Their shock was the result of the common belief that literacy is only the ability to read and write. According to the dominant culture, if a person cannot read or write at the expected level, they are considered illiterate and therefore must be caught up by the rest of society. Therefore, when the majority of students failed the entrance test, they were considered illiterate and unable to communicate properly because they did not possess adequate language skills, as explained in the "skills discourse" (Barton 160). However, a more recent perspective on literacy is that it does not rely solely on the ability to read and write in the dominant language. Instead, it relies on the ability of individuals to communicate in various ways; these multiple methods of communicating with the world become more manifest and change as people experience more and change themselves. In the context of education and this new perspective on literacy, written works are not the only form of literacy in the classroom. Instead, teachers consider other forms of literacy familiar to students and use those forms to shape knowledgeable, self-reliant students (Barton 206-208). Perhaps if Harvard had not labeled its prospective students as literate or illiterate on the basis of their writing and reading skills, the whole question of abolition versus