Offers a brief historical overview, playfully presented, to remind the reader of the relationships between orality, literacy, and the current electronic social condition. (SR)

Suggests that major works of orally grounded literature, like "Beowulf," are the result of collective engagement with the question of what wisdom is. Claims "Beowulf" is the result of a set of cultural transformations and a means by which such transformations took place. Suggests it speaks to traditional verse's role in the consolidation of new…

Examines various narratives about literacy, and how they influence the thinking of people in composition studies. Uses J. Lyotard's notions of the grand narratives of modernism and the little narratives of postmodernism to examine: conflicted politics of composition studies; the relationship of theory and ideology; ethical questions of research;…

Historically, among American Indians, the respect for the power of language has been expressed through the oral tradition: stories, myths, folklore, poetry, and song. As life experience has changed for American Indians, they continue to value these stories, recording tribal oral tradition as well as personal biography and life history. The status…

The works of women African writers such as Bessie Head, Mariama Ba, Buchi Emecheta, and Flora Nwapa have become increasingly familiar to North American college students during the past decade, largely through their inclusion on feminist reading lists. Because the pedagogical value of these texts lies in their presumed ability to speak for African…

Argues that, by reading literature that incorporates folklore and oral traditions, students learn to recognize and appreciate how oral traditions have influenced all cultures. Argues that a study of contemporary American written literature which incorporates elements of the oral tradition introduces students to old and deep wisdom and to a diverse…

The genre of fairytales, one structured form of storytelling, has been labeled "Marchen." German culture is orally transmitted in this generic form, and can be traced to a collection of 210 fairytales, the Grimm brothers'"Kinder-und Taus-Marchen," first published shortly after 1800. For this study, research questions were posed…

The persistent cultural conservatism in Western scholarship has led to the exclusion of Chinese rhetoric from the canon of rhetorical studies. However, the assumption that Chinese culture does not have a rhetorical tradition is misleading and inappropriate. It stems from any number of notions: that the Chinese language is not as logical as those…

Stories have always been the means of making a message, of exploring the relationship between past and present, and of giving significance to events. A noted native artist and writer described the "talking stick" of his tribe as a talisman which gives the person who possesses it the right to speak and hold the attention of the tribe. A…

Indigenous knowledge is a living, breathing concept and must be treated with care and respect. This living knowledge is transmitted orally. At the University of Queensland (Australia), the Torres Strait Islander Studies course was taught in the Indigenous way, and elders were involved throughout, from formatting the course outline to the running…

Explores the relationship between writing ability, cognitive development, and orality among students of minority cultures, particularly the African American culture. Suggests that students from cultures with strong oral traditions do not lag behind other students but must nevertheless succeed in making the transition to written standard discourse.…

In the Western Apache discourse community, landscape is not just the realm of nature in its sheer physicality. Neither are places in the landscape to be read as metaphors. Rather, places, visual things by reason of their identification with aspects of social hierarchy are literally giving moral messages, are imploring people to live right. This…

The emergence of the Native voice in academia has provided much outstanding scholarship rising out of analysis of oral histories and textual authority of Native peoples. In the 1990s, however, attempts to discredit Native scholarship included the claim that "I, Rigoberta Menchu" was a willful fraud, debates over the Bering Strait theory…

Dr. Terry Tafoya relates his experiences as a student and a therapist and integrates traditional Native American stories to illustrate the importance of balancing Western knowledge with traditional culture and values. Stresses the importance of approaching the acquisition of knowledge from different perspectives when developing graduate programs…

Describes how a literature and writing professor uses readings, writing assignments, and class discussions to help students broaden their understanding or orality and literacy and to respond critically to implicit cultural and racial biases. Notes that a process of self-empowerment occurs for both black and white students. (SR)