Performative Literacy

In my ENGL 585 – Literature for Teachers we had a guest speaker via Skype, Sheridan Blau a renowned professor from Columbia University. Our discussion was based on his article “Performative Literacy: The Habits of Mind of Highly Literate Readers,”which broke down his theory on how students build their literacies through reading and re-reading tougher text. He lists three major literacies: textual literacy, intertextual literacy and performative literacy. His definition of textual literacy is the “procedural knowledge that allows a reader to move from summarizing or retelling a story, to constructing a plausible interpretation, to reflecting critically on a text.”Intertextual literacy is “prior conceptual and informational knowledge that readers need to makes sense of what they read.” Performative literacy is the literacy you gain by being proactive in your learning process by combining your textual, intertextual, and performative literacies together. Blau breaks down “performative literacy in action” by listing seven traits one uses to gain the ability to read and decipher more complex texts.
The seven traits are as follows:
1. A capacity for sustained focused attention. 2. Willingness to suspend closure-to entertain problems rather than avoid them. 3. Willingness to take risks-to offer interpretative hypostheses, to respond honestly, to challenge texts, to challenge normative readings. 4. Tolerance for failure-a willingness to re-read and re-read again. 5. Tolerance for ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty. 6. Intellectual generosity and fallibility: willingness to change one’s mind, to appreciate alternative visions, and to engage in methodological believing as well as doubting. 7. A capacity to monitor and direct one’s own reading process: metacognitive awareness.
I identified with all of these traits and I have seen students who are so fearful of failing or admitting that they don’t understand a reading that they will say nothing in class. We discussed how canonical texts can have this kind of impact because the texts are so highly regarded that the students don’t feel that they can question and/or challenge the author’s viewpoint. Along with these insights Blau listed three possible scenarios that one could try in a class setting to help students build their performative literacy.