‘All Literacy Practices Contain Creative Elements.’

E301 – The Art of English
TMA 03

‘All literacy practices contain creative elements.’

Discuss, using examples of texts that might not be traditionally considered creative and illustrating your explanations with ideas and theories from Part 1 of the module.

The following essay will work from the idea that creative elements are present in all forms of literary practices of everyday life. The discussion will use examples of texts and ideas that are not traditionally considered to be creative, including Graffiti, and the ways in which prisoners communicate within the prison walls.   I will also use an example from my own personal experience. Much of this essay looks at the social context of the literacy practices, and I will make reference to Carter’s linguistic models to illustrate how vital the social context is when considering the creative elements of literacy practices. However, before beginning an analysis of the above statement, I will provide an explanation of what is meant by the terms ‘literacy practices’ and ‘creativity’.
Papen and Tusting define literacy practices as the different ‘ways people use and interact with texts in particular contexts, and the meanings that these hold for them’ (Papen and Tusting, 2006, p.312). It is the outcome of a written activity that has on objective and the idea that literacy practices is more about the relationship between the people and the texts, depending on the context that they are in, is an interesting one. Wilson argues that creativity in literacy practices ‘can be found in the most unlikely places, being used by an unlikely group of people’, (Wilson, 2006, p.349) and this is certainly true of Graffiti artists and prisoners, which I discuss later on in this essay. I will now follow this with a brief definition of creativity in terms of literacy practices.
The creativity within the literacy practices comes from the relationship that is formed between the individual partaking in the literacy practice and the...