Literacies for Learning

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References

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Marketing

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Estimated Sales

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Messages with Beta Readers

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Cost of Outside Influence

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Emailing/Communicating with Editors

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Questionnaire

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Writing & Editing First Draft

Estimated Costs of Writing

Reading Genre

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Literacies for Writing a Book

Carys Baldwin

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LiteracyDigital LiteracyNumeracyCommunication

Since I am writing this book through free websites (such as Google Docs) there is no initial cost to writing the book, but it was good practice of literacies to research (via Google) how much it would have cost me if I was using a different word processing software.This led to conversations with other writers to see which word processing software they used and whether free software or paid software was better for book writing. This social event happened over a series of weeks and improved my understanding of different writing materials. "Literacy practices often involved attending to two or more texts at the same time." (Ivanic, Edwards, Barton, Martin-Jones, Fowler, Hughes, Mannion, Miller, Satchwell and Smith, 2009)

(Digital Literacy/Numeracy/Communication)

Estimated Costs

I am quite confident in these literacies. I have been creatively writing since I was young, although despite this through this interaction I did learn something. The same can be presented by using different digital literacy skills to search and converse. The text within this literacies event was very informal both through my Google searches and my conversations with other writers. Both the Google search and the conversations were very informal with formal sentence structure not being the top priority of the social event. The use of these literacies has allowed me to understand the costs that could potentially be involved with initially writing a book. It is a good social practice to communicate with different people and adapt the tone that you use depending on the party you are addressing.

To start the process, I needed to conduct some research into the genre of book that I would like to write. I wanted to write books along the fiction-fantasy route as I tend to read the most myself in this genre. I read a variety of books within this genre as the literacy here can be quite extensive in terms of variety.This literacy event was a lone activity aided by conversations held with other writers in a social group. I read books and communicated with other writers on a regular to help me fully understand what appeals to the target audience. I need to be able to extend my knowledge beyond simply decoding the text (Freire, 1983).Using this literacy allowed me to understand what is expected by writers in the market and how the text is structured within the writing world. The overall format of books is generic, with a templated structure through display as well as sentence structure. The text tends to reference only one language unless there is a translated version of the book, or the story itself has its language within. Using this literacy as a social event was quite interesting as there were elements that I pursued on my own and elements that I completed with others. It allowed me to overlap different information/social practices which have helped me develop my literacies further.

(Literacy)

Reading Genre

This literacy event was a good chance for me to collaborate with others through digital literacy. I generated a survey using Survey Monkey and distributed this to others. This was sent to people who I am in a Facebook group with who have offered to give me an insight into their preferences when it comes to reading, this allowed me to use multiple literacies side-by-side which is noted by Barton and Hamilton (2012). The results of this gave me a better idea of what appeals to readers the most and worked better for me than physically handing a paper survey to a multitude of people.There is a lot of creativity available to me when undertaking this type of literacy activity as I can present literacy and numeracy data to the audience in my chosen format, and allows me to portray information to them in the exact format I want. This literacy event also allowed me to understand the preference of people's communication when it comes to taking surveys/questionnaires.

(Digital Literacy/Numeracy/Communication)

Questionnaire

I feel quite confident using this literacy as it is a form that I have been using throughout my education. Others can interact easily with the text through online platforms which are available on their phones/laptops.The text within this literacy is very informal and short, including the conversations with people in the Facebook groups to keep the social interaction simple and easy for people to participate. Basic everyday terms are used so that people from a variety of cultures can take part and interact with the questionnaire.

"...reading or writing activity can have multiple and overlapping significance in different people's lives." (Barton and Hamilton, 2012)

(Digital Literacy/Communication)

Message with Beta Readers

An important part of this social event is the interaction that I have with beta readers - people who will read and give feedback on my book before it is sent to a publisher - this meant that I would be able to use this feedback to edit the book to improve readership. This then contributes to any additional communication that I would have with the beta readers. The social event is an ongoing process as even once the beat readers have read the book I will want continuous feedback to improve further, and this social activity has provided me with overlapping significance to different aspects of this event (Barton and Hamilton, 2012).This activity is very flexible in the way that it can be approached, text tends to be very informal with sentence structure very flexible. Engagement within this event is something that is frequent to me and the beta readers as we communicate via text messages. I am very confident in the use of these literacies. Using the internet/social media/mobile phones to communicate with individuals and groups is something that I am quite experienced in and it is something that I use on a daily basis.

Barton, D. and Hamilton, M. (2012) Local Literacies: reading and writing in the community 2nd Edition Oxon: RoutledgeFreire, P., 1983. The importance of the act of reading. Journal of Education, 165(1), pp.5-11.Ivanic, R., Edwards, R., Barton, D., Martin-Jones, M., Fowler, Z., Hughes, B., Mannion, G., Miller, K., Satchwell, C. & Smith, J. (2009) Improving learning in college: rethinking literacies across the curriculum. London: Routledge Oughton, H. (2013) The social context of numeracy in G Griffiths and R Stone (eds) Teaching Adult Numeracy Principles and Practice'. Berkshire: OUP, McGraw HillSteen, L.A., 1990. Numeracy. Daedalus, pp.211-231.

References

"Literacy is best understood as a set of social practices, these can be inferred from events which are mediated by written text." (Barton & Hamilton, 2012)

(Digitial Literacy/Literacy/Communication)

Emailing/Communicating with Editors

This literacy event was a good collaboration with an editor that I found on Fiverr. The initial social event was through emailing for initial communication, but less formal conversations started taking place afterwards. These literary events are a regular occurrence for me at the moment with the purpose being to maintain regular communication with the editor to ensure we are on track for completion. This literacy event allows me to find an initial editor with the result of having an editor to work with throughout the project. There had to be a certain structure to the way that I approached the initial email, with a formal approach needing to be used with text being structured with specific language being used, and in an appropriate format for a formal email. Emails are a literacy event that I have used for a long time and something that I use every day within my work, so I am quite confident in my abilities to pursue this literacy event. I do feel as though there are still areas on this literacy event that I could still develop, especially in more of a professional stance. This social literacy event allowed me to put into practice multiple different literacies at once and allowed the development of literacies and how they should be formatted. During this social practice, the outcome gave me a better understanding of what the process is when it comes to editing and more potential costs that it could present. It also allowed me to generate a result through written text (Barton & Hamilton, 2012).

(Literacy/Digital Literacy/Communication)

Marketing

This portion of the social event was definitely an aspect that included a lot of collaboration between myself and others. Lots of conversations aided this literacy event and impacted the outcomes/decisions that I made towards how I want to market my book. I spoke to a wide variety of people and created multiple different mock ups of what I wanted to present my book and how I wanted others to see it.This literacy event is a contiuous situation as I am still in the process of making decisions towards this. The purpose of this is to market my book, and provides an indight and authority that will generate the response that I would like from potential readers (Barton and Hamilton, 2012). During this event it has allowed me to gather a better understanding of how to market to the target audiences, and has allowed me to conduct research in my own time.During these activities I have the majority of the creative freedom (demo book covers and creating my own marketing mock ups), but there was a lot of input from individuals who have experience marketing books. This meant a lot of different communications were being passed verbally and through digital literacy. I have a lot of experience communicating with different levels of people (both informal and formal), but I found it quite challenging to jump between different types of communications, and allowing me to get a better understanding of how to handle different types of communication at once. When using digital lieracy to market there are some unspoken rules about what should and shouldn't be done and how you should approach marketing as a whole. Use of informal language is usually used, but things are still marketed in a professional manner, and visually appealing to the target audience. Using these literacies within this event allowed me to gather the information that I needed to put together a marketing plan to allow my book to be successful.

For this literacy event, it is a lone activity for me. I wanted to plan out what potential figures could look like for me if I hit the top of the scale, and if I hit the bottom of the scale in sales. This helped me understand the market better and decide whether the continuation of this project is viable for me in the long run.

(Numeracy)

Estimated Sales

One of the best places to search for figures is on Amazon, as they sell printed (paperback and hardcover), audiobooks, and ebooks, and you can compare these figures from one book to the next. It also allowed me to research what authors are currently selling their work for, and how much this could generate in sales within the future. With the book generation being an ongoing process I shuffle these numbers around on the regular - following current trends - to see how it would impact my overall 'success'. The Excel spreadsheet is formulated so that when I change the figures it calculates the overall sales automatically for me making this an easy literacy to use.

During this literacy event, I had to think about how I wanted the information displayed so that it could be easily explained to others and used for myself. I need to conduct this literacy event as without it, I could invest in a project that ultimately would not be worth it or make decisions that are not competently informed.Excel is something that I have used multiple times during my education/career so I was very confident in using this literacy. As for the research into the stats/figures that is something that I have tried to do in the past, so I have some experience, but this was a slightly challenging part of this literacy event. Overall, this was a positive outcome for me and allowed me to make a definitive decision on if I wanted to continue or not.

While partaking in these literacies I was communicating with family members who use digital literacies regularly. The communication that I had with family members was informal and fairly relaxed with simple everyday terms being used. It was very helpful to have a social aspect/influence of 'outsiders' to the project as it helped impact my literacies and the way that I approached it. Notes were taken from my conversations with my family so I could look back to them in the future, as an extra bit of information as stated by Mace (2005)."Writing and reading were adjunct, even as an optional extra to the spoken word and the act of speaking." (Mace, 2005)

(Literacy/Digital Literacy/Communication)

Writing & Editing First Draft

Being the most crucial step in the process the approach to writing and editing the first draft must be correct. This includes making sure that I have a plan in mind, and that I can use my literacy/digital literacy skills to form something that would appeal to fantasy readers. The purpose of this is to adjust my first draft before potentially sending it out to a professional editor. For this step in the process the literacy must be very structured and visual aspects must be available in a certain format. Throughout the first draft, there are a multitude of languages that I also want to be checked by native speakers before pushing the draft into a professional manner.

(Numeracy/Communication)

Cost of Outside Influence

Book Cover Artists

Proofreading/Editing

Publishing

Another social practice that I needed to participate in was searching through to see what the cost would be from any outside influences including publishing, proofreading/final editing and book cover creation. This was mainly a lone activity but did include me messaging a few different potential options to find out which would be able to provide me with exactly what I needed. When estimating calculations it was also important that I made sure that I could finance this venture, this was mainly done in Excel with varied situations calculated.Originally this was a one-time event, but I have found myself changing my mind a lot so I am now constantly going back and forth with different people. Since I am using Fiverr quite a lot to gather this data/costs there is guidance on the website on how to search and navigate different things so even those I have not used Fiverr much in the past it was easy to navigate the site and gather costs.The literacies within this social practice are quite informal. There were not many structured texts, as they mainly consisted of numerical data and informal conversations. It is important that I also take into consideration the mathematics that are involved with this project as it could influence a lot of the decisions that I make, and the communication of the project as noted by Steen (1990)."Numeracy is to mathematics as literacy is to language. Each represents a distinctive means of communication that is indispensable to civilized life." (Steen, 1990)This social practice allowed me to understand the variety of choices that I have when it comes to these different aspects of the project, and benefits my decision making in the future.