I'm ltreliltae, cna't you see?

I found it interesting that the three angles Scribner used to describe literacy were adaptation, power, and state of grace. Actually, it would probably me more accurate to say he used those three categories to explain how the term “literacy” is so vague it can hardly be used with any certainty of meaning the same thing. In his first point, and in my opinion the most crucial, Scribner explains how people use literacy to understand each other and to thrive in a specific community. As soon as one steps outside that community, though, the sense of unity created by a common view of the purpose of literacy is lost. Scribner asks how we are supposed to define what level of reading/writing makes one “literate”, but I think it really depends on what is being accomplished in those communities and what literacy must be used for in that situation. For example, I have more than a 12^th grade education, which in most societies would classify me as literate. However, if I was dropped into the stone age, I would be awful at gathering food, starting fire, and probably at painting pictures on cave walls, too. In this sense, I would not be able to accomplish day-to-day tasks. Does this make me illiterate? On the other hand, I would be able to pick up on what cavemen were doing and probably learn incredibly fast. Does the ability to adapt like this make me literate in a social sense? Are there different senses of the word? There is so much to ponder here…

Lunsford more obviously contrasts Hedges and Carr. I read the Lunsford article much more intrigued than any we have read so far, and I’m not sure why. Much of that reasoning is probably due to the fact that it dealt with topics closer to home, in a more casual writing style with more information being thrust at me quickly rather than analyzed extensively (which would be appreciated by Carr with his water-sports analysis of speedily soaking up information). Lunsford’s article caught my attention also because he has statistical data woven into his writing. With so much of today’s stereotyping technology based around personal experience and views of youth, we lose the information about trends and comparison that can only come from years of studying the exponentially changing features of this new age.