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When I first thought of my definition of literacy I said that it was, having the skills and components needed to read and comprehend literature, which opens doors and can act as a vehicle to the rest of the world. It is a connection. I still think that this definition is an accurate definition for my perception of literacy, however after doing the assigned readings this week I see that there are some things that my definition is lacking. The Lapp et. al article was particularly interesting to me, because it talked all about how new teachers felt extremely unprepared to teach literacy to their high-poverty stricken students. I would agree with this article that “tough to staff schools” do not get highly qualified teachers in their doors and are setting their students up for higher failure. When a school does get a highly qualified teacher they seem to be so unprepared that they burn out very quickly and walk out the doors never to return. These obstacles of being unprepared for the differences culturally, being the “classroom mom,” dealing with hurt, sadness, anger, not getting meals, and the children being the caretakers at home can cause teachers to put literacy on the back burner and focus on what their students’ needs are. I think that it is extremely important that universities are now being encouraged to prepare teachers to be highly qualified reading teachers who are equipped to handle the issues in urban schools by helping them develop reading teaching skills that can help break the trend in urban schools of bad literacy programs. From this reading I added to my definition to literacy, that it is every single person’s unalienable right to gain the skills and knowledge needed for the different components of literacy. Also, I am adding that it should be used as a vehicle to help people get through hard times, express feelings and desires, and used as a way to make connections with those who are like them. I see that literacy can be used to help students in high poverty situations get through what they are going through, through either writing about it like in journals, in poems, or stories, as well as make connections to characters who are in similar situations as themselves who got out of their situation, or just someone to relate to in the literature.

            Through reading the “Seeing Color Seeing Culture” piece my eyes were opened a little bit more to the importance in seeing color and celebrating those differences. This has been a topic widely discussed in our classes with treating everyone fairly and giving everyone the same opportunity, as well as relating literature to our students’ lives and this article reinforced that thought. It helped to reiterate the importance in incorporating different races into the readings used, to celebrate, and acknowledge the differences that we all have, rather than attempting to make us all view each other as the same regardless of race. In doing so, we would be ignoring the valuable differences that we all bring to the classroom. In reading this article I saw that my definition was missing that literacy is about acknowledging the differences in the human race and celebrating those differences where the different cultures can be better understood and viewed as unique.

            My new definition of literacy is: Literacy is every single person’s unalienable right to have the skills and components needed to read and comprehend literature. Literacy also should be used to acknowledge and celebrate the differences in the human race and celebrate those differences where the different cultures can be better understood, and viewed as unique. Literacy can open doors and act as a vehicle to help people get through hard times, express feelings and desires, and is used as a way to make connections to the rest of the world.

            My literacy learning environment would encompass my new definition of literacy. I want my classroom to use literacy to help each student be an individual, and help my students get through whatever they may be facing. I understand that there are challenges with urban schools and I probably will not know really the true difficulties teachers face until I am in that situation, but I hope that I can use what I have learned to use literacy as a vehicle to get my students through their situations and help them to see the importance of literacy so it does not get thrown onto the back burner, and prevent my students from remaining in that high percentage of struggling readers in the urban school system. I want to use literacy as a tool to help me handle the situations that I will face as a teacher.

            My current placement does not really fit into my definition, because of a few reasons. For one thing my students are in kindergarten, so they are not into really rich literature yet. We have read some books about people’s families that have lost their home and have not had enough money to buy things, but for the most part the main focus is helping the students learn to read and write. Another reason is that they’re at the beginning of their reading and writing careers and in kindergarten everything is based on self. They think that they are the world, and that is what they are learning about so while their differences are praised it is not a main focused, and so it does fit into my literacy definition.