University Writing CenterAs we enter the twenty-first century, reading and writing skills are at the center of controversy and debate. Many believe that due to television, cultural diversity, non-native speakers of English, poor schools and general laziness, our society is heading into a profound state of rampant illiteracy, such as never before experienced in the history of the world. The reality is a bit more exciting than that.
It’s true that our culture is saturated with electronic substitutes for literacy. The telephone has made letter writing all but unnecessary. Television serves to replace newspapers, travel, pleasure reading, even friends and family life, and recent evidence indicates that the internet is beginning to replace television. Many of us prefer our books on audio tape, so that we can listen in the car, and one can buy video tapes that will teach almost anything—playing heavy metal lead guitar, installing vinyl floor tiles, doing income taxes, using Microsoft Word, developing an imposing physique, even appreciating Shakespeare. As traditional motivations for learning to read and write are usurped by flashier, more seductive media with easier learning curves, it is perhaps unsurprising that students arrive at the university unprepared for the demands of academic literacy. After all, in our electronic society, an illiterate individual can assimilate more information than at any other point in history. Are we simply old-fashioned to expect students to be able to read complex texts and write grammatical sentences and well-formed arguments? Is it time for the university to give up and get with the program?
No. In fact, while the modes of literacy are in flux, the literacy demands of our society are greater than they ever have been. Miles Myers, in his book Changing Our Minds: Negotiating English and Literacy, argues that our country has gone through at least four phases of literacy expectations before the present time. In the colonial period, orality was the dominant mode of information exchange for most inhabitants. After the Revolutionary War, the expectation was what Myers calls “signature” literacy--the ability to write one’s name and read some of the alphabet. We tend to forget that not every citizen of the colonies was able to write like Thomas Jefferson. At the end of the Civil War, “recitation” literacy, in which an individual is expected to be able to memorize passages and answer questions about important texts, was the dominant educational mode. In recitation literacy one is not expected to ask questions, or to answer questions about a text that has not been the object of serious study. Starting about 1916, largely due to the needs of the army, reading tests were developed in which individuals were expected to be able to read passages they had never seen before and answer questions about them. This is the beginning of what Myers calls “decoding/analytic” literacy.
Myers uses the analogy of the clock to describe the workplace of the past century. Workers in this factory are truly cogs in a machine, doing the same jobs over and over, never thinking about what they are doing or why. Decoding literacy might be necessary for learning the job, but once in place further learning is unnecessary. However, the factory of today is more like a thermostat--constantly adapting to new situations through such concepts as “just-in-time” delivery of parts and materials and “continuous improvement.” Even line workers are expected to be problem solvers, and to use graphs, charts, formulas, and texts to help the organization adapt to new circumstances. This requires a new mode of literacy which Myers calls “critical/translation.”
This new literacy is “critical” because individuals are expected to be able to use information to solve problems, to think in new ways and discover new perspectives. It is “translation” because we now acquire concepts and information through multiple media, and we are expected to be able to translate information from video and audio to text and back again, and to use quantitative data to make visual charts and graphs, which are then interpreted to make policy decisions which then are promulgated as texts. Although electronic media have replaced print literacy in some tasks, the resulting literacy demands are in fact much more complex than any our society has experienced in the past. Research indicates that according to the standards of decoding literacy, our schools are doing fairly well. It is in the new critical literacy that our students are struggling.
Every new literacy builds on the modes of the past. While we can’t go “back to the basics” and ignore new media and new literacies, neither can we ignore the need for clear and effective communication in any mode.
Of course, in addition to new modes of literacy, we also face challenges caused by cultural and linguistic diversity, lack of resources, staff, and time, and our own confusion in adapting to new technologies. In a time of great and swift change, the educator’s task, normally conservative and tradition-bound, can be almost overwhelming as the government, the public, the students, and we ourselves disagree about purposes, methods, and goals.
At Cal Poly Pomona, writing practice is an important educational component at every level. However, assigning and responding to writing can be a tough task for faculty, who have many other responsibilities. Your students may need more feedback, and more one-on-one assistance, than you can provide on your own. The University Writing Center is here to make the job a little easier. Through this quarterly newsletter we will provide a little history, a little theory, a little common sense, and a lot of experience with the issues facing university faculty assigning writing in their classes. We would appreciate feedback on ideas that work and those that don’t, and we would like to hear suggestions for other things that might be covered in future issues. The University Writing Center is here to help students and advise faculty. Keep in touch!
