Literacy-in-persons

By Author: Tracy McGrady
Total Articles: 56
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In seeking to understand Orlonia Phillips's literacy-in-persons, we avoid defining literacy solely as a set of cognitive skills and abilities that individuals develop in formal institutions such as schools. Rather, we approach literacy as social and cultural practice that individuals enact in relationship to their contexts and communities (e.g., Zook-Gumperz, 1986; Cushman, 1998; Gee, 1996; reach, 1983; Street, 1984, 1995). From this socio-:ultural perspective, literacy entails more Replica Tag Heuer than slimily decoding and encoding printed texts; rather, as Bdmondson (2003) argued, Reading involves texts that have dispersed "into objects to be read and enacted instantaneously" (Agger, 1989, p. 51).

In other words, objects in our society [as well as actions, interactions, gestures, and symbols] can be both things and texts, (p. 11) 5or many literacy researchers, a sociocultural perspec-ive has been useful for studying how patterns of iniquity are reinforced through literacy (Brandt, 2001), or "how we interpret texts depends on the meanings ...
... we attach to the signs and symbols that surround us" Tidmondson, 2003, p. 12). The meanings we assign to texts are shaped by our identities, which in them-ielves consist of "histories of opportunities granted ind opportunities denied, as well as ascending power 3r waning worth, legitimacy or marginality of particular literate experience" (Brandt, 2001, p. 8). To late, socioculturally oriented literacy research has not sufficiently addressed the histories involved in individuals' identities as they engage in literate practice Brandt, 2001).

We found Holland et al.'s (1998) work on identity development useful for addressing this limitation of literacy research. Holland et al. put forth 'history-in-persons" as a means of conceptualizing shifting identities: "History-in-persons is the sediment from past experiences upon which one improvises, asing the cultural resources available, in response to the subject positions afforded one in the present". Adding Holland et al.'s "history-in-persons" to the discussion of our interests in understanding individuals' literacy identities has helped us frame literate Dractice as "situated in historically contingent, socially enacted, culturally constructed 'worlds'" and as Deing a process of literacy-in-persons. Literacy-in-persons is a theoretical framework for interpreting how individuals are always forming as literate beings, as they hone their literacy repertoires throughout their lives. Literacy events and literacy practices are key elements for understanding literacy-in-persons. Literacy events are the discrete activities and observable moments that revolve around texts or the talk about text, such as reading a family recipe to bake a cake. According to Barton and Hamilton (1998), literacy events arise from and are shaped by literacy practices, or the social processes that connect people with one another, such as the practice of baking a cake to share at a church event. In this way, literacy practice is useful for understanding how literate behaviors are socially, culturally, and historically situated.

From the perspective of literacy-in-persons, literacy practices can illuminate how one's literate self is always in process, shaped from one's material resources, biography and history, and future possibilities. Taken together, literacy Cartier Roadster Replica Watches events and literacy practices are well suited for examining literacy-in-persons, illuminating how literate identities develop across individuals' life spans and are embedded within the histories of communities. Literacy-in-persons, then, can add much to our understanding of literacy practices because it highlights how literacy exists at the intersection between things and people, people and places, and the past and the future. In what follows, we explore Orlonia's literacy-in-persons to highlight how her literate self comprises a variety of experiences from across her life span, as well as the legacy of literacy within her community.