Showing posts with label community literacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community literacy. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2010
And one other thing...
The more I read, the more I wonder how community literacy fits in with conflict resolution. It seems as if it can be used in that capacity, but where exactly does it fit?
Community vs. Local Literacies
“Community literacy could be (but is not) another name for what Barton and Hamilton (1998) call ‘local literacies’ – the diverse, daily forms of reading and writing used by working-class people, often overlooked or dismissed in our preoccupation with the elite literacies of school or business” (Flower 18).
What???
I guess I was thinking of community literacy as local literacy - according to Flower's definition. I always thought that community literacy was being literate in the forms of communication of the community you are a member of, and with service learning, you bring a different type of literacy to a community. For example: Our lunchtime programs at local elementary schools. We go out into the East Lansing community - into elementary schools - and bring a new type of literacy, German, to the elementary school kids.
“Community literacy…is an intercultural dialogue with others on issues that they identify as sites of struggle. Community literacy happens at a busy intersection of multiple literacies and diverse discourses. It begins its work when community fold, urban teens, community supporters, college-student mentors, and university faculty start naming and solving problems together” (Flower 19).
However, this problem-solving approach makes a lot of sense, really, but I'm not sure how it relates to the service-learning I've done. My first experience with service learning was in the College of Ed. We went to local urban schools and helped a classroom teacher once a week. Sometimes I worked with individual students or groups of students. Other times I helped the teacher run experiments in the classroom. I'm not sure the College of Ed. really went out of the way to find a problem and a way to solve it. I don't think they really payed attention to the needs of the "customer" (as Flower said). So why did they call it service learning? I thought of it more as field work. Maybe they called it service learning because we were in an urban school helping the downtrodden minority.
Maybe I can make my work with German Outreach fit this definition. So it is increasingly important for students to learn a language other than English these days. There isn't a lot of money to fund these programs (problem identified by university faculty and community partners). So we go into the schools to expose the students to another language at an early age, and even if they don't end up choosing German, they have a positive experience learning a language and choose to study one in the future. Hmm... Not sure that fits either.
Flower does cite Dewey and his active approach to democracy and education, and I think that service learning fits right in with Dewey's approach of being an active participant.
So my question is why can't community literacy be local literacy, too? And don't we, when we go out into the community, pick up the literacy of that community?
What???
I guess I was thinking of community literacy as local literacy - according to Flower's definition. I always thought that community literacy was being literate in the forms of communication of the community you are a member of, and with service learning, you bring a different type of literacy to a community. For example: Our lunchtime programs at local elementary schools. We go out into the East Lansing community - into elementary schools - and bring a new type of literacy, German, to the elementary school kids.
“Community literacy…is an intercultural dialogue with others on issues that they identify as sites of struggle. Community literacy happens at a busy intersection of multiple literacies and diverse discourses. It begins its work when community fold, urban teens, community supporters, college-student mentors, and university faculty start naming and solving problems together” (Flower 19).
However, this problem-solving approach makes a lot of sense, really, but I'm not sure how it relates to the service-learning I've done. My first experience with service learning was in the College of Ed. We went to local urban schools and helped a classroom teacher once a week. Sometimes I worked with individual students or groups of students. Other times I helped the teacher run experiments in the classroom. I'm not sure the College of Ed. really went out of the way to find a problem and a way to solve it. I don't think they really payed attention to the needs of the "customer" (as Flower said). So why did they call it service learning? I thought of it more as field work. Maybe they called it service learning because we were in an urban school helping the downtrodden minority.
Maybe I can make my work with German Outreach fit this definition. So it is increasingly important for students to learn a language other than English these days. There isn't a lot of money to fund these programs (problem identified by university faculty and community partners). So we go into the schools to expose the students to another language at an early age, and even if they don't end up choosing German, they have a positive experience learning a language and choose to study one in the future. Hmm... Not sure that fits either.
Flower does cite Dewey and his active approach to democracy and education, and I think that service learning fits right in with Dewey's approach of being an active participant.
So my question is why can't community literacy be local literacy, too? And don't we, when we go out into the community, pick up the literacy of that community?
Sunday, February 7, 2010
For this week’s posting, I will be considering Flower’s Chapter 1, Peck’s (et. al) Community Literacy, and Gere’s Kitchen Tables and Rented Rooms (not required for this class). (I will complete Flower’s Chapter 2 and and Higgins’ (et. al) Community Literacy: A Rhetorical Model for Personal and Public Inquiry later today, but it will be too late to include it in this discussion.)
I guess I will start by offering several definitions of community literacy that I found useful. One early definition (dating back to 1989, I believe), offered by the Community Literacy Center (CLC) in Pittsburgh seems simple: “action and reflection—as literate acts that could yoke community action with intercultural education, strategic thinking and problem solving, and with observation-based research and theory building” ( Peck 200). However, later in the article, a more developed definition is offered: “Community literacy, as we define it, is a search for an alternative discourse [and] embraces four key aims…social change…genuine, intercultural conversation…a strategic approach to [the] conversation…[and] inquiry” (Peck 205). The introduction of “intercultural conversation” makes me wonder whether community literacy, by this definition, could exist in a homogenous community. Or, if a homogenous community even needs community literacy. Seems to me that it would, but only, perhaps, if we consider a broader definition of community literacy (like that of Gere’s).
Flower offers this definition of community literacy: “Community literacy is a rhetorical practice for inquiry and social change” (16). From here it only got more confusing as I tried to work my way through to a clear understanding of what community literacy is (if that is possible…).
To start with, I’m not sure how critical literacy and community literacy are different, especially if we use Flower’s definition of critical literacy: “critical literacy sees literacy as a way to resist power, challenge injustice, and insist on alternative images of social and self-development” (17). Perhaps critical literacy is, as Flower quotes Finn, “literacy with an attitude” (17). But if critical literacy “questions the way things are and imagines alternatives,” I still don’t see how that is different from community literacy, unless we are talking about action…
After immersing myself in the reading for this week, and absorbing a lot of information, it seems I was left with more questions than anything. The major question that has been fretting at the corners of my mind for several days now is this: is community literacy a theory, a methodology, or a something else? I’m not even sure that question makes sense, but it won’t go away, and it seems important to my understanding of this whole concept somehow. I haven’t been able to answer it for myself, so I’m really hoping someone can help me figure this out.
Here is another small but persistent thought: It seems that the readings for this week use the oppression/empowerment metaphor to talk about literacy. I guess that makes sense if “the premise of community literacy is that such a rhetoric calls us to speak out about and for silenced voices” (Flower 9-10). I’d be interested in seeing what the deprivation/welfare metaphor would look like—or at least identifying it. Has that metaphor gone out of vogue? Is it an outdated metaphor that has been replaced with the oppression/empowerment metaphor? What other metaphors are still commonly used?
Also, I know that ideally those involved in community literacy (or, at least, those whom we read for this week) are invested in social change, but I wonder about a quote from Peck on page 203:”This vision centers on building productive intercultural relationships in which equity is established through mutual learning and the transactional practices of writing and dialogue” (203). (Emphasis mine) Something about this statement bothers me. Perhaps the equation of literacy with equality? I’m just not sure, but something seems off. Can you help me figure this out?
I guess I will start by offering several definitions of community literacy that I found useful. One early definition (dating back to 1989, I believe), offered by the Community Literacy Center (CLC) in Pittsburgh seems simple: “action and reflection—as literate acts that could yoke community action with intercultural education, strategic thinking and problem solving, and with observation-based research and theory building” ( Peck 200). However, later in the article, a more developed definition is offered: “Community literacy, as we define it, is a search for an alternative discourse [and] embraces four key aims…social change…genuine, intercultural conversation…a strategic approach to [the] conversation…[and] inquiry” (Peck 205). The introduction of “intercultural conversation” makes me wonder whether community literacy, by this definition, could exist in a homogenous community. Or, if a homogenous community even needs community literacy. Seems to me that it would, but only, perhaps, if we consider a broader definition of community literacy (like that of Gere’s).
Flower offers this definition of community literacy: “Community literacy is a rhetorical practice for inquiry and social change” (16). From here it only got more confusing as I tried to work my way through to a clear understanding of what community literacy is (if that is possible…).
To start with, I’m not sure how critical literacy and community literacy are different, especially if we use Flower’s definition of critical literacy: “critical literacy sees literacy as a way to resist power, challenge injustice, and insist on alternative images of social and self-development” (17). Perhaps critical literacy is, as Flower quotes Finn, “literacy with an attitude” (17). But if critical literacy “questions the way things are and imagines alternatives,” I still don’t see how that is different from community literacy, unless we are talking about action…
After immersing myself in the reading for this week, and absorbing a lot of information, it seems I was left with more questions than anything. The major question that has been fretting at the corners of my mind for several days now is this: is community literacy a theory, a methodology, or a something else? I’m not even sure that question makes sense, but it won’t go away, and it seems important to my understanding of this whole concept somehow. I haven’t been able to answer it for myself, so I’m really hoping someone can help me figure this out.
Here is another small but persistent thought: It seems that the readings for this week use the oppression/empowerment metaphor to talk about literacy. I guess that makes sense if “the premise of community literacy is that such a rhetoric calls us to speak out about and for silenced voices” (Flower 9-10). I’d be interested in seeing what the deprivation/welfare metaphor would look like—or at least identifying it. Has that metaphor gone out of vogue? Is it an outdated metaphor that has been replaced with the oppression/empowerment metaphor? What other metaphors are still commonly used?
Also, I know that ideally those involved in community literacy (or, at least, those whom we read for this week) are invested in social change, but I wonder about a quote from Peck on page 203:”This vision centers on building productive intercultural relationships in which equity is established through mutual learning and the transactional practices of writing and dialogue” (203). (Emphasis mine) Something about this statement bothers me. Perhaps the equation of literacy with equality? I’m just not sure, but something seems off. Can you help me figure this out?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)