Literacy Dig

Last week I took part in a literacy dig with 5 of my peers. We chose to do this at a local co-op grocery store. During this literacy dig we observed all the different forms of literacy within the store. This included items such as instructional signage, price labels, and product information. After taking 30 minutes to gather and record evidence of literacy, my group discovered that literacy is all over the store in many different forms.

We first discussed the layout of the store. The downstairs is the main shopping area where a shopper must know the culture of grocery shopping in order to navigate the area. The products are arranged in aisles with no overhead signage to indicate what is in each aisle. Written words were used to communicate instructions, directions, labels, and advertisements. In the downstairs area we noticed basic signage as well as some signage that included vocabulary that is very specific to this location. These words included co-op, organic, gluten free, homeopathic, and non-GMO. We also observed spoken literacy between shopper, employees, shoppers on their phones, shoppers with their friends and family, and shoppers with their children. 

The upstairs area was a somewhat different environment. This area was setup much like a coffee bar with a counter for people to order coffee and snacks with tables taking over the rest of the floor space. In this area we also noticed instructional signage as well as menu items and their prices. We noticed that all menu items were written in chalk and all letters were lower case. As for spoken literature we observed many people on their laptops with a few small groups of people having conversations.

When observing people in the grocery store we noticed that they were interacting with literacy by reading the pricing information for products as well as looking at nutritional information on items. In the upstairs café area people were reading the menu to make decisions about what they wanted to order. We noticed people at the meat counter were reading the instruction on how to order. All of these items are very important for someone to read in order to make their shopping experience a success.

When comparing our literacy dig with "The Donut House: Real World Literacy in an Urban Kindergarten Classroom" by Rebecca Powell and Nancy Davidson, our group discussed what running an in-the-classroom grocery store would look like.  Students would need to create many of the same items that were needed in the doughnut shop. Students would need to create items such as a budget, newsletter, menu, letters to supplies, logos, membership cards, food labels, and instructional signs, employee manuals. Our group also discussed how they if using this grocery store in the same project as the doughnut shop you could bring in people from the local community to help the students such as a banker, farmer, graphic designer, financial planner, a member of city council, a chef, and a nutritionist.