The Ethnography of Literacy and Orality

The purpose of this course is to explore the ways in which ethnography has been used to study and problematize our notions of literacy and orality. After we review several articles describing the key issues that have led to the reconceptualization of the relationship between literacy and orality as autonomous, continuous, and dialectical entities, we will engage in an extended discussion of their reformulation by The New Literacy Studies Group as situated practices. We will conclude this segment of the course with James Collins and Richard K. Blott’s incisive critique of these theoretical models in Literacy and Literacies (2003). During the second half of the quarter, we will examine several articles that describe the methodology used in and the theory that informs current ethnographic research. In this context, we will read Ellen Cushman’s The Struggle and the Tools (1998) and Ralph Cintron’s Angels’ Town (1997), two recent ethnographic studies that investigate the rhetorics of oral and written language use among African Americans and Mexican immigrants, respectively. In addition to keeping a research journal and writing a midterm essay, each student will develop a final paper based on a pilot study that examines some aspect of spoken and/or written discourse in an area of personal interest.

Texts:

• Cintron, Ralph. Angels' Town: Chero Ways, Gang Life, and Rhetorics of the Everyday. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997.
• Collins, James, and Richard Blot. Literacy and Literacies: Texts, Power, and Identity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Cushman, Ellen. The Struggle and the Tools: Oral and Literate Strategies in an Inner City Community. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.
• Course Packet. (Available at Professional Copy N Print located at 4200 University Way NE.).