What is literacy?

1. Gee defines literacy as the master of or fluent control over a secondary discourse. What this means is that you must master a secondary discourse, learning through social acquisitions. As an example Gee states that one may learn how to drive a car through instruction, but thereafter, rather than learned, most of what he knew. Its like the act of doing teaching you more than the act of listening. Development happens through social interaction and acquiring social knowledge. He also makes a great point that a discourse can only be presented fluently. The only way a discourse can be presented fluently is if you are part of that discourse. If you have no knowledge of the discourse, one can not present it fluently.

2. Well when I first saw this I thought it was referring to someones ability to read and write. So yes, this did change my understanding of literacy. The use of discourses really threw off my view. This will effect my literacy story because I will focus less on my primary discourses and more on my secondary. My primary discourses have always been around through anything I have been a part of. My secondary discourses, on the other hand, are still being discovered. With college recently starting that is a huge new secondary discourse to add to my literacy story.