On "The 'Oprahfication' of Literacy"

In Mark Hall’s “The ‘Oprahfication’ of Literacy,” we are once again reminded of the phenomenon that literacy is power/empowerment. Hall’s illustration of the occurrence, however, takes it a bit further. He states that it was not merely the literacy itself that made Oprah so powerful. Rather, the healing properties of reading emotionally charged novels about empowerment and the overcoming of obstacles helped Oprah (and has helped others) overcome her own hardships. How, then, is reading different than merely watching a movie of the same theme? Well, a reader takes more ownership in a piece of literature than he or she does in a movie because the reader has to be actively engaged in order to interpret and apply the presented information into action. A movie does the interpreting and presents the visual illustration (psychological transformation of description). Through the work of actors, “real” people are created. Readers of novels (and some non-fiction) identify with and create the characters as extensions of their own personalities because the reader is forced to fill gaps with what he or she is capable of imagining the character doing. First person narration takes this activity even further by forcing the reader to identify his or herself as the storyteller. When a reader of Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle readers to herself, “At first, every time I repeated this story to myself, underneath my pillow or inside the refuge of the locked bathroom, it filled me with the same rage, helplessness and sense of betrayal I’d felt at the time,” she reads it as though they were her own words. The “I” is read as the reader’s “I” and so she takes on every emotion and every characteristic of that “I”. The reader feels the rage, helplessness and sense of betrayal. The reader becomes the character in the novel, and so the character’s triumphs are the reader’s. The reader feels empowerment, feels as though she has overcome great obstacles, and so feels she has accomplished and so can accomplish again. The emotions felt during reading are real and so are capable of transforming a reader’s mood and attitude which can thus transform their lives.

5b: A Thought of One's Own

Helen Damon-Moore and Carl F Kaestle bring up important points about “gendered” literature. Interestingly, as I read along in their article, Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own suddenly pervaded my reading experience. The reason her book was brought to mind and why I couldn’t get the idea of her writing out of my reading of this article is because she discusses in great detail the need for distinctly female literature, which is the topic upon which Moore’s and Kaestle’s article is based. Woolf urges not for literature that is necessarily targeted toward women for publication purposes or commercial success, but she declares the need for women to create a world of their own through reading and writing. She brings up the notion in her extended essay of 1929 that the world of literature had always been a male-dominated culture. Women were not considered “literates” in the academic sense of the term, and she was concerned with the development of that sense of urgency and importance that men’s literature had established in its maturity. Clearly women were already established as writers by the time Woolf writes her essay. Sarah Stickney Ellis wrote in 1839 about the Characteristics of the Women of England and just as Moore and Kaestle point out, Puritan women held a vital role in the education of their children. However, in both cases the way that women wrote and the topics upon which they wrote were dictated by the patriarchal constraints of their time. Ellis’s work was a guidebook for the middle-class domestic angels of the industrial revolution, and the Puritan women’s literacies were molded by their domestic duties. Woolf’s concern in 1929 was that women should create works that are written with a woman’s voice. Rather than drawing upon the formulas which were dictated by men’s literature, Woolf urges women to build their own literary history. She says what women lack is a mother up to whom we can look for inspiration. Certainly it would seem she could pull from the great romance writer Jane Austin or from the gothic Bronte sisters or Mary Shelley, but she declares that while Austin’s work reinforces gender segregation and sex- roles, the Brontes and Shelley write works which could hardly be distinguished from that of male authors. She declares that women’s writing lacks proper lineage. She urges the development of what sounds and feels female (not feminine).

Now, Moore and Kaestle seem to possess a similar view of women’s magazines. They seem to be embittered to the fact that women’s magazines were not only edited by mostly male capitalists, but that they (perhaps) inadvertently reinforced sex-roles and gender segregation through the consumer culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Women’s magazines were created by men and the men who created them decided what women ought to read and in turn depicted how a properly nineteenth- and twentieth-century woman should look and behave, in what they should be interested, and what conversations they should have. This is not to say, however, that the consumers of these magazines did not have a huge role in the phenomenon. Indeed, by purchasing the magazines and purchasing the products that were advertised in and endorsed by the publications the female consumers were supporting the industry and the consequential “sexism” in which it partook (and still does in many ways). All this said, however, I think there is a definite positive message to be taken from the article, and that’s the fact that it was the female readership that drove the success of these publications. Taking into account the general illiteracy of the female population right before the emergence of the first magazines, this fact is quite incredible. It just goes to show how unstoppable a force we can be when we’re taught how to read and write. And indeed the sought-after content of the magazines (and the need for the information within them in some cases) must have encouraged the development of literacy skills in the female population. However, the airy content, the non-intellectual and non-thought-provoking subject matters of these women’s magazines (especially as compared to the male business magazines with investment advice and political discussions and intellectual conversations) do not seem to help the issue with which Virginia Woolf and Moore and Kaestle are concerned: they do not establish a thoughtful female literary community.

5a. Intertexuality, Hypertext, and Intercultural Inquiry: The Ultimate Conversation

Davida Charney’s article on “The Effect of Hypertext on Processes of Reading and Writing” and Linda Flower’s chapter on “Intercultural Inquiry and the Transformation of Service,” while at first seem to be about completely different topics, are actually interconnected in a very precise manner. Intercultural inquiry allows “readers” of their surroundings to actively seek information from any person they choose. Nobody is sitting with them and showing them the map by which they need to sequentially follow a mode for inquiry. In this sense, learning through life is much like a hypertext: we are free to navigate through it at our leisure, using the resources about us in any way we see fit in order to reach a destination of our choosing.

When we are faced with a situation with which we’ve never dealt, it is easy to project what we know upon the circumstances in front of us. Different prejudices and past experiences may cause us to put up shields or to assume a situation that appears to resemble a past experience will turn out the same way in which we are familiar. But what Flower seems to be saying in this chapter is that we cannot allow our past experiences or assumptions to interfere with learning about others, and about learning new ways of dealing with others. When we project our fears (namely, the fear of the “other,” the unknown, and through the stereotypes we have heard about), we hinder expansion and ability to grow through the attainment of knew knowledge. Ideally, when we engage in a community service activity, we will learn as much as the people which we are “servicing.” In other words, it’s not so much a server/receiver relationship as it is an exchange of knowledge and translation of unfamiliar circumstances.

This is the kind of inquiry that Charney seems to be depicting when she discusses the literacy technology of hypertext. In developing the technology, designers try to achieve the same effect as intercultural inquiry, setting up complex works in an interconnected fashion through which a reader (a learner) will navigate as he sees fit. When I am working with a group of people, a discussion will lead me to inquire of somebody their own opinions or experiences and that conversation will thus lead to more inquiry and a rich experience of exchange will conjure up ideas that no one at that table could have anticipated from the beginning. Ideally, hypertext is designed to act in a similar fashion. One idea expressed in a work will lead to the citation (the conversation through which the text was generated to begin with), and the next text will lead to the conversation with which it was engaged and so on. And if the reader is actively engrossed in the intertwined, intermingled academic conversations, he will make his own unique connections and discover his own hypotheses and ideas. Hypertext, then, is an electronic exchange of ideas through time and space, a conversation that could possibly mimic the organic conversation of face-to-face exchanges, but in a way that no two people living in the same time period could accomplish. This is how hypertext could be valued. This is how we’ve come to value intercultural inquiry, and this is how our horizons are expanded to infinite possibilities.

4b: The Quill, Shakepearean Laptop

Dennis Baron’s piece, From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology reminded me of just that: the now almost invisible literacy technologies that have emerged over time. I remember when I was a grade school student and learning how to form perfectly copied letters on blue and pink striped paper with a pencil. Because writing letters (and not sentences or even words) was more of an art form in those days, the pencil was used so that a young student could easily correct a squiggly cursive z or a backwards s. Once we graduated from handwriting class onto forming sentences, the pencil was still used, but the teacher held the eraser. By the time I hit the fourth grade and was expected to craft impeccable five-paragraph essays on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the pencil was taken away and the pen was the only tool one could use, for an advanced literate uses a pen, not a pencil. Banks always reject checks written in pencil, and forget receiving compensation from a settlement statement signed in anything other than black or blue ink. I’d forgotten the debates that have continually surrounded the use of the pencil as a literacy tool until I read Baron’s article.

He also reminded me of the controversy surrounding the typewriter or (more relevant) the word processor. My creative writing workshops have conjured up old superstitions about writing poetry on a computer. For many the idea of creating an artwork that is supposed to be a piece of their soul with a keyboard hooked up to machine is pure ludicrous! Writing with one’s own hand is the only way to get pure and honest results. Strikeouts and ink blots (and for users of the pencil, shadows of the original ideas left behind the new words), speak of a kind of organicism of the work. And yet, how many of these texts get published in their original formats? I’ve never seen it. Unless of course we’re looking at Shakespearean foils or Da Vinci blueprints or any Medieval or ancient piece of literature. But to think of these in their original contexts – well, then they were created using the latest technology! For Shakespeare the quill and ink on what was then mightily expensive paper was the Renaissance equivalent of our word processor. It seems absurd to believe incredible and honestly ingenious work cannot be achieved using the keyboard and the monitor. I suppose it’s just too bizarre for us to imagine the lone genius beside the river in the woods creating Eve of St. Agnes with a laptop. But then again, our kids probably won’t think the same way we do now.

The word processor seems to certainly be moving in the same direction as the pen, for professors tend to refuse to accept final term papers in any other form but typed text, and notes are more often taken on a laptop than in a notebook (hence, the notebook computer). I can’t imagine compiling a research paper without the Internet, the cut-and-paste feature, or the “undo” function. It must have taken my parents months to do what I can do in mere hours! It would be interesting to see how differently Baron would have written his piece if it had been written in 2010 instead of in 1999. We’ve come quite a ways since then. The iphone, ipad, ipod, Android, mp3, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Blackberry, Xbox Live, Google, Dictionary.com, YouTube, Blackboard, and a google of other advancements are all in constant use and are all literacy tools we tend to take for granted in our age of information. As technologies are discovered and developed throughout our own lifetime and on into our grandchildren’s, who knows – perhaps the pencil and paper will be their marks in the sand.

Creating a Multi-Faceted Worldview Through Intercultural Rhetoric

It seems obvious to state that no man sees a painting mounted in the Louvre in the exact same way.  While I may be lured into the detailed depictions of opulent luxury in David's The Coronation of Napoleon and Joséphine, you may immediately appreciate David's skillful use of lighting to play up the piece's notable characters.  And the man standing behind us at the exhibit, having just finished a draft of a new building he's designing, may make particular note of the piece's architectural qualities.  And further down the line, a woman dressed in mink and donned with jewels is appraising the painting's value.  In all these instances (and in infinitely more possible perspectives), David's painting is valued for something different with each scrutiny it bears.  Accordingly, we each impress our individual judgments on the world around us as per to our own individual circumstances.  No two people are alike.  A child born into the same household, who is forced to abide by the same rules and restrictions as his siblings, who attends the same school and eats the same diet will ultimately mature in a different way than his brothers and sisters.  Based solely on biology, perhaps his brain simply functions differently than his sister's.  A chemical imbalance may keep his focus at bay.  His mother may have stepped into a smoky public facility when she was pregnant with him and thus changed the entire course of his development.  In any case, due to way too many variables to even begin to try and list, Johnny is not the same person as Suzy, and so does not see the world the same way she does.  Maybe he's even colorblind and can't pick Napoleon out of the ornate background of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in David's painting.  Johny's circumstances are different than Suzy's, and so he interprets his world in highly different ways.  


It's important to realize that not everyone understands your argument the same way you do.  Obviously!  Why else would we have debate teams and political elections and marketing schemes and boxing matches?  But a different opinion, a different viewpoint, a different perspective is not necessarily a wrong one or a bad one; it's simply different.  In fact, an occurrence can simultaneously be doing the opposite thing from one vantage point than it is from another.  Take a spinning bike wheel, for instance.  Looking down at it from above, spin it clockwise.  Without touching it, just let it spin, and move your perspective to looking up at it from below.  The bike wheel is now spinning counterclockwise.  It's partaking in opposite actions at the same time.  This same principle can be applied to many life circumstances.  Just as Flower outlines, a curfew policy could simultaneously keep one kid from being victim to a drive-by on one side of the street and prevent another kid from making an emergency run to the pharmacy for an epinephrine inhaler for his brother's asthma attack on the other side of the street.  So it can simultaneously save and kill.  What's important about differences in perspectives is that understanding another person's can help enrich your own.  Seeing the Statue of Liberty on a one-dimensional sheet of paper does not have near the effect as seeing it at the New York Harbor.  Multiple dimensions enrich experiences.  This is why community literacy is not simply a colonizing activity.  We do not impose our ideas onto others.  We would lose out on way too much if we did this.  By fusing many great ideas, incredible things can happen, and they do!  It seems we make progress more rapidly when we put scientists from all over the world into one room, as has happened throughout history.  Collaboration creates miracles.  Think of intercultural rhetoric, a conversation between different peoples of the world, as the undoing of the Tower of Babel.  For God said, "They are one people and have one language, and nothing will be withholden from them which they purpose to do" (Genesis 11:6).