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Research Essay

Cover Letter

Samuel Filpo

While writing my first cover letter I asked myself where I would be. This assignment helped arrive at a conclusion and gave me insight on where I will be by the end of this class. It showed me that every phase of this course has shaped my literacy and improved it. This assignment’s particular task was to first identify a topic  I found interesting. Then I had to do extensive research about my topic  and gather reliable sources that would support my thesis. The insight this process allowed me to learn is the ability to research and look for effective, reliable, scholarly sources which I’m thankful for. I am thankful for this insight because it allowed me to learn something I will always need to use in my literature when I want to persuade my audience. To persuade my audience I need to establish my credibility and present them with statistical evidence that I would only get from reliable sources. Previous to this assignment I had no clue how to identify nor look for reliable sources but now I am quite comfortable with this skill and meaningful insight I’ve gained.

This has so far been my favorite phase of the course because unlike the previous phases, this phase’s assignment allowed me to learn not only one but two course learning outcomes.The first learning outcome it taught me was locating research sources in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias. This assignment allowed me to learn this skill as an outcome because I needed to utilize sources in order to properly discuss and back up my thesis to the audience. The second learning outcome I learned from this phase’s assignment was composing texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation. I learned this skill because in my text I represented my stance and wrote a rebuttal to refute any counter arguments through the use of interpretation. I summarized and interpreted many sources with critical evidence in order to prove my thesis and emphasize my stance. 

I used the course learning outcomes that I learned from this assignment in order to compose a letter to the people who want to know the significance of literacy in today;s world and how it has arrived to what it is now. I wrote this letter with this purpose because I hoped to motivate my audience to improve their literacy by showing them how literacy works now after it has been shifted by modernization. I would be motivating them because while proving the transition that modernization caused on literacy, I also proved the significance of literacy in today’s world. I tailored and composed my language in a manner that showed the significance of literacy in today’s world by using a source that showed and mentioned the many disadvantages and adversities that people who have not mastered literacy face today in our reality.

To finish it off, the term that has most impacted my earning and writing has been evidence. It has been evidence because this entire assignment introduced me to the importance of our evidence and it’s many aspects. It taught me that it wasn’t good enough to simply include evidence but that there are many factors to make a piece of evidence effective to your writing. The assignment allowed and taught me to introduce my evidence at appropriate times and to make my evidence effective by using different techniques to communicate it like interpretation.

Freshman Composition

11/24/2021

RE

The evolution of Literacy

To the young adults who share my ambition to identify how literacy works in modern society and its significance:

How much has literacy changed? From drawings in caves to digital writings, we’ve used literacy over generations as a means to communicate with others, keep records, and transmit our knowledge and ideologies. This ancient procedure has allowed us to overtime, achieve many advancements in our societies which as a whole, is now recognized as the concept of modernization. We often wonder why learning about anything is important and how it will affect our lives. After researching literacy, it’s historical impacts, and aspects, I realized how much it has changed and why this change has been better for it and for society. With the assistance of many different sources I will utilize a series of statistical evidence, research, and studies in order to prove how modernization has changed literacy and how this change has been for the better for the better.

To understand how literacy has changed due to modernization we first must understand the concept of literacy and what it stands for. Writers at Alberta education did an amazing and efficient job at unraveling literacy. Generally speaking, literacy is thought to be defined as the ability to read and write in an effective way that allows us to communicate. However, living in a modern society where technology and every aspect of our lives keep advancing, literacy has become much more than what it was. Literacy is a method of communication through the use of writing as a whole, it being physically with mediums as simple as a pencil or digital literacy where we even use computers to exercise literacy. Literacy is any method of communication where we write our ideas, instructions, and information.

Literacy and written communication have been used since 3,500 B.C.  It is only logical that this old element would change just as much as the world has changed. This however, generates the question, how is modernization and the change of our society related to literacy?Dr. Steban Ortiz-Espina and Max Roser are professional researchers and investigators who did an effective job at explaining the correlation of literacy and modernization.  Ortiz and Roser accomplished this by breaking down their articles in different sections. In one of these sections we were shown data about the historical change of literacy. Two centuries ago only twelve percent of the world was literate. In these two centuries education and technology rose exponentially across the world. These advancements have led us to today’s statistics where in many countries,  ninety-five percent of their population is literate.

Writer and editor Jennifer Robinson addressed the topic of literacy in the third paragraph of her article, “How writing changed the world”. In this article, Robinson continues to argue the data that Roser and Ortiz showed. Robinson explained to us the events and advancements that occurred in the last two centuries that allowed our literacy rates to have such a spike and rise over eighty percent. Jennifer Robinson includes historical background and gives us historical staples that represent the advancements and changes in literacy.The first example of literacy that Robinson presented was the printing press of the 13th century. The printing press was invented in Germany in 1440. The printing press was a crucial representation of what modernization was and continues to do today towards literacy. It marked a milestone because it represented the advancements in literacy since technology allowed us to advance handwritten literacy using paper and pen to the printing press. This invention was revolutionary and an example of why modernization has caused a positive shift in literacy. It allowed literacy to be widely spread quicker than ever before and allowed people to make copies of valuable literacy like the Bible in order to spread their knowledge through it.

The biggest steps of modernization are marked by eras known as industrial revolutions. An industrial revolution is the transition to a new manufacturing process. The fourth industrial revolution transitioned our manufacturing process and the way our society worked, into a more technologically based community. A big part of this industrial revolution was the invention of the computer in the 20th century. The invention of the computer was the bridge between physical literacy and a more modern version of literacy: Digital literacy. Digital literacy is typically defined as an individual’s ability to find information on digital devices and to be able to spread and communicate their own information. It is one’s ability to use typing as literacy on digital devices and modern media and platforms. Andrew Molnahr, a CEO of a digital alliance, who specifies in technological uses, wrote an article with the purpose of communicating the drastic change digital literacy made in society and the course of history. Molnahr explained in his article that in today’s society, scientists and engineers use computers to access thousands of rapidly growing databases that store numbers, words, maps, chemical and physical structures; which were only made possible through the digital literacy of those other researchers. Another reason why this transition to digital literacy was positive is because it allowed information and news to travel quickly.  Instead of printing copies of their information and having to write it down on paper and then ship it, with the use of digital literature, news and information travel across the world in seconds. This improvement has allowed many advancements through the use of research and access to information and communication.

It is clear and only logical that everyone would agree on how much literacy has changed. However, the more complex and controversial side of this topic is if this change has been for the better or the worse. So far I have proven the changes of literacy and how they have made literacy easier to access and learn throughout the entire world. However, Jennifer Gunn, a writer, social activist, and a teacher of modern literacy herself, took it into her own hands to prove how the changes of literacy have been negative in some major aspects. Gunn’s credibility on the topic of literacy  is established since she mentions she has stepped into the social injustices of literacy and has created programs to help and progressively aid adolescent literacy. Gunn uses her expertise to examine the lifelong impacts of literacy in the modern world. In this article Gunn uses modern examples and quotes from other specialists to prove how the major shift modernization has had on literacy has some negative impacts. 

Gunn’s argument is that because of the increase in access,use, and demand in literacy people are socially impacted in a negative way. Gunn mentions that modernization has caused literacy to be the most powerful instrument in the world, and that because of this you are destined to be condemned if you have not mastered it. Gunn uses kids and teenagers as an example by showing the negative impacts of literacy on their emotions. Literacy has become so crucial in society that  when a person is unable to read it causes them to have low self-esteem or feel emotions such as shame, fear, and powerlessness. Students who struggle with literacy feel ostracized from academia, avoid situations where they may be discovered or find themselves unable to fully participate in society or government, says Gunn. Gunn’s second social example is that literacy has become so essential to our society and the way that our world works that a person who cannot read in modern society, struggles to know their rights, to vote, to find work, to pay bills and to even secure housing. All told, this complex struggle spirals outward, impacting future generations and our society. This ultimately means that modernization’s influence in the popularity and significance of literacy in modern day society has caused people who struggle with this material to experience far more adversities than those who can utilize this instrument.

While this argument on how literacy’s change because of modernization has been negative is justifiable, the positive outcomes of literacy’s popularity and increase of significance because of modernization simply outweighs the negative outcomes presented by this argument. The main positive way that modernization has improved literacy is as I mentioned before through digital literacy. Digital literacy causes us to be well-informed and to announce information and news across the world without physically writing or without waiting for our letters to be delivered. This major advancements has allowed our world to change and modernize since it has led to many developments due to the improvement of communication with other people who aren’t remotely close to us.

In this essay I have shown the major ways that modernization has changed literacy and slowly developed it into what is known as digital literacy. I have proved this by mentioning instruments like the digital printer and the invention and inclusion of computers to demonstrate the technological advancements that have shaped modern literacy.I also proved how digital literacy has been a possible shift from traditional shift as a cause of modernization. I hope I proved this with the inclusion of the many benefits these devices brought and how they changed society.

I hope I have proved to you the impacts that modernization has had on literacy. After reading my text I expect that you can now answer the question I asked you at the beginning; How much has literacy changed? And why this change has been positive.

Thank you for reading,

Yours truly,

Samuel Filpo

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