Reading Response: What is the Value of Literacy? (Brandt and Fishman)

Assignment Requirements: 

First, please read Andrea Fishman's "A Lesson from the Amish", which is new. You will probably want to return to Brandt as well.

To help you learn to read critically and incorporate effective textual support, you will complete reading responses for several of the assigned readings this semester. Reading responses ask you to use direct evidence from the course readings to answer a prompting a question. This means that each reading response should include at least one quote or paraphrase from the assigned text.

Reading Responses should be uploaded as a Microsoft Word document using MLA or APA formatting (including an APA title page or MLA header) and in-text citations and a Works Cited/References page. There is no word count for these responses, but you should be thoroughly answering the question with specific evidence that is incorporated into your own writing. To do this, I recommend around 250 words, but you're welcome to write more or less if you feel like that's what you need to answer the question. 

This Week's Prompt: 

As we begin our work in Unit 1 of our course, we are looking at what Literacy is and how we can apply and understand it, as well as understanding how we as individuals become literate and what literacy means not just to each individual, but as a cultural, social, and contextual concept. For this reading response I want you to use Fishman and Brandt to consider how you feel your own culture values literacy. What is the "purpose" of being literate for your culture? What does it do/not do? Why or why not does it matter to be literate, etc? This prompt wants you to specifically think about the way Fishman is studying Eli Jr.'s literacy and comparing it to general American cultural values, as well as how Brandt defines the different paths to literacy each individual person goes through. Instead of asking you "why do YOU value literacy", this is about thinking about the ways your culture (your upbringing, your cultural contexts, where and how you became literate, things like politics, religion, etc. influenced it) values it. 

Reflect back on the Andrea Fishman piece and Deborah Brandt's piece on literacy sponsors. In it, she describes how Eli Jr.'s contexts of literacy and what they mean to his culture. Fishman is also rhetorically analyzing the context of literacy as a whole, and argues that while to 'mainstream' culture Eli's life may seem backwards or even simplistic, the concept of literacy to the Amish is seen as extremely important in a way that is almost foreign to outsiders. At the same time, Fishman's words can also be rhetorically analyzed; she has a very obvious argument that she is trying to make in her ethnography of Eli and the Amish that goes beyond the family's interactions and looks outward into how American culture teaches literacy and values (or doesn't) value literacy beyond technical ability. Feel free to use any other readings so far too, if you want to draw connections between the readings.

Be sure to read this week's MLA and APA content pages before completed this assignment.