Meaning maker

In Linda Flower's article "Images of Empowerment", She discusses how reading and writing can empower not only those who teach, but those who learn as well. The most interesting point made in this article is one that Kurt Spellmeyer makes. Spellmeyer imagines a composition class "where instead of a focus on the establishment rules of discourse, students are first recognized as meaning makers in their own right, involved in the work of reading and writing because it addresses questions that matter to them". This phrase, 'meaning makers' has such a strong connotation and implication it struck me as being something very important. For a student to be able to leave behind the role of 'compliant sponge' and don a robe of 'meaning maker' empowers him to think for himself. He can now interpret information and put a new perspective on it. This is what learning should be. What it ideally is. It is one thing for a teacher to simply pass on information to a student and the student to be a willing recepticle for this information. It is a whole other, and wonderful thing for the student to form his own opinion of this information, inciting him to dig deeper for more information and more truth. On the whole, this article was effective in showing the different ways in which literacy empowers. But this one idea will stick with me and encourage me to stop being such a sponge and strive to be a 'meaning maker'.