Literacy Practices Log

We use literacy everyday for many purposes, in many ways. We may not even realize we
are doing it. But what do the literacy practices we engage in everyday tell us about our
social and cultural identities? How our society is organized? How we work? What kinds
of literacy practices are valued and which are invisible or under-valued?
We will apply Bartons understandings of literacy events and literacy practices to
examine the place of literacy in our everyday lives.

Instructions
Filling in your log:
1. Decide on a day of the week to do your literacy log. Try to choose a typical day.
2. Print out the log template and keep it with you during the day. You may need
several pages.
3. Note the literacy events you engage in as you do them or as soon as possible
afterward.
4. Pay attention to the details surrounding the event:
a. What is the event? (Text-messaging, reading a book, filling in a form,
etc.)
b. How are you reading/writing? (Sitting, standing, talking, driving, lying on
the couch, in a desk, etc.)
c. What tools you are using to write? (Mobile device, desktop, laptop, pen,
pencil, chalk, crayons, etc.)
d. Who else is involved?
e. What relationships/feelings are surrounding the event?
f. Why are you engaging in this event? (Care, family, everyday needs,
school, work, faith, bureaucracy, health, etc.)
g. Where is it taking placethe domain? (Home, university, work,
church/temple/synagogue, driving, on the street, etc.)
These details will help you analyze your literacy practices later. Expand the boxes on
your log as you need to capture all your literacy events and practices.

What is the
event?

How is it
carried out?
(Body/Tools)

Who else is involved

Why?
(relationships/feelings?) (Purpose of
the event)

Where?
(Domain)