Literacy & Its Importance to Modern Culture

Literacy is the ability to read and write. The extent to which one can accomplish these tasks skillfully is an important ingredient of success in a number of venues in American society. Literacy skills--or lack of them--can contribute to success or failure for a whole range of subpopulations in America. There is compelling evidence that in certain social classes and communities throughout the United States the social values that inform the manner of use and choice of written texts influence educational, economic, and social opportunities.

Undoubtedly, as Kutz and Roskelly state, language "allows humans to extrapolate from experience, to interpret it, and the way language orders our experience is our process of thinking" (36). Also, they note that language and thought development "can't be separated from the social/communicative context in which it occurs" (Kutz and Roskelly 43). McCormick, Waller, and Flower touch on the complexity of context in their discussion of the interconnection between language, literature, history, and culture. Their main point is that ideology is a part of the language and that it affects the way literature and

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ns, and background knowledge" (Rose 184). This may take shape because of disadvantages of lower socioeconomic classes, where belief systems and "the way they think and use language" (Rose 221) are not suited to unlocking strategies of formal discourse. It may also take shape even though members of these classes realize that "language is power" and that "needing to learn to read, write, and speak in the ways the school teaches . . . has something to do with moving . . . up and out" of the lower social strata (Heath 265). Ways of thinking and using language that differ from the way language is used in academic discourse, a product of conventions of advantaged social classes, have led some researchers to conclude that "the poor are intellectually or linguistically deficient" (Rose 221). Rose also cites other research pointing toward failures of teaching methods and preconceptions of the educational systems in unlocking these strategies for those who are socially marginalized by poverty, race, or other factors. He advocates transforming teaching methods that gradually draw students in to the habits and forms of academic discourse. He also calls for "a philosophy of language and literacy that affirms the diverse sources of lingui
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Kutz Roskelly, Deen Ponsot, Similarly Heath's, Mein Kampf, Waller Flower, , Toni Morrison, kutz roskelly, Richard Rodriguez, Black English, NH Boynton/Cook, dominant culture, read write, class culture, reading canon, teaching methods, social class, extrapolate experience interpret, dominant-culture authority, habit reading, own book, ability read write, role social class, marginal classes cultures, portsmouth nh boynton/cook,
Approximate Word count = 2385
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)