Transnational Community Literacy: Exploring the Surroundings of Franklin Elementary The surrounding community of Franklin Elementary contains a highly diverse population of varying ethnicity, language, and socioeconomic status. However, as I walked around the surrounding community, I was shocked by how similar the community appears compared to a typical traditional suburban community. Located just 2 miles from the Brigham Young University campus, Franklin Elementary's surroundings had medium-sized homes, wide streets, churches, traffic lights, street signs, gas stations, and many other things found in a typical American neighborhood . There was little indication initially that Franklin Elementary was located in such a diverse community with a 60% ethnic minority population, of which 53% are Hispanic, surpassing Caucasian cultural dominance. But I happened to arrive just as dozens of ethnically diverse students left for home that day. Necessary Literacies The texts found throughout the community were primarily practical in nature and required a wide range of literacies to understand. Moving away from traditional definitions of literacy, many of the topics can aid academic achievement in math, science, social studies, art, and many other subject areas. Increased numeracy or numerical literacy can help children identify bus timetables, dates of the year, income and expense forms, speed limit signs and gas station prices. Basic understanding of numbers allows children to identify them, but greater understanding will allow them to perform simple arithmetic and statistical analyses. Children are also expected to have a certain level of visual literacy, allowing them to read...half of the paper...in the area aimed at Hispanics. Even the inclusion of signs and pamphlets in Spanish and English were not clear indicators of the many minority cultures living in the community. I didn't find any signs in a language other than Spanish or English, except for one sign in Chinese, which still addresses the needs of only a few specific immigrant cultures. And due to growing diversity nationwide and the growing importance of second language learning, it is not uncommon to find multilingual texts in schools, on buses, in offices and on the streets, meaning that the few indicators of an immigrant community they were not as easily identifiable as indicators. References Great Schools. (2011). Student information for Franklin School. Retrieved from http://www.greatschools.org/utah/provo/552-Franklin-School/?tab=demographics