Received: from cal.org (cal.org [204.240.146.10]) by literacy (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA17930 for <nifl-esl@literacy.nifl.gov>; Thu, 19 Dec 1996 14:29:12 -0500 (EST) Received: from CAL-Message_Server by cal.org with Novell_GroupWise; Thu, 19 Dec 1996 14:32:44 -0500 Message-Id: <s2b9520c.002@cal.org> X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 14:27:59 -0500 From: Fran Keenan <fran@cal.org> To: nifl-esl@literacy.nifl.gov Subject: crosspost:multiliteracies Status: RO X-Status: Juliet Merrifield, formerly director of the Center for Literacy Studies at the University of Tennessee, posted the following yesterday (12/18) to the NLA (National Literacy Advocacy) list. It is copied here with her permission. I thought it raised some interesting points about how we view and how we portray adult learners. (FK) Juliet wrote: I've always felt that people answered the NALS [National Adult Literacy Survey] question quite honestly, about their reading and writing being adequate in their daily lives, and that in fact, that question is the most interesting finding of NALS. In some ethnographic research on literacy, done by the center I used to work for, we found that people with very limited formal education and people who had a first language other than English, had quite extensive "literacy strategies"-- that is, strategies for dealing with literacy tasks and demands in their everyday lives. These included the ones Hanna Fingeret had earlier described (having a "reader," using technology, memorizing) and others. They valued and wanted more education for an assortment of reasons (a better job, to read books, to help their children, etc.), but actually literacy wasn't a major handicap in their everyday lives most of the time. The problem is, and this is at the core of what this list [NLA] has been struggling with here lately, the ethnographic understanding of literacy as "multiliteracies" doesn't make good press. It seems that literacy activists are always torn between screaming there's a crisis, and throwing numbers around, which is what it takes to squeeze even our very limited funding out of government and other funders, and what we really know from our work with adult literacy learners. That is, that these are resourceful, intelligent, capable people, who just don't read and write [and/or speak English, I would add. FK] very well, and who would like to do it better. Anyone who wants to think more about multiliteracies and their implications for teaching, learning, society, could look at an article in the Harvard Education Review by the New London Group, called "A pedagogy of mulitliteracies: Designing social futures." It's in the Spring 1996 issue, p. 60 f. I recommend it (doesn't have an adult ed focus though). Juliet Merrifield Brighton, England julietmerr@aol.com
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