In this essay, the author explores the curious irony that a discipline and a profession organized around the study and teaching of language and literacy have had so little influence on the discursive constructions (policies) that govern the teaching of language and literacy. Part of the problem, as the author sees it, is simply that so little…

Traditional priorities of English as a discipline are now significantly at odds with the material circumstances of college English departments. To address these realities, college English needs to become literacy studies rather than literary studies.

States that fiction revels in specificity and historicizes problems of socialization, including literacy. Argues that the short story tells a narrative of arrested socialization that ends with characters who find their own speech inadequate and the new speech problematic. Asserts that short stories can provide forums for studies of literacy. (PRA)

Discusses the first comprehensive examination of the system of public education in Hawai'i, conducted in 1920. Notes the great importance of the study since it not only evaluated Hawaii's educational system but also provided the territorial government some gauge of Hawaii's status as a United States territory and its success in meeting the ideals…

Argues that Toni Morrison's fiction encourages the reexamination of the relationship between the narrative structures of oral storytelling and those of the modern novel. Demonstrates how Morrison creatively draws on oral and literate language and memory. (HB)

An analysis of the nature of language, the impact of the mass media, and their implications for teaching reading and writing. (DD)

Criticizes English departments for ignoring the need for research and adequate instructional programs in the areas of competency referred to by the term "literacy": reading, writing, comprehending, and communicating. Suggests ways of bridging the gap between literature and composition. (EL)

Focuses on how various literacy narratives portray passages between language worlds. Considers how such passages are relevant to a writing pedagogy. Stresses the relationship between such literacy passages is useful in basic writing contexts. Analyzes two essays written by one student who portrays such a literacy passage. (HB)

Provides an autobiographical account of the author's childhood and adolescence. Examines the experience of coming to literacy. Considers the nature of a white working-class girl's sorties into the larger white middle-class culture. (HB)

Presents a list of topics, reading assignments, and an outline for a survey course on reading and literacy. (RL)