Reflections on literacy

   Literacy has always been a word that triggers thoughts of libraries, books, and people learning to read. And rightly so...in the world I grew up in. But things have changed, and today literacy has taken on an entirely new meaning, a whole world of meaning, in fact. Literacy encompasses discovery, learning, and proficiency in countless genres.  From print to audio to any number of visual images, literacy could be defined as "the communicated word in any area of life". "Being literate" involves our understanding and mastering any of these various forms of communication, and thereby being able to speak that genre's "language". Looking at literacy through this lens makes life suddenly full of stories and messages and thoughts, coming from every direction and at any minute, waiting to be heard, discovered, and understood by us.
   The thrill of this "new literacy" is that it opens up a conversation between us and the world around us.  It also frees us to communicate in the ways that most speak to us, and challenges us to attempt those that don't.  It encourages us to be adventurous, even daring, and allows us to explore undiscovered areas of creativity.  I have found this metamorphosis in my own view of literacy this semester to be almost exhilarating, like discovering an old box of forgotten childhood treasures.  This literacy goes far beyond taking a book to the doctor's office waiting room, or even a tablet with a Kindle app on an airplane.  It urges me to look everywhere to see what is being communicated to me, and then to look again, deeper.  It invites me to consider how I will then respond, and how I can share this with others. It declares my competence to be literate, in ways I never considered before, giving me new confidence.
   It is this view of literacy that I take with me into the secondary classroom, and want to teach to my students.  Particularly as a middle school ELA teacher, I want my students to discover, as I have, that being literate means far more than what is contained in the middle school ELA TEKS. I want to help them see that literacy is learning to have that conversation with their world, and then sharing that with others.