Print literacy

Our readings were helpful on this topic of defining literacy, though my own basic definition of the term remains largely unchanged. I still define literacy instrumentally, as facility within a discourse, using its tools, knowing its surface and deep culture, and knowing how it fits and modifies within different contexts. I accept Gee's notion that it is a "socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group". I think this definition, which does a nice job of acknowledging the role of society within literacy, has some problems, however. I can participate in and even be or become expert in a literate practice from outside a community's boundaries. The point of literacy may not be convergence, in other words. Also, I think literacy also refers to use of a literate groups tools, technologies, and cultural mores and norms. Gee seems to focus mainly on language.
I think literacy is important because it builds social capital, it increases participation in and construction of a discourse, and I think many of humanity's greatest goals and achievements are bound up in discourses. Even sometimes just changing a discourse, wherein one has to both participate and critique a discourse, is a worthy human goal.
My goals regarding literacy for my students turn on identifying and building the skills they already have and what they need to build capital in the system of higher education and the economy we live in. They also go past this basic goal in that I also want to encourage critical thinking by mastering the literate discourse. I think you can't critique it if you haven't owned it yet, so getting as many voices and participants literate in the target discourse is vital.
One way to accomplish this goal with students is to model a literate, critical interaction with the world of ideas and the academic discourse. My hope is that they see that even the august discourse of academia is open to critique and modification.