Part 3: Is the power of literacy worth the effort?

...what fiction—and by this I mean not only the novel but also the epic and myth—makes possible is to approach the world in a subjunctive mode, to conceive of it as if it were other than it is: in short, the great, irreplaceable possibilities. And to imagine other forms of human existence is exactly the challenge that is posed by the climate crisis... to envision what it [the future] might be. 

— Amitav Ghosh | The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, 128-9

From progressive education to critical literacies, mulitliteracies, ecocriticism, and more, scholars and practitioners have recognized the field of literacy as not just an irrevocably human activity but a platform for human empowerment. Through the literacy process, we are given opportunities to make meaning and become our most authentic selves. And we are given opportunities to engage with each other, to share and listen to each other's stories, to recognize and honor each other's diversity, and to cooperatively build the future. 

Originating with Freire’s critical pedagogy, critical literacy is a practice of resisting unjust, oppressive systems and redesigning socially just futures. In 1996, the New London Group recognized that as the world became more globally connected through technology, we needed to foster social justice agency: “literacy educators and students must see themselves as active participants in social change, as learners and students who can be active designers- makers of social futures” (64). Today, critical literacy practice can address the modern complexities of both conspicuous and hidden oppression, including marginalization, divisive politics, racial/cultural profiling, climate crises, and economic disparity. For instance, the Council of Youth Research operates as a youth participatory action research program designed to empower BIPOC youth through literacy. At the program’s core is the conviction that “literacy remains one of the most powerful tools available to promote civic consciousness… in ways that increase their [BIPOC students] identification with reading, writing, and speaking for civic action” (Garcia et al. 153). Through their participation in the program, students gain confidence as agents of change, as made evident by Graciela, a student in the program: “We are… a community based on revolutions that have helped desegregate our schools and better the education… we know we are our own superheroes” (Garcia et al. 152). On a much larger scale, literacy is recognized as a determining factor of socioeconomic status: 

… literacy is the global metric we use to assess the health and competence of communities. High literacy rates have been found to correlate to everything from better access to economic opportunity, to better nutrition, to environmental sustainability. | In fact, bolstering global literacy underpins all of UNESCO’s 2030 Sustainability Goals… ideals like gender equality, sustainable infrastructure, and eradicating poverty and hunger are not possible without literate populations. (Peterson)

The practice of critical literacy is the practice of human empowerment, but we cannot realize such power without doing the hard work of becoming a critically literate society. 

However, society’s values have shifted from honoring the labor-intensive process of developing critical literacy skills to prioritizing efficient output, and research suggests that this reprioritization is fueling AI’s hype (Griffin and James 5). We have become a society so wrapped up in quickly delivering results that we have lost sight of the benefits we gain through process. Ironically, this ethic often leads to mediocracy, as discussed by Hernández-Ramírez and Ferreira. They state that generative AI “merely remixes styles based not on the careful logic of a genuine aesthetic judgment but on a mindless combination of stereotypes and formulaic tropes,” producing “derivative” outputs at best (431). Hernández-Ramírez and Ferreira further interrogate the hype behind generative AI, asking whether the technology actually leads to innovation: “So far, GenAI [generative AI] has done little to convincingly prove that it is the transformative force its proponents claim it is” (432).

Still, society is caught up in the hype of developing efficiency as a technology. And perhaps most unfortunate is that society’s future-makers, students, are not immune to the hype. Griffin and James presented research suggesting that students avoid the hard work of learning because they lack time, have competing priorities, face overwhelming stress, and are discouraged by the learning process (7). Generative AI enables students to side-step the productive struggle of learning by fostering a “product-focused approach… a reliance on tools or shortcuts to generate an end-product” (Griffin and James 3). In this “product-focused approach,” students are more concerned with turning in their assignment than they are with deeply engaging in their work “to foster critical thinking and intellectual autonomy” (Griffin and James 5). Society’s prioritization of efficiency over process could be risking our very future.

But a faction of society is resisting this value shift. In his 2000 memoir On Writing, Stephen King recognized writing as a life-enriching activity, but one that demands dedication. Aligning with Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reading, King asserts that the writing process begins with consistent deep reading as the way to form authentic ideas from diverse perspectives. From there, we must develop our writing skills to effectively tell our stories. King reiterates that there is “no shortcut” (145) to the writing process. Instead, the only route to becoming a true artisan of the writing craft is through hard work: “But if you don’t want to work your ass off, you have no business trying to write well” (144). Two decades later, Daniel Herman published his controversial article, “The End of High School English.” In it, Herman offers a sardonic example of why we must first do the hard work of mastering basic literacy skills before producing anything of value: 

… a basic competence in writing is an absolutely essential skill… you need to learn the basic rules of good writing before you can start breaking them—that, like Picasso, you have to learn how to reliably fulfill an audience’s expectations before you get to start putting eyeballs in people’s ears and things. (Herman)

Being uncomfortable is a necessary part of growth. To become stronger, an athlete must dedicate themselves to long periods of physically demanding work. To develop cognitively, a student must work through complex, often frustrating, problems to discover a solution.  Becoming critically literate is no different. Robinson acknowledges the fundamental discomfort within the writing process: it “demands knowledge, reflection, honesty, and courage… the ability and willingness to linger in uncertainty and doubt as meaning coheres word by word by word” (128-9). He asserts that this discomfort is necessary, though, to gain “the power to transform the self and the world” (Robinson 120). Griffin and James also espouse the benefits of struggling through the work to become better. Citing Techawitthayachinda et al., they claim that the discomfort students experience in learning allows them to “synthesise and apply complex, discipline content in authentic contexts and consequently manage and self-regulate their learning progress” (11-12). 

Literacy empowers us to make meaning and socially just futures, but that power is not handed out for free. We must struggle through the process to gain the benefits. Through this hard work, however, we gain so much more than if we take shortcuts.

Literacy As Power_Works Cited.pdf

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