Literacy Foundations

Catalog description

This course presents historical, cognitive, sociological, linguistic, cultural, and developmental perspectives on literacy. We will examine four conceptual models—a skills-based approach, critical literacy, sociocultural frameworks, and ideological models. Our historical survey will include the shapes of manuscripts and books during the past one thousand years, various types of writing systems used in different cultures, and the evolution of reading & writing from relatively rare skills to everyday practices that most people acquire at a young age (in many different cultures).