Prompt 1-Literacy

Literacy, by definition, simply is the ability to read and write. Education plays an overwhelming part in determining if someone is successfully literate or not, but plenty of people that are almost completely literate that have received minimal, if any education. However, literacy does not come without thresholds. The amount of books, novels, magazines, poems, or any types of literature one reads enhances their literacy, and the only way a reader enhances their ability to think about, comprehend, and predict what will happen in a novel, story, or any work of literature. Most importantly, a literate person practices the reading of literature, extensive or not. Many people are literate, so literate people live everyday lifestyles. Ones who hold a high level of literacy and understanding of literature itself have expanded critical thinking skills, and heavily literate people are proven to have more success in white collar jobs. While the denotation of the word literacy pertains to only reading and writing, the notion that people who do not have the ability to read or write, therefore illiterate, is flawed. People who cannot read and write have some form of functioning literacy because any living, breathing person has thoughts concerning everyday life. Even if it is somewhat subconscious, people must understand words that they tell themselves. What we as humans think can only come from words, regardless of whether we can read or write. Thinking comes from the knowledge and understanding of words, so a person who understands words and their cohesion should be considered literate.