A Framework for Literacy
A US
Ø “Literacy skills are most effectively acquired in contexts that make reading and writing meaningful” (p3)
Ø “Reading, writing, and critical thinking differ in purpose and emphasis yet draw on a common pool of literacy skills.” (p3)
The report believes that literacy involves three processes: interpretation, expression and deliberation. At a first approximation these appear to correspond to reading, writing and critical thinking but “matters are more complex. Skilled readers write in support of their reading (by taking notes) and employ reflective reading strategies. Skilled writers use reflective strategies to improve writing quality and read every time they revise or in response to material from other texts.” (p4)
There are five discourses which explain literacy skills.
Ø The social model focuses on “inferences about communicative intent” (p5)
Ø The conceptual model is most concerned with comprehension and making meaning from text.
Ø The discourse model looks at how the author works within a genre.
Ø The verbal model is based upon vocabulary and grammar.
Ø The “print model represents skills in processing text in formal, phonological, or orthographic terms.” (p6)
It is clearly complicated to propose any coherent model of skill development which (a) takes into account the complexity of interrelation between the three processes of interpretation, expression and deliberation and (b) looks the same when viewed from each of the five perspectives above.
The authors also hypothesise a developmental sequence for the development of the critical thinking inextricably linked to literacy.
Ø “The minimum prerequisite for rational argument is the recognition of incompatible and conflicting viewpoints.” (p9)
Ø “Begin to anticipate challenges and accumulate justification strategies that have worked in the past.” (p10)
Ø “Begin to strategically select justifications and elaborate on arguments where supporting evidence will help to bolster the case.” (p10)
Ø Learn from the experience of having one’s own arguments refuted and “recognize fallacies, develop rebuttals and reason more generally about the validity of arguments.” (p10)
Ø Use the knowledge of what arguments should be “as an intellectual tool that helps determine which ideas should be accepted.” (p10)
This then leads to a ladder of literacy skills.
| LEVEL | INTERPRETATION | DELIBERATION | EXPRESSION |
| Preliminary (oral to sentence) | Can orally restate or identify the reasons someone else has given to support an opinion. | Can distinguish reasons from non-reasons and infer whether reasons would be used to support or oppose a position. | Can give plausible reasons to support an opinion when asked or spontaneously in conversation. |
| Foundational (sentence to paragraph) | Can restate (list in one’s own words) the supporting reasons provided in a paragraph-length text. | Can self-generate multiple reasons to support an opinion. | Can express lists of reasons in declarative sentence form and embed them in a paragraph-length position statement. |
| Basic (paragraph to text) | Can recognize and explain the relationship between main and supporting points and keep track of which evidence supports which point. | Can rank and select reasons by how convincing they seem. Can distinguish between reasoning that seems convincing because one agrees with it and reasoning that seems convincing because of the content of the argument. | Can select and arrange reasons and include specific supporting details. Can group reasons with evidence to form (implicit or explicit) paragraph structure. |
| Intermediate (text to context) | Can track and distinguish multiple positions when they are discussed in the same text. Can evaluate the accuracy of a summary and the credibility of a source text based on strength of arguments and evidence. | Can recognize counterexamples and distinguish facts and details that strengthen a point from those that weaken. Can distinguish valid from invalid arguments and recognize unsupported claims and obvious fallacies. | Can organize reasons/evidence contrastively to compare opposing positions. Can summarize and embed sources as supporting evidence. Can write simple critiques or rebuttals. |
| Advanced (text and context to discourse) | Can evaluate arguments in light of existing knowledge and discussions, actively verifying, challenging, and corroborating the case presented in terms of other sources of knowledge. | Can identify and question the warrants of arguments, distinguish necessary and sufficient evidence, and synthesize a position from many sources of evidence, using that to identify key evidence and propose new lines of argument. | Can write extended discussions that place arguments in the context of a larger literature or discourse. Can embed critiques and rebuttals effectively into a longer argument. |
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