Adam Williford

Professor Agosta
UWRT 1011-006
21 January, 2017
Scribner reading log

1. Personally, I believe that critical reading is the ability for the reader to not
only to understand what they are reading, but also the ability to think deeper
and connect ideas from past texts. Critical reading is a unique style of writing
because it allows the reader to separate evidence from assumptions, to
evaluate sources, and to recognize patterns within texts. I must admit, I do
not have the best process for reading during school. I tend to get distracted
easily and read, but not obtain information from the text. However,
approaching an assignment, book, or whatever it may be, I try to think about
what I already know about the topic I am reading. Then, as I read, I connect
ideas that I find from prior knowledge. This process of connecting ideas really
helps me because it helps me remember it easier.
2. Literacy is such a broad term that I dont know if I can come up with one
specific meaning for literacy, because there is a huge range of things people
could be literate in. For instance, someone that cannot read and write. They
cannot read words and comprehend written language, however, they can
read body language and know what someone is saying just by viewing their
gestures. So, does this mean the person who cannot read and write is
illiterate? Another example, me. I would like to think that I would be
considered to be literate, but there are still a number of things that I am not
literate in and know completely nothing about. So, I really think the term
literacy is dependent on the subject at hand. Therefore, the average joe
could be literate in a number of things, but then again, be illiterate in many
things as well.
3. As I have said before, literacy is such a broad subject and really has no
boundaries. The fact that it could be so many different things makes it
extremely difficult to set its definitions. Scribner, also described how people
on each spectrum of literacy view the other side, which greatly shapes the
education of that subject. Personally, I believe that it is such a hard topic to
discuss because the way our society is set up. The people who are literate,
often times, tend to unknowingly discard the illiterate people.
4. On page 7 and onto page 8, Scribner describes literacy as an attribute of
individuals and literacy as a social achievement. On these couple of
pages, I personally believe that the author is trying to show the reader two
different view points on literacy. On one hand, literacy can be judged by, or
held accountable by, the individual. So, we can now measure ones literacy
just by viewing the individual and we can say that it is up to that individual to
use its assets to become literate, or stay literate. However, on the other
hand, literacy can be viewed as a social achievement. Here, I believe the
 author is saying that literacy can not only be judged on the individual level,
but more on a society scale. Meaning, that one, it is up to the group to
keep/get everyone caught up to that certain groups standard of literacy and
that literacy can be defined by how well one performs socially within a
group, literacy playing a big part in how well one performs. The two different
views change how we define literacy because they make the definer stop and
think, is literacy measured individually or socially? Scribner, in the text,
advocates for literacy as a social achievement.
5. Literacy as adaptation:
- Is it realistic to try to specify some uniform set of skills as constituting
functional literacy for all adults pg. 9
When I read this quote, it really made me begin to think. Should
literacy be defined solely upon ones ability to read and write, or could
it be something more? Unfortunately, there are adults that in todays
society, that would be considered illiterate. However, just because they
cant read or write that well doesnt mean they cant comprehend and
learn new things, because obviously they had made it somehow in life.
So, this leads me to believe that there should be some sort of specified
skills that constitutes for one being literate.
- Do all communities and cultural groups in our class system and
heterogeneous society confront equivalent functional demands pg. 10
My personal opinion on this matter is, no. I believe, that due to the way
our society is set up, there is no way all groups and communities face
equal functional demands. Because of our class system, minorities and
lower-class citizens will face harder functional demands, as compared
to people born of high class.
Literacy as Power:
- In contemporary framework, expansion of literacy skills is often viewed
as a means for poor and politically powerless groups to claim their place
in the world pg. 11
This quote really stood out to me. I took an intro into Anthropology
course last semester and we talked a lot about power and how it runs
hand and hand with literacy. Power rest in the hand of the people who
are literate in that certain society. Which makes total sense, the
smarter people in a group are going to be the heads of that group. This
is still extremely evident today, in our society, we tend to view the
smart/literate people as more powerful and view people who are
illiterate as poor/dumb.
- when masses of people have been mobilized for fundamental changes in
social conditions..rapid extensions of literacy have been accomplished.
Pg. 12
I chose this quote to annotate because it seemed very obvious to me
but then I started to think about it deeper. Obviously, if masses of
people are being taught new things, a rapid growth of literacy would
occur. Looking back on history this worked well for many societies,
 such as the U.S.S.R. So, why dont more societies try to mobilize mass
groups of people for fundamental changes?
Literacy as power:
- that is, the tendency in many societies to endow the literate people with
special virtues pg. 16
I chose this quote once again, because of my anthropology class. We
learned a great amount about how societies throughout history have
always endowed special virtues to literate people. So, literate people
would usually lead religious activities or other celebrations. It makes
total sense though; you must be literate to read or write religious text.
- an individual who is illiterate, a UNESCO (1972) publication states, is
bound to concrete thinking and cannot be taught new material.
First off, I find this to be completely false. Are we not all illiterate at
some point? I was illiterate coming into this world, however after 18
years of learning, I would now consider myself to be literate. The
saying you learn something new everyday comes to mind when
thinking about this. I believe a grown man that is illiterate could
become literate in any number of subjects, if he takes the time to learn
it.