Literacy in multiple places

Reading activity 1.2
I have chosen a very interesting paper
· 1.5: Rush, LS 2003, ‘Taking a broad view of literacy: lessons from the Appalachian Trail thru-hiking community’, Reading online, vol. 6, no. 7, viewed 7 February 2005,

Dr Rush reviews multimodal literacies in a select group of people called thru hikers who are trail walkers through the Appalachian Mountains.
1-She introduces the concept of ecological literacy, also environmental literacy. This is an area of interest to me. I believe that we have become too urbanized and lost touch with our environment, hence our callous disregard for it. These people need to read the weather, trees, water supply, fog, trail co-ordinates etc, as their lives depend upon it.
2-These people constitute their own socio-cultural system. The language, cultural identity, specific skills and rules they have embedded creates its own discourse and use of multi-modal communication. For examples, they have words and trail names specific to the community, processes for leaving notes on trees, in shelters, and passing along books that is specific to that community
3-These people are body literate. They need to read their bodies for calorie sufficiency given that they do large amounts of hiking in a day and have limited food supplies that they can carry. They monitor symptoms of hydration and read the color of their urine to know what the state of their hydration is. This is very important as they don’t carry much water at all and are dependent upon supplies on the trail. Sometimes these water sources are scarce. They need to survey their health and pain is a good signifier for disease.
4- Visual literacy is important for reading maps; topography maps and some have the ability to visualize areas based on maps. This is important so that they don’t get lost. Drawings are also used to communicate and reading the environment is often a visual mode.
Two questions from this reading
Q1 Where is the literacy. Here is a group of non -academic people and on close observation they have rich literacy skills. Do we have to seek multi modal literacy on computers or is it so commonplace that we do not see the wood for the trees around us?
Q2 Here is a group of people who speak English but their language is specific to the cultural group to which they belong. Is literacy socio-culturally derived?

This reading relates to my role as a psychiatrist (as I am not a teacher) because I am communicating with people all the time and often trying to understand their backgrounds, cultural context and aiming to find some connectivity within which to make a therapeutic alliance. I have been aware that there are different aspects of language and culture when I compare a 4-year-old child patient, to the 14 year old, 40 year old and 80 year old patient. People who come from different cultural heritages, the ‘bush’, academic background, social classes, gay, health workers, colleagues all have different discourse, language, cultural meanings, needs, capacity for multi-modal access, technology acquisition skills etc. Sometimes it is hard to communicate with people about sensitive issues, especially if people have poor emotional intelligence. This paper helps me to seek the communication in alternate modes.
Joyce Arnold