Literacy

writing is music, then which element of writing plays the melody and which plays the rhythm?” The correct response eventually appears. To really get kids to understand the importance of punctuation the music analogy is useful. If they can come to some appreciation that, to be truly great, contemporary music has to have a groove, and that writing is, somehow, a related art form, then they can come to respect the chief purveyors of the rhythm: punctuation and sentence length

One of Kofi Annan’s statements about literacy is that it is a “basic human right”. If we take a look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, literacy can get you all of them (except breathing and excretion, which tend to happen without the aid of improving books). It can be the basis of supplying most of your physiological needs: it can get you food, water and sometimes (often) sex; it can win you sleep in a comfortable bed; it can keep you safe and win you love; it can earn you the respect of others and respect for yourself; it can enter you into the realms of political and moral understanding in which you might play, exercise the muscles in your head and become … all of the things you could, one day, with effort, possibly be.

With literacy you can articulate your anger.

Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope … a bulwark against poverty … Literacy is a platform for democratization … It is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right. … Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.