… which has been shaped, honed and reconstructed through the early elementary years, by the different genre of books I read…

Starting with:

Bedtime stories in the early years…

Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys in the junior years.

And from there…

…moving on to ‘Harlequin Romance and Mills & Boons in the intermediate years, and into high school.

Those early exposure and “enculturation experiences with written material helped set patterns of behavior (for me) as preparation for the kinds of learning and displays of knowledge (I would be) expected to (exhibit) in school.

- Heath 1998

In High school my literate being grew and blossomed; through exposure to literary texts like:

which helped developed my “capacity to take language apart… (an essential) prerequisite to critical literacies.” - (Freebody, Luke, Gilbert 1991)

In university my writing was further shaped through critical analysis and writing of papers on such works as those of; Joseph Conrad’s, Heart of Darkness; Richard Wright’s, Native Son; W.E.B Dubois’s, The Souls Of Black Folk and Olive Senior’s, Summer Lightning.

These literate practices set the framework whereby I was able to “be (an) active information - giver, talking from (early exposure to) books and linking that knowledge to other aspects of (my) environment.”

- Heath 1998

But then my p-i-p-e-l-i-n-e of old literacies obtained “through (my) participation in a variety of institutional systems, (which I have) come to accept as natural and thus naturalize through (my) own practices; particular versions of the literary canon, of ‘standard English’ of ‘writing’ of ‘response to literature’ and, indeed, of ‘reading’.”

hit upon a great divide

a ravine /classrooms

… filled with the new powerful literacies of my students era.

- Freebody, Luke, Gilbert 1997

Recognizing that a key strategy I will have to employ to bridge the great divide- to get the p-i-p-e-l-i-n-e across- and to construct literate students as well as to stimulate “discourse critique is (that of ), engaging in lessons that actively juxtapose more than a single text, to provide multiple texts (print, audio, visuals, computer, popular, literary, scholarly) for comparison and analysis”, in my classroom.

Freebody, Luke, Gilbert 1991.

Literacies such as;

The ultimate aim; that of helping students to develop the “capacity to take language apart – the unmasking of texts,” (in its myriad forms)

- Freebody, Luke, Gilbert 1997

For what purpose?

Because “the position is that reading, no matter how rudimentary, is a socially and culturally constructed activity; that beginning reading, remedial reading, content –area reading, and other kinds of institutional reading, as well as the reading of literary texts in secondary schools, are all interactively built in the classroom.”

And students need to display successful reading, as well as develop critical literacy skills, in order to demonstrate literacy competence.

- Freebody, Luke, Gilbert 1997

Other influences on literacy?

The influence of formal institutions such as schools, churches, publishers, universities, the mass media and other modern culture industries in the production of reading and taste, whether through direct didactic sanction or through more subtle hegemonic forms, is undeniable.

- Bourdieu,1986

My role defined:

No single one of these institutions or any single (instructional literacy program) “will of itself, fully enable students to use texts effectively, in their own individual and collective interests, across a range of discourse, texts and tasks”.

This is why as a classroom teacher, I have to serve as the p-i-p-e-l-i-n-e – the conduit and the bridge encompassing as many of ‘the new literacies’ used by my students; in my classroom instructional approaches.

At the same time recognizing that I need to give students sufficient exposure and opportunities to manipulate and acquire ‘the old literacies’, alongside the ‘new’, as both have their place and importance in our society today.

- Freebody, Luke, Gilbert 1997