Rhetorical Literacy

Literacy…the communication paradigm leads to collaboration and reflective learning. Yet, a baseline of literacy skills is required for satisfaction with the learning activity, increased collaboration, and a higher quality of group responses.

Consider moderating a group of learners having a wide range of abilities. Does the group have the literacies required to achieve the group’s objective? Can a group having people with divergent skills, some being developmental, accomplish the group’s task? The short answer is yes. We can differentiate instruction and assist each individual in bringing all she/he is capable of to the task. People can learn from each other. Yet literacies in a group can be too diverse, causing strain on the learning process.

Some settings require or assume baseline literacy knowledge in areas of communication. For example, English 222 assumes students have grammatical literacy permitting ideas to be communicated clearly in writing and conversation, in either F2F or online environments. A person not having the baseline literacy skills can develop them through experience, but may not acquire the skills needed in time to fully participate and succeed in English 222.

What I’m trying to show is that baseline literacy must be assumed in some educational environments. Simply having a communication paradigm model that allows collaboration and learning to flourish does not assure this will occur. One must evaluate the population the content is offered to, and judge how that population can benefit from the communication paradigm model. A baseline of literacy skills is required for satisfaction with the learning activity, increased collaboration, and a higher quality of group responses.