a day ago
- The author argues that the perceived literacy crisis is a moral panic, misdiagnosing changes in literacy practices as civilizational decline.
- The author presents three theses: literacy evolves with technology and context; the discourse confuses basic literacy, print culture infrastructure, and specialized literary studies; the real threat is the systematic dismantling of institutions that support literacy.
- The article critiques The Atlantic's coverage as clickbait that collapses distinct forms of literacy into a single narrative of collapse.
- The author advocates for treating literacy as public infrastructure rather than an individual skill, emphasizing the need to preserve print-based institutions while adapting to new digital literacies.
- The piece ends with a plan to propose a pedagogical framework for teaching English in the post-digital age.