Speaker Series: Cynthia Selfe

Join us Tuesday, October 20 at 4 p.m. in the African American Culture Room (4.110) of the Texas Student Union to hear Cynthia Selfe deliver a talk entitled "Stories That Speak to Us: The Intellectual and Social Work of Literacy Narratives and Digital Archives."

This talk focuses on autobiographical literacy narratives from the Digital Archives of Literacy Narratives (DALN) and demonstrate the informational value of these vernacular digital accounts for students and teachers of composition, as well as members of the public. The DALN is a national archive of autobiographical recollections about how individuals learn to read and write; the conditions under which they continue to do so; and the influences and values which shape their literate practices. The DALN, like the Mass Observation project in Britain, depends on the voluntary contributions of individuals and traces the "everyday literacy practices of ordinary people" which often remain invisible in our culture—especially during times of dynamic change (Sheridan, Street, Bloome). These first-hand social media accounts—which exist in a variety of digital formats (e.g., print, video, audio) and are accessible to members of the public through a Web-based interface—constitute a valuable digital resource for research on literacy, for the teaching of composition, and for the public.