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Literacy & Its Importance to Modern Culture

called into question from a variety of perspectives. Similarly, what could be called the writing canon, or the norms of grammar, have been called into question to the degree they form the basis of writing instruction. Kutz and Roskelly believe that "multiple ways of knowing" (55) should be honored and that bridges should be built "between the way a learner thinks and the way a school teaches" (61). These bridges do not exist, Kutz and Roskelly argue, because of the dominant-culture authority over conventions of reading and writing. As a result, marginal cultures are cut off from the social and economic benefits connected to dominant-culture authority.

Heath locates the gap between high levels of literacy and social class when citing the approved ways in which language is used in working-class homes in both black and white rural communities. Especially in the black working-class community that Heath names Trackton, these ways with the language do not always transfer effectively to the more formal educational setting/culture (Heath 235). Reading as a project in itself does not have social sanction in Trackton. However, reading and writing are attached to shared social experience, specifically oral communication modes (Heath 195), instrumental in accomplishing a material or social objective (reading price tags writing checks), or informational/news related (newspaper stories, notes when oral communication is impossible) (Heath 198-9). Heath describes a Trackton boy known for the "peculiar habit" of reading in solitude when growing up and who obtained a college degree. But from the standpoint of social norms, what made the boy memorable was not the degree but the solitary habit: "In general, reading alone, unless one is very old and religious, marks an individual as someone who cannot make it socially" (Heath 191). Though written texts, whether scripture or church bulletins, may be "in the background" of all communications, by and large ...

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Literacy & Its Importance to Modern Culture. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 21:48, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1712058.html