4.1 Literacy
To be literate is to be able to understand and apply language to communicate meaning, yet what it means to be literate and ideas about language and literacy differ across place and time. Literacy is culturally dependent, with different individuals and cultural ascribing different values to elements of literacy. The concept of ‘multiliteracies’ includes visual literacy and digital literacy alongside the more familiar idea of literacy relating to reading and writing words.
Literacy curricula and school guidance in the UK encompasses oracy (speaking and listening) writing, handwriting, spelling, punctuation and grammar (also known as SPaG) and reading, including comprehension and phonics (the study of sounds).
Activity 10
Task 1
The following newspaper report writing is by Lewis, an eight-year-old boy living in London. Read the report and assess the writing using a checklist commonly seen in primary classrooms.
Ancient tomb found! Reported by Lewis Aggleton
Yesterday, an ancient Egyptian tomb just happened to finally be found. The tomb hosted Tutankhamen who was a very young Pharoah and died age 18!
The tomb was found by 2 archaeologists, Howard Carter and Lord Carnavon, in the valley of kings, Egypt. After spotting some sunken steps in the sand, Carter caught the attention of Carnavon and they dug through 3 whole rooms to get to the sarcophagus.
I bet a hundred pounds that this week will go down in history. After Carnavon read the the telegram, he and his daughter rushed to Egypt as fast as they could. They waited in front of the tomb until Carter said ‘You can come in, y’know’. When they went in, they saw couches, chariots, jewelery, carpets, statues, the sarcophagus and a ton of gold!
Ctaing Snowboard, (weird name), a local resident, told our reporter ‘I didn’t know I lived next to a Pharoah who died age 18!’ Reporting on their findings Lord Carnavon proudly announced ‘I’m the guy who helped Carter, give me all your money!’
This recent discovery has inspired Archaeologists to search more (and same goes for tourists). The best thing about this is that we’ll know more about Egypt which will make us smarter then we’ll be nicer to the world. (win-win)
How would you describe the success of Lewis’s use of the following features?
Add a tick or cross into the following table.
| Feature | Always correct | Sometimes/ partially correct |
Incorrect/not present |
| Newspaper article features | |||
| Headline, reporter name, date of report | |||
| Opening paragraph containing the 5 Ws (what, where, when, who, why) | |||
| Information about the main events in chronological order | |||
| Images with captions | |||
| Direct speech | |||
| Reported speech | |||
| Written in the third person and past tense | |||
| General writing features | |||
| Capital letters/full stops | |||
| Exclamation/speech marks/parentheses | |||
| Adjectives/adverbs, connectives | |||
| Spelling |
Comment
Your completed table may look something like this:
| Feature | Always correct | Sometimes/ partially correct |
Incorrect/not present |
| Newspaper article features | |||
| Headline, reporter name, date of report | ✓ | ||
| Opening paragraph containing the 5 Ws (what, where, when, who, why) | ✓ | ||
| Information about the main events in chronological order | ✓ | ||
| Images with captions | ✓ | ||
| Direct speech | ✓ | ||
| Reported speech | ✓ | ||
| Written in the third person and past tense | ✓ | ||
| General writing features | |||
| Capital letters/full stops | ✓ | ||
| Exclamation/speech marks/parentheses | ✓ | ||
| Adjectives/adverbs, connectives | ✓ | ||
| Spelling | ✓ |
Task 2
Now reflect on the following three points and consider whether you think that the way the writing features have been used has made the piece of writing more effective as a newspaper report, or less effective, and why.
| Feature | More, less, or sometimes effective | Reason |
| Information about the main events in chronological order | ||
| Direct speech | ||
| Parentheses (in brackets) |
Comment
Your views as to whether the features you analysed made this piece of writing more or less effective will have depended on your personal views as to what makes a good newspaper report. Below is an example of some things you may have noticed, however your views may differ from those presented here.
| Feature | More, less, or sometimes effective | Reason |
| Information about the main events in chronological order | More effective | A key part of a newspaper report is relaying what happened. By reporting on what happened, in the order it happened it, it was clear to me as a reader what had taken place. |
| Direct speech | Less effective | It feels to me that Lewis has included speech because he has been asked to, and hasn’t necessarily thought about what kinds of comments might actually have been made by those interviewed, or would be of most interest to the reader. |
| Parentheses (in brackets) | Sometimes effective | As with the direct speech, it feels to me that on two occasions Lewis has included parentheses to demonstrate that he knows how to use them correctly, rather than because they are actually appropriate or needed to communicate effectively. He has also used them several times, and it would be unusual to see a newspaper article of this length with three sets of parentheses. However, he has used them effectively in the sentence ‘This recent discovery has inspired Archaeologists to search more (and same goes for tourists)’, where the writing in the parentheses is providing additional information which is relevant and likely to be of interest to the reader. |
For the educator, what counts as ‘present’ or ‘absent’ will depend heavily on the learning goals of the activity and the direction set out in the curriculum. While some activities may be narrow in their focus, it is important to remember that whatever these expectations, Lewis needs to receive positive feedback to be motivated to continue to write and supportive guidance to help him to improve. It is important for the learner to understand the goal of the activity to recognise that there may be many positive aspects of their writing outside the focus of the set task. Thus the adult role and their communication is crucial.