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

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;…

Argues that the history of punctuation in the English-speaking world offers tangible evidence for the evolving interplay between speech and writing. (Author/VWL)

Aboriginal literacy encompasses oral tradition, culture, language, identity, and world view in addition to the written word, and is a process of lifelong learning, much of which occurs beyond school walls. When defining Native literacy, one must move away from measuring Aboriginal students by Euro-Western definitions and move toward a balanced,…

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)

Aboriginal literacy programs in Canada are using literacy as a means of reclaiming Aboriginal languages and a positive cultural identity. The Rainbow/Holistic Approach to Aboriginal literacy uses seven ways of knowing, each corresponding to a color. The approach recognizes that spirit, heart, mind, and body equally contribute to a life of balance,…

For Canada Natives, storytelling and describing dreams are the beginnings of literacy. Many elders survived abuse in residential schools because of language, and claim that one cannot be Indian without the language. This author works in English, yet her writings are informed by Native culture. Language can be a tool or a weapon; it depends on how…

Native Americans have oral traditions that are distinct from the European literacy consciousness, having different modes of discourse, different kinds of metaphorical thinking, and different conceptions of teaching as storytelling. Storytelling is important in children's education, but to be effective and respectful of Native culture, school…