Acknowledgments

iii

Introduction: Surveying The Field

(16)

Part One TECHNOLOGIES FOR LITERACY

(88)

Writing Is a Technology that Restructures Thought

(13)

Walter J. Ong

Claiming that writing transforms human consciousness, Ong discusses numerous consequences of writing, emphasizing the ways in which it separates the knower from what is known

What's in a List?

(20)

Jack Goody

In this excerpt from The Domestication of the Savage Mind, Goody surveys ancient examples of lists to show how they constitute a technology of literacy that allows (and in fact encourages) history, the observational sciences, and classification schemes

The Lost World of Colonial Handwriting

(18)

Tamara Plakins Thornton

Thornton, a historian, explores the ways in which handwriting in the American colonies served as a ``medium of self,'' with different hands reserved for men and women, for those in different professions, and for those in various social stations

From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies

(15)

Dennis Baron

Baron situates the computer in a series of communication technologies---including writing, the pencil, and the telephone---to argue that different technologies interact with literacy in often unexpected ways

The Effect of Hypertext on Processes of Reading and Writing

(20)

Davida Charney

Raising a cautionary voice about computer technology, Charney explores some ways in which the freedom that hypertext allows readers also makes it more difficult for them to make sense of texts, to extract information from them, and to register that information in long-term memory

Part Two LITERACY, KNOWLEDGE, AND COGNITION

105

(104)

Writing and the Mind

107

(16)

David R. Olson

Opposing the traditional theory that writing developed out of a need to model speech, Olson argues that writing has instead functioned historically to provide humankind with a new way to think about language itself

Unpackaging Literacy

123

(15)

Sylvia Scribner

Michael Cole

Drawn from a classic empirical study of literacy, the authors report on a West African people who use three writing systems, including one that is independent of formal education; the results suggest modest and specific, rather than profound and broad, effects of literacy on cognition

Literacy and Individual Consciousness

138

(18)

F. Niyi Akinnaso

The author draws on his personal experience growing up in a nonliterate environment in Nigeria and on his Western academic training to provide a sense of the role literacy played in the religious, economic, and political life of his village and also the various effects it had on his own interpersonal relations, acquisition of knowledge, and sense of identity

Lessons from Research with Language-Minority Children

156

(16)

Luis C. Moll

Norma Gonzalez

With an eye toward influencing literacy assessment and pedagogical practice, the authors consider the effects that the common household's ``funds of knowledge'' can have on the development of literacy if that knowledge is honored and if its relationship to literacy is fostered

A New Framework for Understanding Cognition and Affect in Writing

172

(27)

John R. Hayes

Hayes, a cognitive psychologist, attempts to model the complex mental processes involved in producing and revising written language

Distributed Cognition at Work

199

(10)

Patrick Dias

Aviva Freedman

Peter Medway

Anthony Pare

Through an examination of literacy practices in the Bank of Canada, the authors illustrate the ways that literacy can be distributed across a complex organization

Part Three HISTORIES OF LITERACY IN THE UNITED STATES

209

(98)

The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Our Times

211

(23)

Harvey J. Graff

Graff offers a general survey of literacy and education in nineteenth-century America, including literacy among minority and immigrant groups

Misperspectives on Literacy: A Critique of an Anglocentric Bias in Histories of American Literacy

234

(10)

Jamie Candelaria Greene

The author provides a corrective to mainstream historical accounts of literacy by examining one of the earliest---and subsequently most overlooked---literacies in North America: literacy in Spanish during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Mexico, Central America, and the southern half of the present United States

Religious Reading and Readers in Antebellum America

244

(17)

David Paul Nord

By focusing on reports of itinerant booksellers from Princeton Theological Seminary who distributed religious books and tracts to inhabitants of the New Jersey Pine Barrens in the 1840s, Nord illustrates how difficult it is to make simple generalizations about reading

The Literate and the Literary: African Americans as Writers and Readers---1830-1940

261

(14)

Elizabeth McHenry

Shirley Brice Heath

The authors strive to balance the notion that African American language and literary habits are primarily rooted in oral traditions by exploring a range of African American literary societies and journals over the course of a century

Kitchen Tables and Rented Rooms: The Extracurriculum of Composition

275

(15)

Anne Ruggles Gere

Gere examines literary clubs and books and magazines from colonial times on, illuminating the various ways in which writing instruction relates to questions of power, performance, and cultural work both in the classroom and in the ``extracurriculum.''

Gender, Advertising, and Mass-Circulation Magazines

290

(17)

Helen Damon-Moore

Carl F. Kaestle

The authors trace the intersections between gender and the world of commerce in the articles and advertising that made magazines economically viable in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century

Part Four LITERACY DEVELOPMENT

307

(112)

Theoretical Approaches to Reading Instruction

309

(7)

Marilyn Jager Adams

With current educational policies in mind, Adams provides a historical overview of theories and methods of reading instruction and advocates a pedagogy that integrates several of those approaches

The Development of Initial Literacy

316

(9)

Yetta Goodman

An advocate of ``whole language'' literacy instruction, Goodman details the kinds of knowledge about literacy that young children acquire naturally from their environment

Coach Bombay's Kids Learn to Write: Children's Appropriation of Media Material for School Literacy

325

(33)

Anne Haas Dyson

Relying on a sociocultural theoretical framework, this ethnographic study examines the ways that children appropriate figures and themes from popular media into school literacy events

Learning to Read Biology: One Student's Rhetorical Development in College

358

(18)

Christina Haas

Haas examines the development of specialized literacy by tracking a biology major through her undergraduate years, detailing the changes in her understanding and use of texts as she becomes socialized into a scientific discipline

Living Literacy: Rethinking Development in Adulthood

376

(26)

Susan L. Lytle

Lytle suggests that stereotypes and common assumptions about adult learners who are not in the educational mainstream blind us to the knowledge they possess and the social networks they inhabit, and discourage close observation of the complex reading and writing processes they use

A World Without Print

402

(17)

Victoria Purcell-Gates

The author provides a sense of the lived experience of some people with low literacy skills through a study of an adult couple and the effects of their limited literacy on their children

Part Five CULTURE AND COMMUNITY

419

(90)

The Ethnography of Literacy

421

(9)

John F. Szwed

An anthropologist argues for the study of literacy as a social practice and offers a methodology for studying literacy in its everyday settings

The New Literacy Studies

430

(13)

Brian Street

Street provides a scholarly agenda for literacy studies that stresses the importance of ethnography for studying the ways literacy practices are ideologically based

Protean Shapes in Literacy Events: Ever-Shifting Oral and Literate Traditions

443

(24)

Shirley Brice Heath

To complicate earlier categorizations of literacy and culture, Heath analyzes ethnographic research of the ``literacy events'' in two small southern U.S. communities to demonstrate the complex interplay of culture, orality, and literacy

En Los Dos Idiomas: Literacy Practices Among Chicago Mexicanos

467

(21)

Marcia Farr

Farr explores the ways in which literacy is learned outside of school through social networks and used in religious, commercial, civic, and educational contexts

Language and Literacy in American Indian and Alaska Native Communities

488

(21)

Teresa L. McCarty

Lucille J. Watahomigie

The authors discuss the difficulties involved in developing curricular materials to facilitate second language acquisition among Navajo school-children, particularly because these materials must straddle overlapping and competing cultural value systems

Part Six POWER, PRIVILEGE, AND DISCOURSE

509

(80)

Inventing the University

David Bartholomae

Bartholomae argues that students are pressured to adopt positions of authority from which to address academic audiences, but that their efforts reveal their mimicry of academic discourse more than their fluency in it

511

(14)

Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction and What Is Literacy?

525

(20)

James Paul Gee

Gee differentiates between primary discourse (acquired through home and community) and secondary discourse (learned in broader social contexts and institutions) and poses a theory about the relation of discourse, identity, and social-linguistic fluency

The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse

545

(10)

Lisa Delpit

Qualifying Gee's analysis, Delpit argues that linguistic acquisition is possible through classroom immersion in secondary discourse, yet also acknowledges how problematic the move between discursive communities has been for many African Americans

Sponsors of Literacy

555

(17)

Deborah Brandt

Brandt draws on literacy narratives gathered from over one hundred participants ranging in age from nine to ninety-nine to argue that becoming literate---both within and outside educational contexts---is dependent on a range of social, political, and economic forces

Community Literacy

572

(17)

Wayne Campbell Peck

Linda Flower

Lorraine Higgins

The authors report on a service-learning project that enables college students and community teens to create a hybrid discourse in order to address local political and social issues

Part Seven MOBILIZING LITERACY: WORK AND SOCIAL CHANGE

589

(96)

National Literacy Campaigns

591

(25)

Robert F. Arnove

Harvey J. Graff

The authors review a wide range of literacy campaigns over the past four hundred years, outlining key points in the development of literacy movements, including goals, materials, methods, and evaluation

The Adult Literacy Process as Cultural Action for Freedom and Education and Conscientizacao

616

(13)

Paulo Freire

Often cited as a foundational view in'critical pedagogy, Freire's work also represents the empowering political potential of the literacy campaign, particularly as it developed in Brazil

Women and Literacy: A Quest for Justice

629

(15)

Lalita Ramdas

Ramdas finds that literacy campaigners often hold problematic perceptions of women and argues that the perspectives and lived conditions of women must be included in program development

Adult Literacy in America

644

(16)

Irwin S. Kirsch

Ann Jungeblut

Lynn Jenkins

Andrew Kolstad

The authors present a statistical analysis of the correlations among mass literacy, income, and profession in the United States, suggesting the potential impact of literacy campaigns and educational systems

Hearing Other Voices: A Critical Assessment of Popular Views on Literacy and Work

660

(25)

Glynda Hull

Hull examines public discourse about literacy and the work force, pointing out that workplace literacy programs and the industry leaders who support them often have reductive perceptions of workers

Notes and References

685

(78)

Notes on the Authors

763

(7)

Notes on the Editors

770

(4)

Index

774