Description
Book SynopsisThis book brings together theoretical and practical debates from adult literacy and language education with those of creative writing and community publishing work. Illustrated by accounts of first-hand experience, each chapter focuses on the practical business of achieving good learning and development opportunities for women and men of all ages. Whether working with refugees seeking confidence in spoken English, elderly people reflecting on life experience, or basic education students wishing to 'improve' their literacy, the principle with which the writers are engaged is that of democracy — a process which has lessons both uncomfortable and exciting for educators, as well as for learners. In direct opposition to current imperatives to standardisation and 'standards', the writers in this book argue for the effectiveness of deeper and more generous approaches to literacy and language: approaches which are at the heart of the community publishing movement in the UK. As Judy Wallis puts it: I am not arguing that the teaching of formal skills should be abandoned. Adult Basic Education students know better than anyone that it is important to spell correctly and to write in Standard English because people will discriminate against those who can't... The issue is not whether students need to acquire formal writing skills, but how they can acquire them most successfully.
Table of ContentsNotes on the Authors
Jane Mace: Introduction
SECTION I: WRITERS, PUBLISHING AND LEARNING
1. Stella Fitzpatrick: Sailing out from Safe Harbours: Writing for Publishing in Adult Basic Education
2. Rebecca O'Rourke: Can't, Won't or Don't: Readers and Writers in Adult Education
3. Michael Hayer and Alistair Thomson: Working with Words: Active Learning in a Community Writing and Publishing Group
SECTION II: FUNCTION AND CREATION
4. Judy Wallis: 'You Can't Write Until You Can Spell': Attitudes to Writing amongst Adult Basic Education Students
5. Helen Sunderland: Working on Writing with Refugees
6. Patricia Duffin: Writers in Search of an Audience: Taking Writing from Personal to Public
7. Jane Mace: Reminiscence as Literacy: Intersections and Creative Moments
SECTION III: LANGUAGE CHOICES AND INTENTIONS
8. Roxy Harris: Disappearing Language: Fragments and Fractures Between Speech and Writing
9. Wendy Moss: Controlling or Empowering? Writing Through a Scribe in Adult Basic Education
10. Sav Kyriacou: Oral History and Bilingual Publishing
11. Sean Taylor: Improving on the Blank Page
