Contribution from David Barton (ecologies of literacy)

This morning, I'm reading the chapter "Public Definitions of Literacy" in David Barton's book, Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language. As I'm reading, I'm thinking that this would be an excellent chapter to ask students to read early on in a WAW course to get them thinking about the question: What is literacy or what is writing? The chapter unpacks common misconceptions about literacy--or what Barton sees as misconceptions. Specifically, it focuses on the skills and cultural literacy views--but there is a lot more in it that is of use.

Because students have internalized these "public definitions of literacy" and because they guide their thinking about literacy, asking them to read this chapter and interrogate these assumptions could be enormously useful in framing the start of a WAW course.