Hi Alice, I was especially interested in your ideas in the center about literacies being both learned and acquired. James Gee believes that we are all born with an identity kit he calls our "Primary Discourse" or Primary Literacy. It is a kit that includes our comfort zones (family, extended family, religious afiiliations etc.) and he says that we don't learn that primary literacy, it is acquired. He says that the secondary literacies of power in society also have identity kits (such as the way people talk at a cocktail party where they are making social contacts for business) and that some primary literacies identity kits give folks more practice with acquiring the ways of talking and acting and being that are done by the social power groups. Anyway, just some food for thought. His point is we acquire the literacy identity kits of social power through practice with more knowledgeable others--but sometimes some people feel excluded. How might that happen in a classroom?
Hi Alice,
ReplyDeleteI was especially interested in your ideas in the center about literacies being both learned and acquired. James Gee believes that we are all born with an identity kit he calls our "Primary Discourse" or Primary Literacy. It is a kit that includes our comfort zones (family, extended family, religious afiiliations etc.) and he says that we don't learn that primary literacy, it is acquired. He says that the secondary literacies of power in society also have identity kits (such as the way people talk at a cocktail party where they are making social contacts for business) and that some primary literacies identity kits give folks more practice with acquiring the ways of talking and acting and being that are done by the social power groups. Anyway, just some food for thought. His point is we acquire the literacy identity kits of social power through practice with more knowledgeable others--but sometimes some people feel excluded. How might that happen in a classroom?