If Gee’s “What is Literacy” were a boat, we’d all be bailing water.
Over the past few weeks all of us within this class have been introduced to the essay “What is Literacy” written by Linguist James Paul Gee in 1987, an essay in which the author is attempts to use his skills as a linguist to provide an useful definition for the word literacy. Prior to providing this definition however, Gee must define various other words and ideas to support his final conclusion. Words such as discourse and subdiscourse are introduced by Gee who then goes on to explain them in great detail. Gee even goes so far as to provide five basic rules and/or guidelines for these discourses. Next Gee presents us with the theory of knowledge that is “Acquired” versus …show more content…
Within the essay Gee defines the word literacy as follows: “literacy is control of secondary use of language (i.e., uses of language in secondary discourses.” This is as horrible and incomplete of a definition of a word as I have ever read. This definition is as vague and incomplete as a whole that Gee himself, just two short sentences later, has to expound on his definition of the word by adding modifiers to it in order to get his point across. In my opinion what a colossal waste of time this has whole effort would have been had it not been for the one saving grace Gee is able to finally express to the reader. In the final part of his essay, Gee is finally able to put together some theories that I, as a reader, can get behind. Theories that state schools should focus more on acquisition as a means to teach our children. Schools should try to break our children out of the secondary discourses they have become comfortable with and know all too well and give them a chance to learn something new. This in return gives them the ability critique their primary discourse and maybe make changes for the better. Knowledge is
Over the past few weeks all of us within this class have been introduced to the essay “What is Literacy” written by Linguist James Paul Gee in 1987, an essay in which the author is attempts to use his skills as a linguist to provide an useful definition for the word literacy. Prior to providing this definition however, Gee must define various other words and ideas to support his final conclusion. Words such as discourse and subdiscourse are introduced by Gee who then goes on to explain them in great detail. Gee even goes so far as to provide five basic rules and/or guidelines for these discourses. Next Gee presents us with the theory of knowledge that is “Acquired” versus …show more content…
Within the essay Gee defines the word literacy as follows: “literacy is control of secondary use of language (i.e., uses of language in secondary discourses.” This is as horrible and incomplete of a definition of a word as I have ever read. This definition is as vague and incomplete as a whole that Gee himself, just two short sentences later, has to expound on his definition of the word by adding modifiers to it in order to get his point across. In my opinion what a colossal waste of time this has whole effort would have been had it not been for the one saving grace Gee is able to finally express to the reader. In the final part of his essay, Gee is finally able to put together some theories that I, as a reader, can get behind. Theories that state schools should focus more on acquisition as a means to teach our children. Schools should try to break our children out of the secondary discourses they have become comfortable with and know all too well and give them a chance to learn something new. This in return gives them the ability critique their primary discourse and maybe make changes for the better. Knowledge is