In his highly influential book, Lives on the Boundary, Mike Rose states that a “failed education is social more than intellectual in origin” (225). After interviewing the international students at the University of the Arts, we can modify his statement to reflect that a successful education is more social than intellectual in nature. The global is, in fact, social. Literacy is crucial to people from varied backgrounds, life experiences, and cultures who hold different dreams and plans for their lives. It is formed by a network of social interaction - a need to communicate in the written and performed word to express and receive ideas, study, and connect.
The social aspect of literacy acquisition is easy for the International students at The University of the Arts; as human beings we are all ingrained with the desire to relate and belong. They work diligently at acquiring literacy skills in English predominantly through their participation in clubs, events, interacting with media, and relationships. Whether the international students are writing Facebook posts in their home language and English, writing about their trip to the Magic Garden on South Street, deciphering the English subtitles on a French art film, or reading the lyrics to an old jazz standard in order to perform it for their peers, the social fuels their reading and writing in English.
The University of the Arts is a space of privilege. Yet we can take our findings and apply them to work with other populations seeking to build their literacy; international or local, rich or poor, elementary school or college composition class. Rose’s idea of extending an invitation -- to a Thanksgiving lunch, to tutoring help, to participate in a club, to coffee with a peer mentor -- is shown to accomplish what drilling in grammar or reading a dry textbook does not. Tapping into students’ greatest dreams, providing relevant and engaging occasions for English literacy practice, and explicit effort in the service of building bridges and maintaining connections are the strengths we observed at UArts. They are practices that can, and should, be taken to other spheres of literacy learning.
The social aspect of literacy acquisition is easy for the International students at The University of the Arts; as human beings we are all ingrained with the desire to relate and belong. They work diligently at acquiring literacy skills in English predominantly through their participation in clubs, events, interacting with media, and relationships. Whether the international students are writing Facebook posts in their home language and English, writing about their trip to the Magic Garden on South Street, deciphering the English subtitles on a French art film, or reading the lyrics to an old jazz standard in order to perform it for their peers, the social fuels their reading and writing in English.
The University of the Arts is a space of privilege. Yet we can take our findings and apply them to work with other populations seeking to build their literacy; international or local, rich or poor, elementary school or college composition class. Rose’s idea of extending an invitation -- to a Thanksgiving lunch, to tutoring help, to participate in a club, to coffee with a peer mentor -- is shown to accomplish what drilling in grammar or reading a dry textbook does not. Tapping into students’ greatest dreams, providing relevant and engaging occasions for English literacy practice, and explicit effort in the service of building bridges and maintaining connections are the strengths we observed at UArts. They are practices that can, and should, be taken to other spheres of literacy learning.