What is academic literacy?
Literacy involves far more than the ability to read and write. Although you already have a conscious command of these basic skills, there are many other aspects of literacy which you have been unconsciously using. School subjects, for example, each have their own style of literacy (known as a discourse) which includes a specialised vocabulary and a specialised way of reading, talking and writing about texts. In this sense, literacy in Science is different from literacy in English.
In its broadest sense, literacy involves using language for thinking and meaning. It is helpful to understand literacy as having three different aspects (Green 1996).
- Operational literacy is competency in the language, especially
written language.
- Cultural literacy is learning a discourse or culture: how
to communicate in the language of a specific group of people or a
subject. Understanding what to say and how to say it in Science, or
understanding how to read a poem well in English, are two examples.
Each subject is like a different country with a different culture.
The culture of the Bachelor of Education differs from that of the
Bachelor of Economics.
- Critical literacy is understanding how knowledge is made and how it can be transformed. Reading newspapers in an informed and critical fashion is an example. Knowing how to look for beliefs and assumptions behind written texts is another.
Green, B. 1999, 'The new literacy challenge', Literacy Learning: Secondary Thoughts, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 36-46.
 |
Academic literacy is a combination of all three aspects. |
