To begin with
Why We Need to Talk About "Literature for Life" Now / Kim Seong-woo 8

Literacy 1
Literacy: Crisis or Change? 14

Literacy? Literacy? / Crisis or change? / Studying for exams with text, seeing the world through video / The power that defines literacy / Emoticons and exclamation marks are more important than content / Another lens for viewing literacy / Taking issue with others' dyslexia / Literacy is a spectrum / For literacy to be a bridge, not a tower of Babel

Literacy 2
Is Reading Still Valid? 74

Reading was a revolution / How did letters change history / The birth of the individual and reading / Why writing is freer than images / What is possible only through reading and writing and the price / We have never properly taught reading and writing / From 'reading for the test' to 'tests that help reading' / Inequality of literacy, crisis of democracy / Is the ability to think a privilege of reading? / The aura of text and barriers to entry / Literacy is a capacity of society

Literacy 3
From Reading to Seeing, Media and the Body 140

Different media build different bodies / Three-line summary and the breath of reading / The body created by seeing / Everything comes up in a search? / How can literacy become the ability to deal with things / The paradox that knowledge interferes with life / How can literacy establish an ethical subject / Even if it is not refreshing, store it and let it mature

Literacy 4
Literacy: How to Build a Bridge 190

School, Assessment, and Literacy / Assessment Stuck in Fairness, Classes That Only Learn Examination Techniques / From Fairness of Assessment to Public Learning / Reasons for Transforming Media / Scientific Knowledge and Narrative: The Transition Between Two Types of Knowledge / Literacy that Reads Life Deeply

Literacy 5
Towards Literacy Education for Life 224

If the breath of class becomes longer / School comes alive with reading discussions / How does writing change when it touches one's life / Slowing down the speed of communication and setting the direction of literacy / Discussion free from performance / How is structuring that fosters autonomy possible / The crisis of literacy is a crisis of joy / Perspective, daily life, repetition, relationship, ethics, intersection, breathing / Literacy for a good life

In conclusion
From Speaking to Responding: Dialogue as a Research Methodology for Life / Eom Ki-ho 284

Reference 294

Literacy: Crisis or Shift?

Although the translated terms literacy or literacy are widely used, the frequency of using the foreign word literacy as it is, such as news literacy, media literacy, and environmental literacy, is gradually increasing.
This word, which is very familiar to some, is new to others, and even those who use it naturally use it with different meanings.
Let's first look at the definition of this problematic word, literacy.


The most widely used definition worldwide is UNESCO's: "the ability to locate, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute information using printed and written materials in a variety of contexts."
However, the definition of literacy has been given different emphasis over time.
In ancient times, a literate person was defined as 'a learned person with a knowledge of literature', in the Middle Ages as 'a person who can read Latin', and after the Reformation as 'a person who has the ability to read and write his or her native language'.


So, what is the current literacy landscape? It's said that when elementary school students do their homework, they search YouTube instead of books, encyclopedias, or even search engines.
There is a growing number of digital natives who have used smartphones or tablets before ever touching a book.
We have entered an information environment that is completely different from that of the older generation, who received basic education centered on textbooks and 'preliminary studies.'
This is why the authors argue that it is a ‘change’ rather than a crisis in literacy.

However, assessments of literacy are still based on text media familiar to older generations, not on images and videos familiar to digital natives, and are conducted through textbooks and multiple-choice tests.
This assessment is unfair to younger generations (and older generations who have not had the opportunity to develop their literacy skills properly).
This is because it is like 'giving them only half the time to study, evaluating them, and then criticizing them for not being able to do it all.'
Being able to define and evaluate literacy is power.
This power is monopolized by a certain generation and a certain class.


From text to image, from reading to viewing

Since the modern era, literacy has been based on the ability to read and write.
The medium of writing and the act of reading have dramatically expanded the length, scale, and systematicity of thought, and through this, the concept of 'the individual as a citizen, the citizen as an individual' was born.
The authors point out that we need to examine the barrier to entry called 'abstraction', which is the core of the advantages of reading/writing activities.
To read books or newspapers earnestly and extract meaningful knowledge from them requires the acquisition of a symbol system, attitude, will, and concentration.
This is a resource that is likely to be distributed class-wise.
Children from families rich in economic and cultural capital have access to a variety of media, selecting and utilizing quality content for information acquisition, learning, and entertainment. However, "neglected" children often spend endless hours surfing the web.

On the other hand, we often see literacy being wielded like a weapon.
A word that frequently appears in recent online debates and comments on social media is literacy.
They mock each other by saying things like, “You illiterate bastards” and “You can’t even read.”
Literacy has become a political rhetoric used to ridicule and criticize others.
Hatred also grows with the presence or absence of literacy.
As is evident in statements like “Old people, stop watching YouTube and read some books or newspapers,” it becomes a weapon to justify hatred by belittling the intellectual abilities of a certain group.
The authors diagnose that if there is a crisis in literacy, it is a crisis of this kind of reflexivity.
It is a crisis of communication, a crisis of community, and a crisis of democracy.


From Reading to Seeing? Literacy in the Multimedia Age

On the other side of the lamenting gaze about the lack of literacy among the younger generation, who are addicted to "short videos" like YouTube, there is also the question of whether reading and writing skills are still valuable, and the anxiety about whether we should now teach video shooting and editing.
The authors say that we must first consider how the media affects the body and brain.
The brain is activated differently when reading Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in book form than when watching the film version.
There is a difference between seeing "Slam Dunk" as a comic book and seeing it produced as an animation.
In this way, our brain experiences not only ‘the same content’ but also ‘different media.’


Other media properties are linked to the problem of 'breathing'.
Although we live in the age of video, the amount of text we read may be much greater than in previous times.
However, the medium and platform on which the text is loaded is not a book, but a mobile phone.
The older generation criticizes those in their teens and twenties for only watching YouTube videos and not reading books, but those in their 40s and 50s also make judgments based solely on headlines or think they know the content after reading a "three-line summary."

Literacy centered on letters offers the benefit of imaginative power and abstraction, but it also imposes limitations that weaken the power to deal with reality.
The authors say that this is why multi-literacies, or the ability to learn and use a variety of media while maintaining balance, are necessary.
And he emphasizes that this multiliteracy must include not only the literacy of 'seeing' and 'virtual things' coming from the future, but also the literacy of 'speaking and listening', which is still coming from the past and will inevitably continue to come, that is, the literacy of speech.
Only then can we think of literacy as a matter of dealing with things rather than a matter of knowledge, and through dealing with things, we can reach an understanding of others.

Now is the time to talk about literacy.

The story the authors shared can be summarized as 'literacy for life.'
It explores the effects and value of speech, writing, and video within the context of life, and emphasizes the need for literacy that builds bridges between people and serves as the foundation for communication, rather than literacy that is piled up like a tower and attributed to individual competitiveness and power.
The authors argue that for this to be possible, literacy must become a 'social capacity' rather than an individual capacity.
This means that not only must we establish institutional and environmental infrastructure to enable everyone in our society to develop literacy, but we must also provide literacy experiences that allow each person to experience joy in their lives.

The two authors conclude their discussion by sharing specific methods for how this kind of "literacy education for life" is possible, including examples from their own teaching experiences and from the field of education.
The goal is to increase the pace of classes so that reading and writing activities do not become mere test preparation, and to introduce a non-competitive principle into reading and discussion so that students are not obsessed with performance.
Only then can we freely travel through the world of text and images and accept others' words and thoughts as our own opinions without necessarily refuting them.

The authors emphasize that now is the right time to reflect on the shift in literacy and its implications.
This book will examine the achievements and failures of text-centered education and serve as an invitation to discuss literacy that serves the "good life" rather than the ability of each individual to survive on their own.