Research Journal #4

Thoughts on “Literacy In School and Out” by Lauren B. Resnick

I completely agree with Resnick that schools may not be the only or primary source for people to gain literacy skills. Some people may be considered highly literate and could never have gone to school before in their lives. I can definitely relate because I was homeschooled from pre-k all the way through high school. I was never in a traditional classroom setting so my mom served as my primary literary sponsor. I also contributed to my own literacy experience by doing extensive reading on my own. Resnick even talks about how there is a difference from reading at school because you have to and reading on your own because you want to. We are more likely to retain more knowledge and pursue it if we have the freedom to choose not to.
I also find it interesting that Resnick uses the term apprenticeship. I think back to colonial times when young boys were apprenticed out for seven years to a “master” in order to become efficient at a trade. We can “apprentice” ourselves to various forms of literacy. If you are good at computers, focus your energy to mastering that skill. If your chosen field requires extensive writing, start developing those writing skills now. Schools could apply the concept of apprenticeship by hosting workshops for students. With these workshops they could try to get a feel for what forms of literacy a student may be interested in and provide students with information on how to develop those interests.

Resnick goes into to what she categorizes at “useful literacy”, “pleasurable literacy”, and “informational literacy.”
You should definitely be familiar with “useful Literacy”. Job applications, college application forms, resumes…all are forms of this type of literacy. The reason is pretty obvious that they go into this category because we use them to get by in the workplace and our daily lives. The difference that separates forms of “useful literacy” from “pleasurable literacy” is that you probably won’t sit down and write a resume because you really want to or find it enjoyable. “Informational literacy” is what you use to learn about something when there is no other practical utility to gain knowledge about something. Often “information literacy” involves relaying what you learned to others.

Thoughts on “Writing In the 21st Century” by Kathleen Blake Yancey

I found this report highly interesting mainly because of the discussion in the later half that dealt with the changes the computer has brought about. Nowadays, writers are practically everywhere thanks to the computer. The internet has made it possible for practically anything written to instantly be shared with others across the globe. The look into MySpace and Facebook was most intriguing to me. Many of the people on these two networking sites are students. It shows that students can more easily adapt to new methods than the older generations can. I can look at my own experience with Facebook and relate because when I went off to college, many of my family members like my dad and grandma wanted me to help them set up a Facebook account. It was almost frustrating trying to do this because when I finished helping them, they couldn’t help but gripe about how difficult and pointless Facebook was. My senior year in high school, it seemed my social life was Facebook. I would be up studying until late at night and before I went to bed I could chat and keep up to date with friends that I had been too busy to see during the day. Social networking sites seem much more important to my generation, but I believe this deals with the fact that we are in general more technical and computer savvy. Because of the internet, we can reach others with our writing like never before and with an impact that cannot be measured.