Weekly Discussions - Literacy and Ethnography

I have found the discussions and postings interesting. Clearly literacy as a term means different things to different people. A person may become literate through various means - school, home, their community, their job, and life experiences - to name a few options. What is hard is to reconcile then what we require of students in an academic setting. Since literacy doesn't come in one standard shape or size and neither do our students, how is it possible that we teach to one standard? I understand that it is unlikely to teach to an indidivual because of class constraints such as - time, class size, and curriculum guidelines. But, it seems that our students are better served when we know what their literacy goals are and what it is they hope to achieve in school. Ethnographic work appears to be an area where we may find this insight.