacy implies that an individual possesses the ability to think both independently and critically. The ability to utilize possessed literacies as a method of debunking myth, lies, and manipulations is a precious ability to have–especially when the ability is possessed by an individual who belongs to a marginalized population of society. For the marginalized to assume that everything being told to them is truth would be akin to walking through life both blind and deaf.

In this case, Literacy (big L) would be a saving grace. It is something that allows an individual to analyze and recognize potential issues, identify the reason why such issues may exist by drawing on background knowledge, and utilize said background knowledge to either take action or play along with those causing the issue.

 

 

Leave a Reply