Technolandy

Day 91 (of 2024/25) the naming of literacy

Thank you (and sorry) T.S. Eliot – hate the film or musical if you must… I love it and Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats that inspired… Cats ~ but are we in alignment that there is not really agreement in what ‘being literate’ means now that Tech has made it more and more feasible to get truly ‘back to basics’ – and by that, meaning thinking beyond this 450 year old ‘fad’ called reading and instead get back to the oral/aural culture that blossomed for millennia, and has returned to be a dominating trend of communication… but trying it in poetic tribute to

The Naming of Literacies is a difficult matter,

It isn’t just one of your academic games;

You may think at first I’m as mad asa hatter

When I tell you, literacy as THREE DIFFERENT VIEWS

First of all there’s the literacy that the world use daily,

Such as reading and writing or communicating

Such as decoding and transcribing or viewing/representing

All of them sensible everyday literacies

There are fancier labels if you think they sound sweeter,

Some for those who like reading independently

Some for those who like an age range

But all of them sensible everyday prescriptions

But I tell you a literacy that’s particular,

A version that brings up such good debate:

Is it about the synthesis of story?

Or about the transforming information to knowledge?

Or is it about spelling things rite and aligning in meaning?

Can all things be true and false at the same time?

Can we measure a reader by their words per minute?
Should we give them a grade by conventional spellings?

Is it merely on comprehending what they’ve read aloud?

The wonder for years has always been the same…

Is reading about reading or perhaps something more?

Is it cheating to listen… deceitful to talk?

The original ‘back to basics’ movement that first saw

Reading and Writing text as a fad meant to distract youth…

Perhaps we look at three different ways

To view reading

To view writing

To synthesize listening and representing…

Read once at a standard of someone else’s choosing 

Whether harder or simpler, who cares of the reason?

Write once to be assessed for both non and true fiction

And then again as you speak and again as you listen

To see how you synthesize and then you can decide

Libby or Youtube

Pen(cil) Typing or Ted Talk

The choices are endless, but

Keep the closed captioning on…