a literacy journal a little like us

Community Literacy Journal is a peer-reviewed journal from the United States of America. In some ways they seem similar to Literacies and in some ways, quite different.

Click here for a handy-dandy comparison chart.

They are certainly an important, and welcome, participant in the conversation.

Their mission is to "provide a place where community literacy workers and academics can share ideas, learn about activities and projects, discuss theory and practice, and share resources. ..." (read more).

They started in the Fall of 2006. They and publish two times a year. Their newest issue came out on January 25. Here is the Table of Contents:
Programming Family Literacy: Tensions and Directions
Story to Action: A Conversation about Literacy and Organizing
Rhetorical Witnessing: Recognizing Genocide in Guatemala
Rewriting Ideologies of Literacy: A Study of Writing by Newly Literate Adults
Repairing Inmates Through H.O.P.E.: Incarcerated Literacy and the Myth of Progressivism
Slipping Pages through Razor Wire: Literacy Action Projects in Jail

Looks amazing. They do not post their articles online but you can read summaries here. They have made their first issue available as a PDF file.

slow learning

It is snowing madly here this morning...winter wonderland! Beautiful now. A bit concerned about the forecasted ice pellets. But we can take it. You all know how intrepid Torontonians are when it comes to snowfall ;-)

In this neck of the literacy woods, programs have been offered chunks of end-of-year funding to be spent between February 1 and March 31 on 'rapid retraining' for people who have-been or are-about-to-be laid off because of restructuring.

Program workers who want to avail themselves of this face the challenge of developing a proposal in a few days and then creating a program, organizing resources, recruiting learners and retraining them rapidly - all this in 2 months. They will do it. We all know how intrepid literacy workers are. For real. No I-mean-this-ironically smiley face here.

But it will not be easy. As one program worker pondering this barrier-laden opportunity said, "Nothing rapid happens here."

Her comment made me laugh - a somewhat bitter laugh I must admit. And then it made me think about some discussions we had a while back about 'slow learning'. You can get a flavour of those discussions over at www.literacyenquirer.ca - click on lf podcast.

Have a great weekend. Slow down. Take it easy. It will all still be there Monday.