ELPC G2 Entry #1 (A boring title, I know)

"But I'm not an English Teacher: is literacy really my business?" Two things immediately spring to mind: (a) how many journals/blogs have opened with that particular quote, and (b) the quote itself presupposes, or at least certainly implies, that literacy is the domain of the English teacher. While the first point is purposefully flippant (although possibly still of interest; why would so many people open an article the same way?) the second is very important.

We all have a belief as to what constitutes literacy. Very few of us have much doubt in our belief (here I'm using the language and ideas of Charles Peirce in his article "The Fixation of Belief"), but is our belief justified, and are there other sound or valid beliefs about the nature of literacy?

What is literacy? To many the term refers exclusively to reading and writing. I have a very different view. "Literacy is the ability to authentically participate in a given context." By this definition possibly the most literate folk to have ever existed were the Japanese Ninja. Their job description not only included killing people without leaving marks, but such diverse activities as ettiquete, diplomacy, languages, singing, dancing, and many more, such that they could participate authentically in any context; they could blend in. To be illiterate is to feel uncomfortable, unable, out of place. While I'm not explicitely suggesting that we revive the (mostly) lost arts and skills of the Ninja, I am suggesting that literacy must be viewed in a much broader context than the opening quote suggests.

For the moment however I would like to share an example from my own personal experience, one which is more in line with the opening quote than with the Ninja.

"Literacy is the domain of every teacher" was one of my mantras from 2001 through 'til 2006. During this time I taught almost exclusively in the CIT Year 12 program (maths and physics). My personal research interest was assessment, for I felt that the "traditional" maths test and the "marks for ticks" approach to marking used by many maths teachers (particularly those of the previous generation) left a lot to be desired. There was a hard ceiling of 100% beyond which no student could go; the best students were not given the opportunity to demonstrate their ability.

This is an extremely important point in Senior Secondary Studies, where assessment is normative. If the mean score of a class or cohort is high (which is what tends to happen in maths because maths teachers, possibly all teachers, err on the side of being generous) then the corresponding student z-scores (from which their course scores and UAI are subsequently derived) will not be as high as they should.

"So what separates the top students from the rest?" I thought to myself, and how could I rewrite or restructure the assessment process to allow these students to shine, without disadvantaging other students. My reading and thinking suggested that "deep understanding" is one of the key hallmarks of the top student, and the ability to "explain" was the indicator of such understanding. In a nutshell: if you can explain something then you understand it.
So I had mathematics students write explanations as well as perform calculations. At that point a new problem emerged.

"If you can explain something then you understand it" is logically equivalent to "if you don't understand it then you can't explain it". In the classroom it wasn't so neat. There were, and still are, students whom I knew understood something, but their ability to explain clearly in the written form left more than a little to be desired. My system of written explanation as an indicator of deep understanding had hit a stumbling block. The solution tore the CIT Year 12 Maths department apart.

I spent considerable class time teaching students how to analyse blocks of (mathematical) text and write explanations of mathematical problems/solutions/situations. In a sense I became an English teacher in the Maths classroom.

"But that's not Maths!" was the cry from other Maths teachers. Isn't it? By improving reading and writing skills (the "conventional" view of what constitutes literacy) had I not improved the mathematical literacy of students; raised their level of comfort in the Maths classroom? Students were now able to articulate mathematical ideas that might otherwise have eluded them if constrained to the signs and symbols of Mathematics.

Effective communication is an essential skill, and hence literacy, in all its forms, is the domain of every teacher.