What Does it Mean to be Literate?
Literacy is deeper than just reading and writing. Yes, being able to read and write in a given language makes one literate by definition, but literacy really goes further. Literate thinking is having the ability to analyze what is read or written. Literacy of a given topic assumes a certain level of understanding of the topic.
Content Area Literacy versus Disciplinary Literacy
In the school setting, we use the term Content Area Literacy to denote the ability to use not only reading and writing, but also oral communication and technology, in order to learn information in a specific discipline. Common reading and information gathering strategies can be applied across various content areas.
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Disciplinary Literacy refers to the content knowledge used by those who create, communicate, and use that knowledge within their specific discipline. Disciplinary literacy speaks to what knowledge is important in particular content areas as well as how new knowledge is created. It also specifies discourses pertaining to particular disciplines.
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Adolescent Literacy
When discussing secondary education, one must take great consideration of the recipients of that education: adolescents. Adolescent literacy refers to the reading, writing, and comprehension skills of students in grades 4-12. Up until that point, students focus on learning to read. Once most students reach 4th grade, they are asked to read to learn (Chall, as cited in Sedita, 2011). Students whose literacy skills are not where they should be by grade four get left behind. Teaching literacy should not be abandoned after 3rd grade. As a matter of fact, it is most effective when embedded into all content areas.
Adolescents come to the classroom with their own unique literacies and unique needs for addressing literacy. Students regularly navigate a wide variety of texts: school text books, movie, music, websites, and social networking to name just a few. Teachers of adolescents must take all of these sources into consideration and include a variety of text presentations in the classroom when possible. Adolescent literacy must address code-switching and linguistic diversity of 21st century students. Just as English language learners and non-standard English speakers learn to shift their oral and written language depending upon context, adolescent literacy education should value the particular languages of the various text media that students participate in and bring into the classroom.
Adolescents come to the classroom with their own unique literacies and unique needs for addressing literacy. Students regularly navigate a wide variety of texts: school text books, movie, music, websites, and social networking to name just a few. Teachers of adolescents must take all of these sources into consideration and include a variety of text presentations in the classroom when possible. Adolescent literacy must address code-switching and linguistic diversity of 21st century students. Just as English language learners and non-standard English speakers learn to shift their oral and written language depending upon context, adolescent literacy education should value the particular languages of the various text media that students participate in and bring into the classroom.
Academic Language
Regardless of student background, literacy instruction focuses on academic language. There are key components in which academic language and grammar differs from the everyday language used by students outside of the classroom:
- Figurative expression
- Explicit for outside audiences
- Logic over emotion to remain detached from the message
- Supportive evidence
- Using modals to convey nuances
- Using qualifiers to soften the message
- Using prosody for emphasis
- Longer sentences with subordination of clauses
- Passive voice
- Nominalizations
- Condensed complex messages
- Clarity