Monday Literacy Questions

From my understanding, Gee's definition of literacy is the ability to be fluent in a particular discourse. Now, when Gee uses the word discourse, he means a particular part of a person's life that there can be knowledge and discussion on. As such, if a person is literate, they will able to masterfully talk about a certain part of their life that defines them. This differs from most people's idea of literacy because Gee states that literacy is any and every aspect of the living world, rather than just certain topics or ideologies.

Gee's definition of literacy is one that is hard to understand and try to grasp as an applicable part of every person's every day life. In my opinion, I believe that literacy is being able to talk about subjects with accuracy, but not to the extent that Gee explains it to. Gee talks about being literate in every part of a person's life, such as their gender, race, ideology, or even feelings. However, I do agree with him in saying that literacy should not be taught, but rather acquired. In my own literacy story, I believe that my teacher was attempting to have his students acquire literacy by only talking in German, rather than teaching the cookie- cutter method of "this is how you say hello, goodbye, etc...". With this though in mind, I might write about the difficulty of acquiring a certain aspect of literacy, but also might just attempt to show in my own writing that literacy is not going to be with held if it is the type of teaching that attempts to have a person be taught literacy rather than having that person acquire it.