Learning to read and write is seen as both the acquisition of skills useful in a modern society and an introduction to a world increasingly organized around the reading and writing of authoritative texts. While most agree on the importance of writing, insufficient attention has been given to the more basic question of just what writing is, that…

Writing studies has been an intellectual playground dominated by the "big kids." If we are to understand how writing becomes "relevant" to children as children, then we must study them, not for who they are becoming, but for who they are in life spaces shared with other children. This essay on the methodology entailed in…

Informally recognized by the tribal council in 1821, the 86-character Cherokee writing system invented by Sequoyah was learned in manuscript form and became widely used by the Cherokee within the span of a few years. In 1827, Samuel Worcester standardized the arrangement of characters and print designs in ways that differed from Sequoyah's…

This article examines the uses of oral testimony in writing about literacy in historical context, especially about the literacy traditions of populations "hidden from history"--immigrants, refugees, and undocumented persons--who are entering U.S. schools and workplaces, and whose literacy histories may be unknown or lost. Drawing on testimonies…

This article builds upon the concept of hybridity to affirm the relevance of poetry, music, and other forms of popular culture in the lives of urban youth. Its focus examines the blending of seemingly disparate forms to understand how young people, in particular young people of color, negotiate their multilayered social worlds. One of these worlds…

Chinese characters are often viewed as a premodern or incomplete form of literacy. Authors with an autonomous view of literacy view Chinese as a concrete, homeostatic language inadequate for use in abstract thought and movement toward mass literacy. Even those with an ideological model framework propose that the intrinsic nature of Chinese…

In this article, the author builds on McHenry and Heaths study of the "literate" and the "literary" and McHenry's research on "forgotten readers" by examining the often undocumented literacy traditions and practices of men and women of African descent. First, the author traces the legacy of blended traditions of both written and spoken words in…

This article offers a theoretical account of school literacy development that foregrounds the symbolic and social resources of childhood cultures. Drawing upon ethnographic data collected in an urban school site, this article illustrates how the playful childhood practices of a small group of young school children shaped their entry into school…

Maintains that the move from theorizing difference to dealing with difference in an intercultural collaboration creates generative conflicts for educators and students. Tracks the conflicting discourses, alternative representations, and political consequences the construct "Black English" had for black and white mentors, teenage writers, and…

Draws on an ethnographic study of four adolescent girls to examine how focal students comply with and resist official institutional expectations, how participation in the classroom is influenced by the underlife present within the school, and how a person's membership within groups regulates literate practices. Argues that students' performances…