Three Theses on the Literacy Crisis

I really like the points this post makes about different categories of literacy, but I always let out an enormous sigh every single time I read an article or blog post that rewrites a well-referenced social phenomenon into a different one. I hate that we have to establish different categories to refer to "The Artist Formerly Know As The Literacy Crisis." It feels very scarcely useful.

I really like how the schism between basic literacy, literary culture and the study of literature is examined, though. I was always under the impression, as an engineer, that being able to retrieve needed information from a printed text was tremendously important, until I trained myself in this skill to the point where I have trouble reading linear pieces of fiction (Not to mention nonlinear ones. I am trying to chug through Tropic of Cancer with English being my second language. I'm failing at a consistent and periodic pace). I imagine that now, grammar-school me would be consistently able to out-read me in an "English literature class" kind of way, while I would beat him at engineering-focused knowledge retrieval even without ChatGPT.

> When commentators lament that students “can’t read,” what they often mean (though never specify) is that students are not engaging in texts in ways that resemble the interpretive practices valued within literary studies. That’s why we should ask whether they are literate in a particular discourse instead of asking if they are literate full stop.

This why I find the article insightful. I appreciate how this severance between studying literature and being literate appears to contain the issue to a specific sub-field of The Artist Formerly Know As The Literacy Crisis, but I really am not sure how this is useful to anyone looking to improve the state of things. Even the author himself says that while "[even if he thinks] histrionic op-ed writers in The Atlantic misdiagnose an erosion of literary culture as mass illiteracy doesn’t mean I’m okay with it." I find this somewhat hollow still, because redirecting overarching societal shifts into the context of a very specific sub-field of a science usually just works to sweep it under the carpet.

I have experienced a bunch of well-trained and passionate teachers, which resulted in me obtaining a decent grasp at literature in secondary school. Conversely, a lot of my peers did not and most of the graduates after them did not as well. They all exhibit signs of declining basic literacy (to the point of not being able to read washing machine instructions without LLM assistance). I think that bad grades in literary studies are a decent predictor of bad basic literacy, especially 5 years down the line. And, we have seen a lot of old teachers retiring where I live, with their replacements being just plain dumber, if not stupid outright. I suppose the reason is that undergrads enrolling in paedagogic courses here are mostly people that couldn't get in literally anywhere else (and immigrants seeking fraudulent student visas to work as delivery drivers).

Fixing the infrastructure as the conclusion suggests would do well to maintain the already-reading and curious-to-read students, but would do little to get them interested in it. We desperately need teachers that imprint a sense of nobility or worthiness to the practice of literary culture/study and only then the infrastructure will prove itself useful once the coming generations realize there must be some wealth in making use of it, get them influenced, so to speak.

There is also very little societal norms promoting traditional culture (literature, music, theater, cinema, not to mention other arts). In school, children and teens are often being ostracized for not caring about sports, while not caring about culture is much less stigmatizing, if not outright encouraged.

The original study explicitly argued for deliberate practice. Musicians who didn't do that could not become experts.

One major shift has been the death of newspapers. When that was the primary way to get information about the world around you, it wasn’t just readers who benefited - it created a steady stream of capable, workmanlike writers. They weren’t literary geniuses, but they were capable of stringing together a few paragraphs of readable prose on a deadline. And they got paid for it; how many people can make a living off their Substack?

> trying to redefine literacy to include it is just sophistry.

Or an angle toward one's doctoral dissertation in some "social science" or other.