"What is Literacy"

I ran into the issue of defining literacy when I went to write the rough draft of my literacy narrative. It shown through James Gee’s piece “What is Literacy?” James Gee defines literacy by breaking it down into different sections about discourse. I thought this was a very interesting approach. He explains how we learn literacy through primary discourse, which is what we obtain from our families while growing up and secondary discourses, which is what we obtain from our community and society. Gee defines literacy is “control of secondary uses of language.” He then breaks literacy down to the types of literacy, which are dominant literacy and powerful literacy. He defines these two types of literacy using the word control in which he means how well we are able to use or to function, and our mastery of literacy. I agree with Gee when he says that “time spent on learning and not acquisition is the time not well spent if the goal is mastery in performance.” I enjoy this statement because through my own experience I find it to be true. If all you do is still there listening to a professor talk at you, or you copy words off a slide it can be mindless and you are able to perform these tasks without really absorbing the information. Where as when you learn something new and are asked to apply it I find it to be a lot more useful when actually trying to master it. Although, he is right when he says we are better at what we acquire however, we know more about what we have learned which is 100% based off of what I just recently said. It is helpful for individuals who want to attain knowledge by acting not simply speaking.