A new CL article, in the February 2007 issue of the Journal of Research in Reading: “Failure to thrive? The community literacy strand of the Additive Bilingual Project at an Eastern Cape Community School, South Africa” by George Hunt, University of Edinburgh:
(more…)
The Highlander Center’s 75th Anniversary Celebration is August 31-September 2nd in New Market, TN. The CLJ will be represented with an information table at cultural events and during the weekend’s Educational Institutes.
From Highlander’s About Us page:
The Highlander Center was founded in 1932 to serve as an adult education center for community workers involved in social and economic justice movements. The goal of Highlander was and is to provide education and support to poor and working people fighting economic injustice, poverty, prejudice, and environmental destruction. We help grassroots leaders create the tools necessary for building broad-based movements for change.
The founding principle and guiding philosophy of Highlander is that the answers to the problems facing society lie in the experiences of ordinary people. Those experiences, so often belittled and denigrated in our society, are the keys to grassroots power.
—
National Public Radio story. (September 2, 2007)
“Issues in Community Literacy” Panel at the 6th Biennial Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) Conference, Little Rock, October 4 - 6:
Laurie Gries
“Representation Issues in Literacy Campaigns: Enacting Civic Discourse with a Transnational Gaze”
Kathryn Johnson
“A Survivor Comes Forward: Arguing for Personal Stories of Gender and Power in the Headlines”
Michael Moore
“What Would a Feminist Community Literacy Look Like?”
From the project site: the Atwater Digital Literacy Project, a project of the Atwater Library, gets kids and community groups using creative web technologies (blogging, audio, video, digital photos) to find new ways to talk about things important to them, and to help them build their communities.
The Community Literacy Journal invites your photo art for future covers. Photo art and submission guidelines here.
(more…)
Our issue 3.1, Fall 2008, will be a special issue dedicated to papers presented at the National Community Literacy Summit in Washington, D.C. in the spring of 2007. The issue will be guest edited by Tanya Shuy, National Institute for Literacy, who helped plan and facilitate this first Summit, with the goal of “bringing together more than 80 community leaders, scholars, and literacy experts to begin a national dialogue on improving and expanding literacy efforts at the community level.”
Tanya has edited a special issue of Scientific Studies of Reading (2006) and works with national groups, literacy workers, and coalitions to assist in the sustainable development of collaborations and research agendas. We think this issue of the CLJ will be an important opportunity to learn about emerging research and the range of community literacy experiences in federal, academic, and provider contexts.
Literacy Across the Lifespan: What Works?
Timothy Shanahan, University of Illinois at Chicago
Abstract: This article explores similarities in literacy learning across various life span stages considering 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 are explored including (1) amount of teaching; (2) content of instruction; (3) quality of instruction; (4) student motivation; and (5) alignment and support.
Early Literacy Instruction and Intervention
Stephanie Al Otaiba and Barbara Foorman, Florida State University
Abstract: 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.
The Challenges Facing Community-Based Adult Literacy Programs
Daphne Greenberg, Georgia State University
Abstract: The field of adult literacy is complex. This complexity poses many challenges for community literacy programs. This paper addresses the challenges of collaboration, diversity, attendance, assessment, and professional development as they apply to community-based adult literacy programs. Recommendations for increasing the success of community literacy programs are provided.
Looking For, And Learning From, Community Literacy Outcomes
Harry P. Hatry and Elaine Morley, Urban Institute
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.
Book Reviews:
Eli Goldblatt: Because We Live Here: Sponsoring Literacy Beyond the College Curriculum
Hampton Press, 2007
Reviewed by Marilyn Cooper
John Blake Scott: Risky Rhetoric: Aids and the Cultural Practices of HIV Testing
Southern Illinois University Press, 2003
Reviewed by Russell Carpenter
Mike Rose: The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker
Penguin, 2005
Reviewed by Ildiko Mellis
Diane Penrod: Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy: The Next Powerful Step in 21st-Century Learning
Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2007
Reviewed by Hsiao-ping Wu
Paul Collins: Community Writing: Researching Social Issues Through Composition
Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001
Reviewed by Grete Scott
Jeffrey T. Grabill: Writing Community Change: Designing Technologies for Citizen Action
Hampton Press, 2007
Reviewed by Karryn Lintelman
The Assembly for Research of the National Council of Teachers of
English announces a conference on Literacy Research in Communities, to
be held February 15-17, 2008 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN.
In this call, we would like researchers and educators to consider what
it means to do literacy research in and with communities, both
communities that are familiar to the researcher and those that are
not. We define communities broadly (i.e., classrooms, virtual
communities, schools, neighborhoods, community centers etc…).
(more…)
Lauren Rosenberg, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2006
Abstract
This dissertation is based on a qualitative case study of four adults who attend a literacy center where they are learning to read and write better. My primary goal was to investigate how newly literate adults use writing to articulate their relationships to dominant ideologies of literacy. Methods of narrative inquiry were used to collect and analyze data.
(more…)
Special Guest Editors: Appalachian Literacies:
Katie Vande Brake and Kim Holloway, King College, Bristol, Tennessee (more…)
“Under the watchful eye of Ross Winterowd, a retired USC writing professor, the small group slowly opened up. A word became a sentence, which then blossomed into a paragraph. One day they just started telling each other stories that hadn’t been told in a long, long time.
“Anna Pinter wrote about the first house her father built on a 5-acre plot in rural Indiana, with fiberboard and cinder blocks. Art Weiland described the many hats his late wife wore – literally. Robert Barany decided to take a light-hearted look back
at his boyhood years in a coal camp in West Virginia.
If you’re a storyteller, you’re a storyteller.”
Read the rest of the OC Register article.