Literacy

Personally I feel that literacy means the taking in, learning, observing, acquiring knowledge from writings and readings as well as creating writings and readings. So, basically I feel that literacy is a form of cultural expression that helps in the forward movement as far as intelligence and creativity goes. As an FSU student I feel that literacy is over stressed in the sense that in most areas of learning it is not made as interesting as it should be. Students should not feel like they have work to do education should be more interesting. Now, I am not saying everything can be taught with flare but lectures can be turned into something more interesting by adding stories like my Comparative Government teacher added relevance to our everyday lives by referencing “The Dark Knight” in his lecture this past Tuesday. Usually I have a difficult time grasping the concepts in his class but when he did that it aided me greatly. By providing this example I have probably already answered the next question and it is yes I do think that the English classroom should adventure outside the realm of text-based writing to other forms of composition. Maybe there could even be a mixture. Having the student get involved in writing themselves or observing pictures and putting words to them; things along those lines can enhance the learning process. Variation is key. Not every person learns the exact same way. Sure, some people can read a book or write a few essays and absorb an great deal of information from that but others learn visually, aurally, or through interaction and in the English classroom sometimes these students can have a difficult time especially if the course it text based. I feel that experimentation is very important. Putting a student in the shoes of a different author and different genres can help them to understand the value more and how difficult it is to create such works that some people even call art.