Read this if you're literate

I consider myself a literate human being. I consider most of the people I come into contact with literate human beings. So what does this mean? 

There are a multitude of factors that have come to define literacy. Being able to read and comprehend what you’re reading might be the first thing that comes to mind. I can read most things, but what about when words like katabatic and scintillation start being thrown around? I find myself stumped, but that doesn’t make me illiterate. 

I guess what I took from “Literacy in Three Metaphors” is that literacy is contextual; it all depends on who you are, how old you are, where you’re from, ect. One point of Scribner’s I found especially compelling was “at one time, ability to write one’s name was a hallmark of literacy; today in some parts of the world, the ability to memorize a sacred text remains the modal literacy act. Literacy has neither a static nor a universal essence.” 

I felt like I was really on the same page as Lunsford in her editorial on literacy and youth. Writing is such an intrinsic aspect of my life; I can’t go a day without doing it. While I do enjoy to write, it’s not like I love it so much I can’t live without it--but in thinking about all the texts, emails, papers, notes, statuses, tweets... that’s all writing. And Lunsford points out that texting and social networking, while seemingly detrimental to our writing practices (as Carr and Hedges argued), are actually helping us develop a “repertoire of writing styles, tones and formats, along with a range of abilities.” Moreover, we know that a text we send to our best friend has to be constructed in a different fashion than a formal email to one of our professors. The technological age is improving our writing because it’s making it increasingly impossible to escape from it.