This collection offers insights into what a democratic vision of literacy looks like in practice. Building on the work of teacher and literacy scholar Jay Robinson, the 10 essays in the collection explore the relationships between literacy and society. The essays pay tribute to Professor Robinson, who retired in 1966 from the University of Michigan's English and Education program. Following a foreword by Jacqueline Jones Royster and an introduction by Professor Robinson, his students, and the editors, the essays in the collection are: (1) "Literacy and Lived Lives: Reflections on the Responsibilities of Teachers" (Jay Robinson); (2) "Good Deeds: An Ethnographer's Reflections on Usefulness" (Todd DeStigter); (3) "Three Codifications of Critical Literacy" (Thomas Philion); (4) "Not a Luxury: Poetry and a Pedagogy of Possibility" (Laura Roop); (5) "Unsheltered Lives: Battered Women Talk about School" (Carol L. Winkelmann); (6) "Imagining Neighborhoods: Social Worlds of Urban Adolescents" (Colleen M. Fairbanks); (7) "Conflicting Interests: Critical Theory Inside Out" (Roberta J. Herter); (8) "Writing Back: The Research Writing of a Freshman College Composition Student" (Sylvia G. Robins); and (9) "Time, Talk, and the Interpretation of Texts in a Teacher Education Seminar" (John S. Lofty). (NKA)