Marsten Davis Conversation 2

1. The five elements of literacy are text, context, function, participants, and motivation.

According to Szwed, reading and writing skills can vary depending on how motivated the reader is. The motivation of the reader can be affected by text, context, and function, while motivation in general is affected by nostalgia, ambition, boredom, and fear amongst other things.

2. The method of studying literacy that Szwed recommends is ethnography and says that it’s the only way that literacy can be properly measured. This way you can directly observe an individual through field observations, and obtaining reading and writing observations.
3. “We must come to terms with the lives of people without patronizing them” means we must understand and empathize with others’ backgrounds without judging them, and that there is more than one way to interpret culture and literature.
4. If I was to teach literacy I would be patient and willing to listen to other’s points of view and background, then try to structure my curriculum around their interests to keep them motivated.
5. The autonomous and ideological model are the two models of literacy according to Perry. The autonomous model is a strict set of skills based on western values that are applied in any situation, while the ideological model has multiple approaches based on the culture.

7.  “Literacy” to an individual is most likely whatever set of rules the people in power of the country they lived in set. If you’re in a country like America it could affect what you view as “proper”  because the culture here is more strict when it comes to certain practices. In the excerpt from Kirsten Perry she used a quote that said “ This entails the recognition of multiple literacies, varying according to time and space, but also contested in relations of power…and asking “whose literacies” are dominant and whose are marginalized or resistant. (p. 77)”.