This book contains 28 essays that form the core of an advanced course in the theoretical backgrounds of literacy. The book contains the following articles: "The Consequences of Literacy" (Jack Goody and Ian Watt); "Some Psychodynamics of Orality" (Walter Ong); "Implications of Literacy in Traditional China and India" (Kathleen Gough); "Unpackaging Literacy" (Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole); "Literacy in Three Metaphors" (Sylvia Scribner); "The Legacies of Literacy" (Harvey J. Graff); "The History of Literacy and the History of Readers" (Carl F. Kaestle); "The Coming of Literate Communication to Western Culture" (Eric A. Havelock); "Hearing and Seeing and Trusting Writing" (M. T. Clanchy); "Defining 'Literacy' in North American Schools: Social and Historical Conditions and Consequences" (Suzanne de Castell and Allan Luke); "From Utterance to Text: The Bias of Language in Speech and Writing" (David R. Olson); "The Nature of Literacy: A Historical Exploration" (Daniel P. Resnick and Lauren B. Resnick); "School Literacy, Reasoning, and Civility: An Anthropologist's Perspective" (Frederick Erickson); "Literacy and Schooling in Subordinate Cultures: The Case of Black Americans" (John U. Ogbu); "The Social Context of Literacy" (Jay L. Robinson); "Reading and Writing Requirements" (Richard C. Richardson, Jr. and others); "Toward a Composing Model of Reading" (Robert Tierney and P. David Pearson); "Inventing the University" (David Bartholomae); "'Strangers No More': A Liberatory Literacy Curriculum" (Kyle Fiore and Nan Elsasser); "The Ethnography of Literacy" (John F. Szwed); "The Development of Initial Literacy" (Yetta Goodman); "Rethinking Development and Organization" (Jerome C. Harste and others); "Protean Shapes in Literacy Events: Ever-Shifting Oral and Literate Traditions" (Shirley Brice Heath); "The Nature of Reading at Work" (William Diehl and Larry Mikulecky); "Who Are the Adult Illiterates?" (Carman St. John Hunter and David Harman); "Realities of Illiteracy" (Anne Eberle and Sandra Robinson); "The Adult Literacy Process as Cultural Action for Freedom and Education and Conscientizacao" (Paulo Freire); and "The Nicaraguan National Literacy Crusade of 1980" (Robert F. Arnove). (MS)