Literacy, Teacher Preparation for Diversity

Conceptions of Literacy

Earlier conceptions of literacy as relatively autonomous cognitive abilities to read and write in a given language have yielded to emerging understandings of how reading, writing, and other ways of making meaning are always situated in sociocultural practices. Brian V. Street developed the idea of literacy practices to refer to reading, writing, and other literacies as being embedded in and patterned by broader ideological, social, and historical forces. Practices of literacy are intricately connected to and expressed through specific discourses that activate and work to regulate the production, use, and significance of meaning(s) conveyed in a wide range of textual (and increasingly digital) mediums.

After distinguishing between primary and secondary discourses, James Paul Gee made a fundamental connection between language and literacy by defining literacy as the control of secondary uses of language. This control reflects ways of using language to make meaning in (and to be recognized as a participant or member of) specific secondary discourses including the secondary discourses of schooling and other societal institutions and settings. Importantly, Gee placed emphasis on literacy and discourses being developed and mastered more through acquisition—exposure to models in natural, meaningful, [Page 1406]and functional settings—than through formal learning.

Essentially, literacy can be seen as a production of meanings (practices of literacy) where various skills (control of uses of language and other semiotic systems) are required and revealed in the process of meaning production. These meanings are produced in textual mediums that have continually expanded and transformed via new technologies, and they are not understood as autonomous or decontextualized expressions. Instead, they are intricately tied to and reflective of particular contexts—the semiotic domains within specific discourse communities. Traditional notions of reading and writing as well as digital media literacies are understood within this conception of literacy. Writers enact a range of skills to produce meanings in written texts, and readers enact a range of skills to produce meanings from these texts. A range of skills is also needed to produce meanings in the semiotic domains of digital textual mediums. These skills of meaning production are shaped by social, historical, geographical, and ideological contexts and forces and revealed through various (often overlapping) discourses. In this conception, literacy is seen as culturally connected skill(s) in production(s) of meaning(s) in text(s) in context(s). It addresses traditional literacies as well as new media literacies with an understanding that the nature and function of skills, productions of meanings, and texts can vary significantly between discourse contexts as reflected in specific practices of literacy.

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