This is a book for parents, teachers, and students who believe they have a right to share in the making of American educational policy. Its theme is the goals and means of critical (also called liberatory) pedagogy, specifically of reading and writing instruction in schools and colleges.
The book examines "representation" in the school world, how things are named in that world, who has authority to do the naming (and who doesn't), how different educational "stories" cast parents, teachers, and students in active or passive roles, and what rationales underlie the differences. Drawing on their twenty years each as composition teachers and writing program administrators, the authors critique alternative definitions of "literacy" in particular, ranged across the American political spectrum, in order to offer a way to examine the rhetoric of the literacy debate.
