1st Edition
Exploring and Expanding Literacy Histories of the United States A Spotlight on Under-Recognized Histories
Exploring and Expanding Literacy Histories of the United States brings together new scholarship and critical perspectives hitherto missing from dominant narratives to offer a racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse record of the history of American reading instruction. This book addresses the many important developments in the history of literacy in the United States that occurred outside of mainstream public education, in marginalized communities in and outside of traditional school contexts.
Instead of a “top-down” approach of prominent thinkers and theorists, the book intends to cover key blind spots, including literacy education in Indigenous nations, and how marginalized groups have fought for access to education, by applying a critical lens to the under-recognized histories of literacy.
This volume is essential reading for courses on History of Reading Education and Foundations of Literacy.
Chapter 1
Introduction to Literacy Histories in the United States
Samuel DeJulio and Leah Durán
Chapter 2
Mesoamerican Literacies: Ancient Writing Systems and Contemporary Possibilities
Robert T. Jiménez and Patrick H. Smith
Chapter 3
“Reading, and, Possibly, Writing”: Revisiting the History of the Williamsburg Bray School in Eighteenth-Century Virginia
Antonio T. Bly, Nicole Brown, and Julie Richter
Chapter 4
Hawaiians’ Phenomenal Rise to Literacy in the Early 19th Century: A Historical Elision
John Kalei Laimana Jr.
Chapter 5
Uyaqum Igai, an Indigenous Yugtun Writing System: What Was and What Might Have Been
Phyllis Morrow, Casey Jack, Montana Murphy and Joevahnta Usugan-Weddington
Chapter 6
La Batalla por el Idioma: Literacy Education and Puerto Rico’s Battle for Linguistic Self-Governance After the U.S. Occupation (1900–1949)
Margarita Rivera Santiago
Chapter 7
“Our Parents Believed that We Should Learn Spanish the Right Way”: Spanish Literacy as Resistance and Ideological Negotiation at Las Escuelitas
Enrique David Degollado
Chapter 8
Sustaining the Struggle: Literacy Sponsorship, Voting Rights, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Jaclyn Hilberg
Chapter 9
Conclusion
Leah Durán and Samuel DeJulio
Biography
Samuel DeJulio is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education in the department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His work is focused primarily on literacy teacher preparation and historical literacy research.
Leah Durán is an Associate Professor of Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies at the University of Arizona. A former bilingual teacher, her scholarship sits at the intersection of bilingual education, (bi)literacy, and early childhood education.
