According to Szwed the five elements of literacy are text, context, function, participants, and motivation. In a nutshell the element of motivation depends on self enjoyment, your choices of reading, and how much you value reading. Which can be relatable because if the lesson isn’t motivating or if I find no personal enjoyment in it or know the value of its importance, I wouldn’t have wanted to read.
Szwed recommends the use of ethnography because it is more effective in terms of studying literacy. You’re able to accurately measure literacy through a cultural aspect and be able to take into account all the aspects.
when Szwed writes, “we must come to terms with the life of people without patronizing them”, he means that because the definition of literacy is ever changing you can’t fully deem someone illiterate unless you take into account the culture. In other words, there is many things we have to consider because of evolution.
if I was a literacy teacher in a Bronx high school, I would first want to acknowledge the community I am in, and the different backgrounds my students can be coming from. I would want to get to know my students individually so that I am able to create a curriculum surrounding their experiences, and what they already know. Our books and readings would be surrounding similar situations as they have faced, and literacy in a community like theirs. My lessons would be based around different cultures of literacy and comparisons of how literacy is taught in different cultures. Based off all we learned I would ask them to give me their own definition of literacy then explain to them. I would also want to know what keeps them motivated to learn, so I am able to continuously come up with lessons that not only teach them but also peak their interests.
The sociocultural perspective of literacy according to Baker, is an examination of literacy as an artifact. In other words, as the culture changes and evolves literacy must and will also change. The literacy being taught at home and in schools are completely different which makes it easy for schools to assume the children are illiterate. The four characteristic emerged were semiotic, public, transitory, and product oriented. Baker found the study more useful in demonstrating the focus of the sociocultural perspective.
In terms of orality versus literacy, literacy is to read and write, while orality is to verbal expression in societies where reading and writing is unfamiliar.
Our literacy practices are shaped by our educators and those part of the school system. The goal of the school system, is to acknowledge the lives of the students and how literacy may be taught at home, and put that into perspective when creating a curriculum that can cater to them and their literacy needs. Szwed mentioned how literacy behinds at home, so for example if you’re not used to reading books at home there would be a lack of motivation to read at school. But it is up to the teacher to understand the difference, and become the motivation.
Literacy standards are created by educational professionals in regional and national associations. The standards are created to serve students and help them meet their particular literacy challenge. But according to Szwed, “the goal of education is to produce a society of people who are equally competent at these skills.” For those with cultural biases, the use of ethnography and sociocultural perspective can help with the biases.
