What does literacy mean to your community?

Literacy is a very opinion based concept because literacy is defined by society. For example someone can be literate one of the smartest people in his third world country, but when put in a community that’s in an area such as MIT area or something like that the person could be considered completely illiterate. On the subject of whether or not English courses constitute as teaching students to be literate they do and they don’t. English courses are there to provide one with basic knowledge of literacy, it’s primarily up to the student to read books and newspapers and build off of those things that the courses teach you. One class can’t teach you how to be literate. The individual learns it from his surroundings using the knowledge he has gained from his teachings. I also believe that English classes are biased, in a sense, to what they teach. This is because they teach you how to be literate in their society. I can’t say how many times I’ve walked in a history course and they’ve told me to forget everything English teachers have taught me on writing, because to their courses English teachers teach you how to write like an actual novelist instead of actual research papers where you just state your argument and argue it. In others our history teachers don’t believe we’re in college to write books, but instead how to write essays. But literacy is a funny thing and I believe as long as one is literate to their community they’ll make it in life.