Kristie Hofelich
Annotated Bibliography: Literacy
Due: September 13, 2006
English 660, Dr. Chandler
Included in the introduction of the recent article we read from Elizabeth McHenry was a comment on African-American writing that has been very beneficial to my study for this bibliography: “stories of the early 19th century black literacy are presented as the rare cases of a few individuals, the extent of whose literacy was the basic utility to read and write. And one need only look as far into the past as the 1992 New York Times headline, ‘Publishers agree that black people don’t read,’ to see that black readers have remained largely invisible even in our own country” (Callaloo 477). This comment helped to guide my research in that it affirmed what I had already suspected: the representation of the African-American literacy narrative and other writings is terribly lacking throughout the history of the United States, even in modern times, compared to those of other races and/or ethnic backgrounds. We seem to only skim the surface when searching for these accounts, when in reality, whole literary communities have existed among African Americans dating back to the pre-emancipation era. For this bibliography, I looked for texts that discussed this issue both historically, and in current times, and also texts that represented both male and female African Americans. (Note: these are presented in the order in which I discovered them, not by alphabetical order. I hope this is not a problem!)
1.) Bassard, Katherine Clay. “The Daughters' Arrival: The Earliest Black Women's Writing Community.” Callaloo, Vol. 19, No. 2, Emerging Women Writers: A Special Issue. (Spring, 1996), pp. 508-518.
This article discusses at length the fact that black women had a voice, even before slavery was abolished. She evidences this by speaking of those “firsts” that we often read in any study of African-American literature, such as Phyllis Wheatley, Harriet E. Wilson, and Ann Plato, but also brings in the discussion of literary communities among black women. Bassard says that these literary circles of women often began with correspondence, which was unreliable at best. In this correspondence, women often began by telling their own stories, in narrative form, of how they came to be literate and able to write letters at all. The article is interesting, but it left me wanting more evidence; I wanted to read something beyond Phyllis Wheatley’s short letters to her female friend.
2.) Braxton, Joanne M. Black Women Writing an Autobiography: A Tradition within a Tradition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989.
This is an illuminating, though dense, text in which Braxton takes examples of slave narratives, autobiographies, spiritual narratives, travel logs, and even adventure stories written by African American women and gives her thoughts on the historical significance of each. Writers such as Harriet Jacobs, Rebecca Cox Jackson, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth are represented in the text, and many well-known writers have reviewed the book favorably as well (i.e. Maya Angelou). Braxton argues that the genre of African American slave and literacy narratives is too narrow to make the appropriate amount of room for writings such as the ones she has included; African American women have a very large offering of stories and autobiographies that describe their fights to become literate and free which should exist in a genre of their own entirely. I had no idea there was so much writing out there from this under-represented group of women, especially from as early as the early 19th century, which serves to confirm the assertion I have used in my introduction as a guide to this bibliography: this type of literature is often not defined as such, thus it gets lost under the larger umbrella of “slave narrative.”
3.) Sisco, Lisa. “Writing in the spaces left: Literacy as a process of becoming in the narratives of Frederick Douglass.” ATQ. Sep95: Vol. 9, Issue 3. P195, 37p.
Obviously, one of the most widely-read and well-known literacy narratives of a black, male slave is Frederick Douglass’ Narrative and later My Bondage and My Freedom. This piece of criticism examines the way he portrays himself in the narratives, and discusses the constraints under which he was writing, much like the article we recently read from Wilson Moses. The article goes into the aims of the narratives of Frederick Douglass, as propaganda for the anti-slavery movement, and later as a way for Douglass to build himself up as more of a literary writer with My Bondage and My Freedom. Sisco points out that the struggle for freedom was interwoven with the struggle for literacy, because slaves learned to see the two as needing each other; one did not necessarily exist without the other. This article supports my original purpose for this exercise well because it shows that Douglass’ accounts are well-known only because they were picked up by the abolitionists and distributed for a cause.
4.) Steinberg, Marc. “Inverting History in Octavia Butler's Postmodern Slave Narrative.” African American Review. Fall 2004: Vol. 38, Issue 3. P.467-476, 10p.
Steinberg chooses to look at Octavia Butler’s Kindred as following the slave narrative format, albeit a post-modern twist on the antebellum classic style, and spends ten pages talking about how she writes in a way that suggests heavily that things haven’t really changes much over the course of time. Butler illustrates this by writing her story in a way that could easily fall in the genre of fantasy; she adopts a sense of time that is cyclical, rather than linear, as Steinberg points out in the article. This deviates from my theme in a way; though Kindred explores the slaves’ fight for literacy, it is more a neo-slave narrative, not one that tells of the protagonist’s struggle to become literate. However, this piece falls under my research topic because it serves to further illustrate my point: African American literacy narratives and other similar writings are still under-represented in American culture today, just as they were in times when slavery was legal. Steinberg makes it the point of this article to reiterate Butler’s goal in writing Kindred: slavery still exists in the sense that African Americans are still dealing with issues of oppression in today’s time.
5.) Laird, Susan. “Recapitulating?” http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-Yearbook/1998/laird.html.
Laird’s essay on the novel Push, which of course we read for this class, is quite illuminating as to the significance Sapphire’s story holds in modern culture. Although the essay is written in response to a book written by someone else entirely, the majority of it discusses the profound effect Push had on Laird, and others who have read it. For this reason, I though it beneficial to read and to include in this bibliography; Push represents a new way for the classic African American literacy narrative, which is rooted in slavery, to emerge in the modern era as a representation of the same struggle to learn to read, write and communicate effectively. Laird points out that the New York school system failed and ignored Precious, the main character, just as the institution of slavery kept people like Frederick Douglass down in the darkness of being illiterate for many years.
6.) Williams, Bronwyn T. “Heroes, rebels, and victims: Student identities in literacy narratives.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Dec 2003/Jan2004: Vol. 47, Issue 4. P.342-345, 4p.
This article served to make me aware, as a future teacher, of ways in which I can help the situation which I have described briefly in my introductory paragraph; I can help to encourage young people of color to realize the need to capture their own history and to portray their own literacy narratives to the world through writing. I was moved by this article in a major way because it showed me a possible solution to the problem which has guided my research. Williams writes about how he has seen the positive effect writing about the process of becoming literate can help children and adolescents to define themselves as people, to capture their own cultural backgrounds through the written and spoken word. For some students, even in today’s time, they may be the first one in their immediate family to learn to read and write, as sad as that sounds. Telling this story, sharing it with others, can only help to make a positive impact on communities throughout this country, and to spread awareness that the struggle still exists.
7.) Beyan, Phyllis Belt. The Emergence of African American Literacy Traditions: Family and Community Efforts in the Nineteenth Century. Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2004.
I found this book to be an interesting portrayal of the African American literacy narrative and the acquisition of literacy in general because it places the focus on the community’s role for its people. In this context, it makes much more sense to me that the writings weren’t widely published and the group as a whole is extremely under-represented in the traditional literary canon. Because much of the acquisition of literacy and writing among African Americans took place within a close knit community of like people, and the opportunity to share the stories that arose from the experience were limited by the constraints of slavery and social inequality, it makes perfect sense that I, along with most suburban white folks, wouldn’t have heard much about the writings at all. The book goes further into the discussion of the community aspect to literacy acquisition by saying that certain literary traditions have historically been created within these groups of African Americans, and the traditions are important to African Americans as a whole race. The traditions of literacy help to define them as people, to give them an identity, which they can share with others of different and like races/ethnic backgrounds.
8.) Thompson, Gail L. What African American Parents Want Educators to Know. Westport, Conn.: Praegar. May 2003.
Near and dear to my heart is the issue of educating all students in an authentically, culturally responsive way and that is the very reason I chose to include this as my last reference. This book is based upon the schooling experiences of African American children in today’s time in learning to read, write and comprehend. The portrayal of African American children’s acquisition of literacy is most often negative as a result of the “achievement gap” that so often gets referenced. I believe the purpose for the text by Thompson was to get real answers from real African American parents about the goals they have for their children’s literacy and schooling, and to give real solutions to parents, teachers, and administrators for improving the methods for learning and language acquisition. Without this type of empirical study, the current literacy traditions among African Americans may not be carried on for decades to come, because awareness of the new (and old!) difficulties involved in the acquisition of literacy may dissipate. This is why books like Thompson’s and even novels like Push are so beneficial to society as a whole.
