I had a particular interest and connection to Au's article, "An Expanded Definition of Literacy," mainly because of my educational background. I received an M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 1977, and at the time, the raging debate in literary criticism was between the deconstructivists (led by Jacques Derrida) and social relativists.
Boiled down to its essentials, deconstructivism is a philosophical movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth; it asserts that words can only refer to other words and attempts to demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meanings. The whole movement always bothered me on a fundamental level, since it seemed to imply that a book (or film) was a self-contained entity, and basically existed in a social vacuum, which strikes me as a lot of high-falutin' hooey.
This is why I was gratified to read Au's article, particularly in the assertion that "meaning does not reside in the text, but in the interraction among the reader, the text, and the social context....Viewing reading and writing as constructive, creative processes takes us away from a mechanistic, skill-by-ski approach to literary instruction."
It seems to me that for both reading and wrting, constructing meaning is an essential part of literacy. By deconstructing a text, you deprive the text of meaning and ultimately dismiss the value of anything it touches. Perhaps on a college level, reading French new wave novelists like Robbe-Grillet or Duras, deconstruction can be helpful in unmasking certain contradictions present in a text, but when talking about teaching literacy to school children, the influences of background knowledge and the social context that children bring to a text are both fundamental and often profound, as evidenced by the anecdote Au relates with regard to the different perceptions by readers of letters relating to wedding ceremonies in India and America.
While deconstructionists would be horrified at the idea that a student's social and personal environment could bring anything meaningful to the words contained within a particular text (even the author's own intentions and background become immaterial to deconstructionists), Au is exactly right when she writes, "when someone reads or writes, those acts of literacy are taking place in some social context."
It seems to me that for both reading and wrting, constructing meaning is an essential part of literacy. By deconstructing a text, you deprive the text of meaning and ultimately dismiss the value of anything it touches. Perhaps on a college level, reading French new wave novelists like Robbe-Grillet or Duras, deconstruction can be helpful in unmasking certain contradictions present in a text, but when talking about teaching literacy to school children, the influences of background knowledge and the social context that children bring to a text are both fundamental and often profound, as evidenced by the anecdote Au relates with regard to the different perceptions by readers of letters relating to wedding ceremonies in India and America.
While deconstructionists would be horrified at the idea that a student's social and personal environment could bring anything meaningful to the words contained within a particular text (even the author's own intentions and background become immaterial to deconstructionists), Au is exactly right when she writes, "when someone reads or writes, those acts of literacy are taking place in some social context."
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