"Ethnography of Literacy"

This post is based off of my interpreted reading of "Ethnography of Literacy," by John F. Szwed. Some points that were mentioned really caught my attention like literacy causes poverty, what the function(s) literacy is (are), and how to test a student's skills.

First of all, I was surprised that Szwed mentioned that, “illiteracy has been singled out as a root cause of poverty,” because I aways assumed that poverty was the main cause of illiteracy, not the other way around. I can imagine that both affect the other mutually. I have always seen literacy as of a means of measuring the development of a country, and I’m glad the question was asked if literacy relates to the level of civilization. 

I like the idea proposed in the side notes of page 422 that says to ask students what they use reading and writing for. Since basic reading and writing skills are used almost constantly every single day, every student would be able to participate and think about whatever it is that they find interesting in this activity. I bet students would love brainstorming lists of fun things that literacy is necessary to do. For example, students can sit on the rug and volunteer some of their favorite activities and how they use reading and/or writing during that activity. “Going to a baseball game,” could be one activity and being able to read the scoreboard that tells you the stats of the game and the background of players makes the experience more entertaining and meaningful.  Even students who only like playing video games and nothing else can be participate in the activity because they need to be able to read what is on the screen to figure out how to play. 

I agree that the way to test a student’s ability in literacy should be in his or her real life, not by his/ her score on a Standardized Test. What about asking students to evaluate themselves? Asking students how long it usually takes them to read a chapter in a book of their choice or if they get frustrated easily when they need to follow a recipe might be good types of questions to evaluate how well a student can use their literacy skills in real life. I agree with Szwed that as educators, we should focus on, “the social meaning of literacy: that is, the roles [literacy] play[s] in social life.”

John F. Szwed makes some very fair and legitimate claims about what literacy means to our society and   how we should evaluate it. I agree especially that the function of literacy for students should be dictated by the students and we should ask them when they use reading and writing most.