Call for Articles: Special CLJ Issue on Appalachian Literacies
The Community Literacy Journal invites articles for its Fall 2007 special issue on Appalachian Literacies. Special issue editors Katie Vande Brake and Kim Holloway, of King College in Bristol, Tennessee, welcome manuscripts that address and explore historical and contemporary community literacy contexts in Appalachia.
Shirley Brice Heath’s 1983 Ways with Words, whose research was conducted in the Appalachian region, is often seen as the beginning of community literacy studies, and we hope with this special issue to reflect back on the field’s development over 25 years and to ask what constitutes community literacy today in the region from which Heath’s work originated.
Other possible topics might include:
The mission school movement provided schools and teachers for mountain children. These often exemplary schools put literacy at center stage in the communities they served. How have mission schools influenced their communities, and what are they doing today?
Higher education in Appalachia has a high percentage of first-generation students. College changes these students who in turn affect the institutions where they matriculate, their families, and their communities. Explore this phenomenon.
The Appalachian vernacular is different from Standard English of American classrooms. Explore the ways students learn to use academic discourse but maintain their own variety of English in classroom talk and in social situations.
What attitudes make Appalachian learners unique? Do these characteristics foster or hinder the development of school literacy? Are there other important “literacies” that need to be discussed?
The Highlander School is an institution for adult education that was founded by a Appalachian, Myles Horton, and that has always focused on issues pertinent to Appalachians. It has also had a powerful national impact, as we were reminded during the recent celebrations of the life of Rosa Parks. Articles exploring the history, theory, and current mission of the school with respect to issues of community literacy will be welcome.
We particularly welcome co-authored pieces in collaboration with community partners.
Manuscript deadline: June 15, 2007. Send article queries to Katie Vande Brake
(kgvande@king.edu) or Kim Holloway (khollowa@king.edu). Manuscripts may be sent as email attachments or via US Mail to:
Professor Katherine Vande Brake
King College
1350 King College Road
Bristol TN 37620
Format: The MLA Style Manual, 2nd ed. (New York: MLA, 1998) supplemented where necessary with the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th ed. (New York:
MLA, 2003).
Shorter and longer pieces are acceptable (8-25 manuscript pages) depending on authors’ approaches: case studies, reflective pieces, scholarly articles, etc.
The Book & New Media Review section for this special issue is being edited by Christopher Wilkey:
Department of Literature and Language
Northern Kentucky University
Highland Heights, KY 41099
wilkeyc@nku.edu
CLJ Book & New Media Review Guidelines:
http://www.communityliteracy.org/review.php
Images from Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USF35-1326]