Literacy as Involvement: The Acts of Writers, Readers, and Texts

by Deborah Brandt

In Literacy as Involvement, Deborah Brandt examines the cultural and social roots of the acts of reading and writing. The book asks, for example, whether literacy is a natural growth of or a radical shift from orality. It questions the contrary views that literacy is either the learning of the conventions of language or is better understood as heightened social ability. Finally, it raises the possibility that knowing how to read and write is actually understanding how we respond during the acts of reading and writing. This examination of literacy as process is also offered as a critique of prevailing theories of literacy advanced by such scholars as Walter J. Ong, S.J., David Olson, and E. D. Hirsch. They depict literacy as a textual experience that is socially and linguistically detached. Brandt critically examines the underlying assumptions from research on writing processes and argues that they call for a major reformation of prevailing conceptions of literacy. Specifically, she analyzes several expository texts from a process perspective to establish the interaction of reader and writer in even the most seemingly formal and detached writing. In her conclusion, Brandt brings together the major findings of her study to address pressing literacy issues, including the problem of illiteracy in our schools.

172 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1990

Reviews

[sarah lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent book, provides great foundation for discussions on literacy. very much worth the read even though i struggled with it at times. it was so rewarding.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first chapter of Brandt’s book explores the basic principles of “strong-text theories” of literacy such as those forwarded by Walter Ong and Deborah Tannen (13), which she goes on to critique extensively. As Brandt puts it, “My aim is to look hard at the foundations of this antisocial view of literacy in order to offer a reformulation of the nature of literate language and the social processes that spawn it” (2). Whereas strong-text theories assume literate language is premised on decontextualization, anonymity, and autonomy, and that literate language is opposed to the radically contextual and situated nature of oral language. Instead, Brandt positions “intersubjectivity (the mutual recognition of the presence of the other) at the core of interpretation and meaning in literate as well as oral exchanges” (30). Instead of emphasizing the oral’s similarity to traditional conceptions of the written, Brandt focuses on the written’s analogues with the oral: “Texts shine back at writers and readers a developing allegiance to a common orientation” (57). Written acts bespeak a consensual “weness,” indicative that their fundmental meaning is at the level of performative involvement between reader and writer rather than a decontextualized meaning based on content. After examining the writing of “expert” and “novice” student writers, as well as sports journalism and academic writing, Brandt uses her theory of literacy as involvement to challenge those who claim a “literacy crisis” in American education based on strong-text theories of literacy. She argues that, “for literacy learning to proceed,” students must be granted membership in academic communities, and notes the complementary importance of “broadening the base of ... [definitions of] ‘standard’ [literacy] itself--a change that is necessary to realize genuinely pluralistic institutions and a pluralistic democracy” (120, 124).

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could we collapse speech and communication and composition again? The interrelationality of orality and literacy suggests a cross-disciplinary project, but how would it look now that the split has been made, with departments being very pedagogically, disciplinarily and often geographically separated? A class would perhaps have to be team-taught. And yet most of my FCY colleagues (and I myself) include a presentation component to our classes. What we don’t do is to make the talking and the writing integrated. We treat them like separate units instead of making the explicit connection between then at all parts of the writing process. Perhaps in the Writing Centers this connection is more intuitive.