Tyler Goehring Theorizing the Space of Literacy Practices 1.

How do Authors define Actor, Artifact and Figured worlds a. An Actor is defined as a person in a Figured World who attempts to conform to the social identities as well as the artifacts that help to dictate this world. b. An Artifact is defined as an object or idea that is meaningful to the Figured World. These Artifacts can also be physical attributes which have specific meaning in the World. c. The Figured World is defined as a socially produced and culturally constructed realm of interpretation in which a particular set of characters and actors are recognized, significance is assigned to certain acts, and particular outcomes are valued over others. 2. Literacy practice is any practice that leads to the lowering or the raising of someones selfesteem or social status based upon their literacy performance through any interaction with other actors in the Figured World. Literacy is the ability to read and write but, it also includes aspects of grammar and how people behave with other Actors. 3. The Figured World is made up of Actors who rely upon the Artifacts to create a certain reality, their World, which dictates how people are classified, are educated and behave. 4. Questions a. Why did the authors not explore the example they provided? They could have explained their theory better by using the stories of the Brazilians. b. Are their sub-fields of Figured worlds? Many groups hold one artifact to be extremely important, for example the Bible, and it makes up the majority of their World. Yet, people are taught differently based upon it but, they still hold the Bible to be the most important artifact. c. Is there a ranking of certain artifacts in a Figured World or are they just lumped together? For example, family connections, religious texts, social behaviors and clothing all are important and make up a Figured World but, are any one of them more important?