- Szwed states that the 5 elements to literacy are text, context, function, participants, and motivation. Motivation refers to the reason as to why people read, some examples that Szwed provides are nostalgia, ambition, boredom, and fear. Motivation is also affected by context, function, and text.
2. The method of studying that Szwed recommends is a method where everyone knows what the language looks like, being able to describe it, and measure it. At the same time, it also needs to have a meaning for its users and how it is utilized.
3. Szwed is saying that we must not stick to or consider 100 percent true only the live of other since reading and writing can have consequences that can affect work patterns, economic condition, and family life.
4. If I was a literacy instructor in The Bronx, to follow Szwed’s advice, I would have the students write pretend emails to bosses.
5. According to Elizabeth Baker, the sociocultural perspective of literacy is the idea that literacy comes directly from culture and shifts alongside it. The four characteristics of literacy that Baker suggests we use are, Semiotic, Public, Transitory, and Product Oriented. All four of these characteristics are connected to each other, literacy on the other hand, is shaped by cultures.
6. Literacy is the ability to read and write, while orality describes the primary verbal medium used by cultures with little or no exposure.
7. Literacy practices are shaped by what we are taught in schools and the general belief that surrounds us. Szweds mentions that “The capacity to read and write is casually associated with earning a living, achieving, expanded horizons of personal enlightenment and enjoyment”.
8. Literacy standards are created by culture Baker writes that in the 1600’s “Europe and The United States literacy involved mastering a range of religious texts. if you could orally read those texts then you were considered literate”.
