Literacy Workshop

On September 25 I had the chance to take part in The Fifth Annual Literacy Review Workshops; particularly, I visited the workshop on Information Literacy: A Resource for Teaching Adults Reading and Writing Skills in the 21st century instructed by Michael S. Orzechowski (graduate of Language and Literacy Program). It was a positive and interesting experience. We discussed the notion of information literacy and how to prepare a person to be an effective information searcher and user. In other words, we talked about how to teach adults to be comfortable with so many sources of information that exist in modern "information age" and how to recognize their credibility. We concluded with some teaching tips on preparing the Learner as a Searcher which can be also successfully used in school settings and while working with ESL students.

The most interesting points of the workshop were on the definition of information literacy and on coexisting of oral and literate cultures in every day life. First of all, information literacy was defined as "the ability to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information". When I first thought about defining information literacy, I identified it as the ability to use a computer and to work with electronic information (online articles, books, blogs, etc). But the word information goes further and includes all kind of sources that we encounter every day (including newspapers, conversations with people, TV and radio broadcasts, etc). Secondly, I realized how the same facts can be manipulated in conversation with, for example, people that held opposite points of view. For that reason it is important to evaluate not just the URL, but also casual contacts that can easily misinform. In addition, any discussion about literacy cannot avoid the subject of critical thinking, of course. The concept of "the point of emergence" was introduced. It is a change in the consciousness when a student starts thinking critically. And the teacher's task is to evoke it, help to develop and to incorporate critical thought "into the flow of their [students'] lives". Finally, three types of consciousness were introduced, and these are: naive, magical, and critical consciousness (a concept by the Brazilian literacy educator Paulo Freire). The presenter asserts that "the cultivation of information literacy is one of the ways in which critical consciousness can be awakened".

It was the great workshop. I wish we had more time because an hour of discussion was too little to touch all aspects of information literacy.