SWA #4 Literacy Debate

The End of Literacy? Don't Stop Reading

For this assignment I chose to examine "The End of Literacy? Don't Stop Reading," by Howard Gardner. I found this article interesting because it draws the reader's attention to several points that I personally hadn't considered before. The article is written to evaluate what will happen to reading and writing in the future. Some people believe reading is being destroyed by emerging technologies, however I found this interesting because the article says that Plato feared written language would undermine human memory capacities, although today written language is something seen everyday, everywhere. The article is successful because it points out both sides of the argument that literacy is declining, but also that literacy is just changing into a new form. Gardner writes that the average scores on reading and writing tests have declined, however students' profeciency on the computer has increased. This shows that literacy is transforming and adapting to the changing culture today, which may not mean people aren't reading as often, however just reading in a different way.
Another point I found interesting in this article was that nowadays people feel a compulsion to stay in touch with one another all the time, may it be through e-mail, texts, or internet chat. Therefore, this means that people tend to avoid any privacy or alone time, which in the past has been used for leisure reading. The article also argues about the existence of a material book. Some people believe that in the future, books will no longer be around and all reading will be done on the Internet or by some other means of technology. Gardner leaves his opinion up to saying that making sense of what will happen to literature in the future is not an easy thing to hypothesize, but perhaps a technology waiting to be invented will solve this problem. Ultimately, Gardner successfully points out all and examines the different outcomes of what could happen to literacy in the future, and leaves it up to the reader to decide what they believe will happen.