Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Dissertation reading: Professing literacy in composition studies


Goggin, P.  (2008).  Professing literacy in composition studies.  Cresskill, NJ:  Hampton Press.

Goggin looks at the various definitions of literacy, specifically tracing how they are applied and used with computers and composition studies.  Mapping the definitions of literacy shows changes in definitions and applications over time, as well as places where changes need to occur, or disconnects exist.  Focusing on Goggin’s mapping of the various definitions of literacy as they apply to computers and composition is an important way to understand the applications of literacy in pedagogy, and how digital literacy functions in classroom space.  The map becomes a way to understand applications of literacy in current scholarship of digital classrooms, digital literacy and composition pedagogy.

the title becomes catchier after you've read the book and really let it all sink in.  being literate about literacy is what so many literacy scholars profess, without realizing the many different ways they use the word, define the word, apply the word.  One of the hardest spellings for many children to learn is their, there and they're.  All three words sound exactly the same, but have very different meanings.  Goggin is arguing literacy has the same problem.  we think it can apply to everything and anything, but that also means its hard to define, so we assume everyone knows what it means when we use it in a given context.  at the beginning of the semester i gave my freshmen composition 101 students and extra credit assignment, as 5 people "what is literacy?" write it down.  When they came in to class and we discussed the assignment some were amazed at my mind reading skills, i could guess a lot about the age, education and SES about a person based on how they defined the term and what they knew, or at least what aspects of it they cared about, which again points to SES.  In describing all the various ways computers and composition specifically apply the term literacy, and all the skills, applications, pedagogy, reading and writing implications one little concept has needs to be fleshed out so we don't accidentally use the literacy version of they're when we really mean their. 

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