Literacy, Economy, and Power: Writing and Research after "Literacy in American Lives"

254 Pages·2013·2.61 MB·English

by  John Duffy, Julie Nelson Christoph, Eli Goldblatt, Nelson Graff, Rebecca S. Nowacek, Bryan Trabold

Literacy
“Te essays in this book honor Deborah Brandt’s achievement by extending her ideas
about literacy and sponsorship—listening to a wide range of voices from many diferent
communities, workplaces, and schools, and looking ahead to emerging forms of writing LITERACY,
in a digital age. I predict this volume will be read alongside Literacy in American Lives
for many years to come.”—Joseph Harris, professor of English, University of Delaware
ECONOMY,
“In this volume, leading scholars, including many former students and colleagues, analyze
and extend approaches developed by Deborah Brandt in her classic work on literacy to
shed light on a wide range of seldom-studied literate cultures. Tis colection ilustrates AND POWER
the power of Brandt’s framework for investigating literacy and its potential for further
application and adaptation.”—Russel Durst, University of Cincinnati Writing and Research after
Literacy in American Lives
In 2001 Deborah Brandt published Literacy in American Lives, a groundbreaking look at
how ordinary Americans have been afected by changes in literacy, public education, and
structures of power. Now, almost ffeen years afer Deborah Brandt’s award-winning work,
Literacy, Economy, and Power expands Brandt’s vision, exploring the relevance of her the-
oretical framework as it relates to literacy practices in a variety of current and historical
contexts, as well as in literacy’s expanding, global future. Bringing together scholars from
rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies, the book ofers thirteen engrossing essays that
extend and challenge Brandt’s commentary on the dynamics between literacy and power.
Te essays cover a variety of topics, including the editor of the frst Native American news-
paper, the role of a native Hawaiian in bringing literacy to his home islands, and the future
of digital literacy in an internationally connected world. An excellent resource for academic
literacy studies, Literacy, Economy, and Power provides readers with a wide-ranging view of
the work being done in literacy studies today and points to ways researchers might approach EDITED BY
the study of literacy in the future.
John Duffy
Contributors: Julie Nelson Christoph, Ellen Cushman, Kim Donehower, Anne Ruggles
Gere, Eli Goldblatt, Harvey J. Graf, Gail E. Hawisher, Bruce Horner, David A. Jollife,
Julie Nelson Christoph
Rhea Estelle Lathan, Min-Zhan Lu, Robin Lyons-Robinson, Carol Mattingly, Beverly J.
Moss, Paul Prior, Cynthia L. Selfe, Michael W. Smith, Morris Young Eli Goldblatt
southern illinois university press Nelson Graff
www.siupress.com
Rebecca S. Nowacek
Bryan Trabold
Cover illustrations: Lef, open-books image from iStock by Getty Images; photographer, fstop123.com. Southern
Illinois
Right, public “newspaper” in three languages on outside wall of building in Zanzibar; collection University
of Julie Nelson Christoph. Press
Duffy cvr mech.indd 1 11/14/13 3:09 PM
LITERACY, ECONOMY, AND POWER Writing and Research after Literacy in American Lives
LITERACY,
ECONOMY,
AND POWER
LITERACY,
ECONOMY,
AND POWER
Writing and Research after
Literacy in American Lives
EDITED BY
John Duffy
Julie Nelson Christoph
Eli Goldblatt
Nelson Graff
Rebecca S. Nowacek
Bryan Trabold
Southern Illinois University Press / Carbondale
Copyright © 2014 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
Portions of chapter 1 originally appeared in Te Cherokee
Syllabary: Writing the People’s Perseverance (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 2011); chapter 11 copyright
© 2013 by Paul A. Prior; portions of chapter 12 originally
appeared in Patrick W. Berry, Gail E. Hawisher, and
Cynthia L. Selfe, Transnational Literate Lives in Digital
Times (Logan: Computers and Composition Digital Press
/ Utah State University Press, 2012), retrievable at http://
ccdigitalpress.org/transnational; epilogue copyright ©
2013 by Harvey J. Graf
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
17 16 15 14 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Literacy, economy, and power : writing and research afer
“Literacy in American lives” / edited by John Dufy, Julie
Nelson Christoph, Eli Goldblatt, Nelson Graf, Rebecca
S. Nowacek, Bryan Trabold.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8093-3302-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8093-3302-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8093-3303-5 (ebook)
ISBN-10: 0-8093-3303-1 (ebook)
1. Literacy—Social aspects—United States. 2. Literacy
programs—United States. 3. Composition (Language
arts) I. Dufy, John, [date] II. Christoph, Julie Nelson.
III.  Goldblatt, Eli. IV.  Graff, Nelson. V.  Nowacek,
Rebecca S. VI. Trabold, Bryan.
LC151.L48217 2014
302.2’244—dc23
Printed on recycled paper.
Te paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standard for Informa-
tion Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Contents
Introduction 1
Part One. Looking Back at Literacy: What It Did to Us; What We Did with It
1. Elias Boudinot and the Cherokee Phoenix: Te
Sponsors of Literacy Tey Were and Were Not   13
Ellen Cushman
2. Testimony as a Sponsor of Literacy: Bernice
Robinson and the South Carolina Sea Island
Citizenship Program’s Literacy Activism 30
Rhea Estelle Lathan
3. Beyond the Protestant Literacy Myth 45
Carol Mattingly
4. Writing the Life of Henry Obookiah: Te
Sponsorship of Literacy and Identity 61
Morris Young
Part Two. Looking Now at Literacy: A Tool for Change?
5. Sponsoring Education for All: Revisiting the Sacred/
Secular Divide in Twenty-First-Century Zanzibar 79
Julie Nelson Christoph
6. Connecting Literacy to Sustainability:
Revisiting Literacy as Involvement   97
Kim Donehower
7. Toward a Labor Economy of
Literacy: Academic Frictions 111
Bruce Horner and Min-Zhan Lu
v
vI CoNTENTS
8. Te Unintended Consequences of Sponsorship 127
Eli Goldblatt and David A. Jollife
9. Making Literacy Work: A “Phenomenal Woman”
Negotiating Her Literacy Identity in and for an
African American Women’s Club 136
Beverly J. Moss and Robyn Lyons-Robinson
10. Seeking Sponsors, Accumulating Literacies:
Deborah Brandt and English Education 155
Michael W. Smith
11. Combining Phenomenological and Sociohistoric Frameworks
for Studying Literate Practices: Some Implications of
Deborah Brandt’s Methodological Trajectory 166
Paul Prior
Part Three. Looking Forward at Literacy: The Global and Multimodal Future
12. Beyond Literate Lives: Collaboration, Literacy Narratives,
Transnational Connections, and Digital Media 185
Cynthia L. Selfe and Gail E. Hawisher
Epilogue: Literacy Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies
with Notes on the Place of Deborah Brandt 203
Harvey J. Graf
Aferword 227
Anne Ruggles Gere
Contributors 233
Index 237
LITERACY,
ECONOMY,
AND POWER
Introduction
s we write this sentence, more than a decade has passed since the pub-
A lication of Deborah Brandt’s Literacy in American Lives (2001). At the
time of publication, Literacy in American Lives was one of many voices in
the boisterous, interdisciplinary, and ultimately transformative conversation
about literacy that had become known, collectively, as “the New Literacy
Studies,” the theoretical conception that construed literacy, as Brian Street
(1995) writes, “as an ideological practice, implicated in power relations and
embedded in specifc cultural meanings and practices” (p. 1). Tis conver-
sation was in full swing when Literacy in American Lives appeared, and
Brandt’s book seemed yet another contribution to the series of carefully
researched, thoughtfully argued works that were changing understandings
of literacy from an individually acquired, ideologically autonomous skill
to a social and cultural practice (see, among many published previous to
Brandt’s book, Scribner and Cole, 1981; Heath, 1983; Street, 1984, 1993, 1995;
Farr, 1993; Barton, 1994; Moss, 1994; Collins, 1995; Besnier, 1995; Gere, 1997).
Yet, Literacy in American Lives would eventually emerge from this con-
versation to become a preeminent, if not the preeminent, voice in literacy
studies. Consider that in the decade-plus since its publication, Brandt’s book
has garnered three major book awards, the MLA Mina Shaughnessy Prize,
CCCC’s Outstanding Book Award, and the Grawemeyer Award in Education
from the University of Louisville. More, the book is routinely cited in literacy
scholarship, appears almost de rigueur on graduate syllabuses on literacy,
and has made Brandt a much sought afer speaker at national conferences
and at universities in the United States and abroad.
Te infuence of Brandt’s work was not immediately apparent. Te early
reviews of Literacy in American Lives were enthusiastic, though not unequiv-
ocally so. D. K. Kaufmann in Choice calls the book “powerful” but writes,
“[Brandt’s] focus on economic infuences sometimes obscures the other uses
of literacy she defends” (2002, p. 1471). Joseph Zimmer (2002, p. 432) in
Te Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy takes a diferent view: “While
1