A recent nine-month field study considered the relationships among school-sponsored and community forms of literacy practices in a migrantsending area of rural Mexico. While many teachers in rural Mexico argue that students should remain in school rather than migrate to the U.S., this study demonstrates the ways in which schools in rural Mexico often do not recognize the needs of the communities that they serve. As a result, students in these schools often develop a pragmatic orientation toward formal literacy. While many of the skills that they learn help them navigate commercial and government bureaucracies, these students do not adopt the values embedded in formal education. Rather, they implicitly question the promise of education as a neutral means to social and economic mobility.

This essay explores how the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism, especially Richard Rorty’s work on social hope late in his career, could be relevant to community literacy. Pragmatism does not prescribe a particular approach to community literacy but, unlike many kinds of critical pedagogy, affirms a role for patriotism and liberalism in social change movements. Pragmatists such as Rorty prefer cooperative participation and incremental reform to either idealism or ideological critique.

We introduce the need for scholars interested in literacy, geography, and cultural studies to examine the role of English language literacy in shaping assimilation experiences of recent immigrant groups. We consider a case study of English language self-efficacy among ethnic Chinese immigrants in the Philadelphia metropolitan area to suggest how language, place, and economic participation are mutually constructed. We conducted interviews with 21 individuals to gain insights about how they perceived this relationship. We also considered the effects of English language self-efficacy on the geographic extent of their daily activities. Perhaps it is not surprising that those who reported stronger English language skills had larger activity spheres in the metropolitan region. Among those who did not note strong language skills, Philadelphia’s historic Chinatown remained prominent as a place of economic participation and center for daily activities and cultural cohesion. We suggest that more attention to the role of literacy and language self-efficacy is warranted among geographers interested in migration studies, assimilation experiences, and workforce participation issues related to immigrant groups.

This essay presents a case study of the modes used in training employees at a munitions plant in Ohio between 1940 and 1945. Theories of multimodal discourse and learning advanced by The New London Group (1996), Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen (2001) and Richard Mayer (2001) inform this analysis. With an unskilled labor force and many workers coming from oral literate traditions, the War Manpower Commission developed the Training Within Industry program, emphasizing visual and experiential literacies. This analysis can inform programs that use multimodal forms of instruction by acknowledging positive and negative implications of such literacy sponsorship.

The field of adult literacy is complex. This complexity poses many challenges for literacy programs. This paper addresses the challenges of collaboration, diversity, attendance, assessment and professional development as they apply to adult literacy programs. Recommendations for increasing the success of literacy programs are provided.

This article provides suggestions for community coalitions and other literacy service providers for implementing a performance management process that would be useful for helping coalitions and service providers to improve their efforts. It provides initial suggestions as to: the roles community coalitions might undertake in community literacy performance management; the outcome indicators that might be used to track progress; steps for selecting the indicators relevant to individual communities; handling some of the key implementation challenges; and the basic ways in which the performance information can be used. The article is based on the National Institute for literacy forthcoming guide to performance management for community literacy organizations.

This article explores similarities in literacy learning across various life-span stages and considers what actions must be taken to improve literacy attainment and achievement, whether the delivery site is prekindergarten, elementary, secondary, adult, family, workplace, volunteer, or community literacy. The emphasis here is on what it takes to successfully teach individuals to read and write well separate from any adjustments that must be made for context or learner characteristics. Research is examined for five essential variables in literacy learning, including (1) amount of teaching; (2) content of instruction; (3) quality of instruction; (4) student motivation; and (5) alignment and support.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the efficacy of early literacy interventions and to discuss possible roles for volunteer tutors in helping prevent reading difficulties within the Response to Intervention process. First, we describe a landmark study that evaluated the impact of primary classroom instruction on reducing the proportion of students at risk for reading failure, and a more recent series of studies exploring the effects of individualizing classroom reading instruction based on students' initial skills. Second, we review studies of more intensive early intervention to demonstrate how these interventions substantially reduce the proportion of students at risk. Third, we examine effective tutoring models that utilize volunteers. Finally, we discuss the potential role of community tutors in supporting primary classroom instruction and secondary interventions.

This paper explores the following questions related to family literacy programs: How is family literacy linked with family literacy programs? What are the theoretical frameworks supporting the various models educators and researchers are using in their pedagogical approaches to family literacy programs? As these questions are explored several tensions and directions in programming family literacy become apparent. By examining the various models in this way, family literacy providers and others interested in family and community literacy may be better equipped to evaluate the underlying principles of the programs they use and thereby make informed choices with regard to programming.

for Literacy Program Director, who helped to plan and facilitate this first Summit, whose goal was "bringing together more than 80 community leaders, scholars, and literacy experts to begin a national dialogue on improving and expanding

This essay explores the intersection between writing studies and civic engagement through the action projects developed in E465: Prison Literature and Writing. Such literacy activism creates immediate opportunities for advanced undergraduates to more fully understand the work of literacy in contested spaces like jail and extends a call to action for writing teachers to acknowledge the possibility of community-based writing collaborations.

This article is part of a project that involves case studies of four adults who attend an informal literacy center. I examine people’s motivations to write when their main purpose is not to gain a degree or other credentials. Here I focus on one study member and how she uses writing to gain textual agency. By composing narratives that investigate her social positioning, this woman rewrites her own story. I demonstrate how her texts and interview comments reveal a strong desire to connect with public audiences so that other people might follow her model of speaking out to change culture.

This article analyzes one prison literacy program in Texas that trains inmate participants to teach other men and women, likewise incarcerated and often dyslexic, to read and write in English. Noting the regular recurrence of the words “repair” and “hope” in participants’ descriptions of HOPE and associated activities, the author makes extensive use of feminist-epistemologist Elizabeth Spelman’s theory of “repair” and Paula Mathieu’s articulation of “hope” in her attempt to understand the nuances of “repair” and the “hope” it enables/generates behind these prison walls. Finally, given HOPE’s configuration as a faith-based program with Christian origins and Carter’s own position as a secular academic, the article ends with an extended discussion of the tensions between Bible-based discourses and the academy.

for Literacy Program Director, who helped to plan and facilitate this first Summit, whose goal was "bringing together more than 80 community leaders, scholars, and literacy experts to begin a national dialogue on improving and expanding

They ain't gonna do my kid like they done me and his dad!" she protested."They know he can't read, but they're just gonna pass him on.That don't do no good, I know!"These are the words of Jenny, mother of Donny who, despite being able only to read and write his name, had just been promoted to the 2 nd grade.Jenny and husband "Big" Donny possess what Victoria Purcell-Gates calls "low literate ability" and are effectively unable to communicate with the school through print.When Jenny tries to communicate orally with Donny's teachers, they react harshly, as the author recalls a particular interaction in which the instructor exclaims, "I knew she [Jenny] was ignorant as soon as she opened her mouth!"(37).Thus, Jenny turns to the local university literacy center for help, which at the time was run by Purcell-Gates.This scenario reflects a familiar situation in which literacy workers are often faced with assisting community members in adapting to the literacies of mainstream institutions.As this special issue of the Community Literacy Journal commemorates the work of Shirley Brice Heath's Ways With Words (1983) and her work in the Appalachian region, it is fitting here to revisit a similar study concerning a group that shares a similar cultural identity yet does not reside in the actual physical boundaries of Appalachia.Victoria Purcell-Gates' Other People's Words: The Cycle of Low Literacy introduces us to a cultural group named urban Appalachians, which some have labeled an invisible minority.While many tend to think of a space defined by its boundaries as home to Appalachians, one cannot overlook the phenomenon referred to as the Great Migration.From 1940-1970 the Appalachian region witnessed an exodus of nearly seven million residents who migrated to Midwestern cities such as Cleveland, Detroit, Columbus,

This article explores the literacy lives of students enrolled in English Composition courses at two open-admission universities in Central Appalachia and the complex role of immediate and extended family members as sponsors of literacy. Some relatives emerge as both sponsors and inhibitors—or perhaps more accurately, sponsors of competing meanings of literacy—and illustrate the larger social forces surrounding literacy in students’ lives.

This paper considers how community literacy programs factor into broader economies of literacy development. The author analyzes two Appalachian community literacy projects, Shirley Brice Heath’s ethnographic project in the Carolina Piedmont and Highlander Research and Education Center’s organizing efforts with the Appalachian People’s Movement, to construct an image of sponsors of diverted literacy, people and institutions that employ three interdependent tactics to usefully redirect the means by which literacy travels through the educational marketplace.

To become literate when we move from one part of the country to another with significant cultural differences, our first task is to learn the new culture so we can more effectively work with our colleagues and our students. When I moved from Bay City, MI, to Morehead, KY, there were many customs I needed to learn. Fortunately, what I learned helped me to cherish both my new colleagues and students.

Linda Scott DeRosier’s autobiographical accounts of literacy attainment in Creeker: A Woman’s Journey and Songs of Life and Grace reveal that entrance into a secondary discourse community via literacy can bring both pleasure and pain. Analyzing the identity negotiations DeRosier encounters reveals that although she experiences a sense of loss as a result of continued formal education, such schooling also makes possible the creation of her memoirs, which help overturn stereotypes connecting Appalachia with illiteracy.

This article revisits the debate between cultural and critical literacy through ethnography challenging popular academic views in education and literacy. Set in a preschool classroom at the inception of the “No Child Left Behind” initiative, this essay focuses on teaching assistant Marylou Anderson. Her experiences growing up in Appalachia inform a teaching philosophy that differs significantly from her colleagues. Her story invites us to reconsider how “the culture of power” functions as a formidable gatekeeper.

What does it mean for a community writing assistance program to bridge the gap between the university and the community? What makes for a successful alliance between these two worlds usually considered distinct? Our paper addresses these questions by reflecting on the factors that have contributed to the growing success of our CWA program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Taking into account the varied alliances forged through our work — between the funding organization, instructors, community leaders, and writers themselves — we hope to offer a multi-faceted picture of local literacy outreach and partnership.

Th is article outlines one potential model for a graduate–level course in community literacy studies. Ellen Cushman and Jeffrey Grabill taught this course for the first time at Michigan State University in the spring of 2007. In this article our colleagues with varying disciplinary backgrounds reflect on the course, its readings, and their theoretical and practical understanding surrounding many of the central questions of this new discipline: what is a community? What is literacy? What is community literacy? And what does it mean to practice “community literacy”—to write, to speak, and so on? After a wide discussion of course experience from several student colleagues in the course, Cushman and Grabill reflect on their course objectives and point toward future incarnations of the course.

In this article, we briefl y review national statistics on older adults and computer usage —statistics that led us to volunteer to develop technological literacy programs for older adults at local community centers. Because we recognize that all literacies are developed and used by specifi c people in specifi c contexts, we describe the community centers where we volunteered, our roles as teachers and later as researchers, and the technological literacy curricula we developed and revised based on extensive input from participants. We discuss the barriers and benefi ts to older adults’ acquisition of technological literacies. We argue for the importance of building communities of practice based on relational support and interaction and for the importance of drawing from assets and needs existing within communities.

Arguing that we fail both parents and students if we continue to think of community literacy as a dichotomy between school and work, this article illustrates Labor Market Intermediaries (LMIs) as sites of community literacy. Th e investigation of LMIs in a particular community (Greater Lafayette, Indiana) allows for a more thorough understanding of community literacy outside of traditional sites such as schools, community centers, and adult education programs; in turn, the article argues that such an understanding may lead to more productive involvement by literacy educators in our communities.

For nineteen years, Mercy Learning Center, a community–based literacy organization, has provided basic literacy instruction to low–income women in Bridgeport, Connecticut. During that time the Center has grown from three students and two tutors to 450 students, 155 tutors, and fi ve full–time teachers. Th is growth has been aff ected by changes in welfare regulations and increased immigration. Using what it describes as a “holistic approach within a compassionate, supportive community,” the Center provides instruction that goes beyond the usual boundaries of basic literacy. With its expansive defi nition of basic literacy, Mercy Learning Center’s experience off ers a model for sustaining a woman–centered community literacy program through nearly two decades of changing political conditions and educational needs.

After reviewing results from the Nation’s Report Card in Writing, this article presents data from a survey of Latino students, the largest ethnic group of students at Northeastern Illinois University. These data suggest that the Hispanic students at Northeastern are similar to their national Hispanic peers in several ways, such as the levels of parental education and the number of texts in their homes, yet different from them in other ways, such as exposure to English at home or level of involvement with parents and friends. Perhaps most significantly, these students report stronger beliefs in and attitudes about literacy than either their national Hispanic peers or national peers. Although more research is needed, these data indicate the need for new literacy theories and research methods to ensure that these experiences and expectations are legitimized not as educational liabilities but as intellectual assets.

This essay describes service learning as a space for civic dialogue. In the project-oriented course discussed below—an oral history of a south-side African American neighborhood in Chicago—civic dialogue took shape when middle class students from a range of backgrounds at the Illinois Institute of Technology interviewed residents of different generations and experiences, transcribed, contextualized, and published these interviews in print and online, and reflected on the process. As a tethering of “community” across the material and discursive boundaries that typically divide us, the project performed a political critique not through issue-oriented advocacy but through a rhetorical activism more locally attuned to the absence of critical exchange, empathy, and understanding in public life.

This article addresses how community-university digital media literacy projects are redefining literacy, literate practices, and institutions. Using Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which emphasizes the organizing process itself, I analyze the shifting definitions of literacy within one particular university-community collaboration. My analysis demonstrates the importance of creating writer and producer identities for all project participants and developing networks of responsibility and sustainability through the distribution of expertise among university and community institutions. In order to sustain such collaborations and university- community networks, literacy workers and writing programs must challenge static forms of participation and expertise, as well as monolithic notions of literacy, and become more responsive to concrete literacy needs within our communities.

This paper develops a rhetorically centered model of community literacy in the theoretical and practical context of local publics—those spaces where ordinary people develop public voices to engage in intercultural inquiry and deliberation. Drawing on fifteen years of action research in the Community Literacy Center and beyond, the authors characterize the distinctive features of local publics, the deliberative, intercultural discourses they circulate, and the literate practices that sustain them. They identify four critical practices at the heart of community literacy: assessing the rhetorical situation, creating local publics, developing citizens’ rhetorical capacities, and supporting change through the circulation of alternative texts and practices.

Integrity is commonly conflated with basic literacy in assessments of the skills workers need. This case study of a word-based character education program in Springfield, Missouri examines how business leaders may blame a lack of skills by employees on a lack of moral literacy. The premise of this essay is that the expression of a literacy program by participating institutions will be influenced by the political culture of the region in which the institutions reside. Considering the influence of political culture on community literacy programs is important because such influence is likely to privilege certain sets of socio-political and economic values, and ways of knowing, over others.

This case-study examines the ways citizens took up, and in some ways resisted, city planners’ assumptions about their lived experience of “Portstown.” While it is necessary to acknowledge the coercive properties of institutional documents and genre-systems, community-literacy workers must not efface the epistemic potential of everyday compositions, for this quality creates opportunities for strategic interventions in the solicitation and reception of civic writing.