CINDY: This online project focuses on
documenting and preserving the
personal literacy narratives. In the
literacies of communities through
project, we describe why first-hand
narratives are very useful vehicles for
documenting the literacies of a
community, and we offer a blueprint for
working with community members: helping
people record their first-hand accounts
about reading and composing, talking
about the roles such activities play in
their lives, and preserving those
narratives in the Digital Archive of
Literacy Narratives, the DALN. For the
purposes of this iTunes project, we also
offer an example: a case study class
entitled "The Literacy Narratives of
Black Columbus," which was taught at Ohio
State University and focused on the
literacy practices and values in
African-American communities and
churches in Columbus Ohio. From 2009 to
2012, this case study course was taught
as a second level writing class at Ohio
State University, one that was fashioned
in collaboration with local leaders,
community members, undergraduate and
graduate students, and Ohio State
University's African and African Studies
Community Extension Center. This case
study course was designed to document
and preserve the literacy narratives of
black citizens in Columbus Ohio, stories
told in their own words, based on their
own experiences and histories, and
documented for their own purposes. We
think this course offers an example that
other communities and groups can explore
in preserving their stories. Now the goal
of this online project is to encourage
other people to take the bones of the
course that we've taught at Ohio State
University and to modify the framework
to suit other community literacy
projects, projects that are defined by
local interests, local neighborhoods,
towns, and communities. We also want to
encourage others to use the Digital
Archive of Literacy Narratives to
preserve these literacy stories. Such
projects are going to differ widely
depending on the
local context within which they happen,
the needs of the communities of which
they are a part. So we encourage you to
use your own talents and modify these
materials. We encourage individuals to
use and modify any of the materials in
the project for the purposes of your own
projects, attributing this iTunes course
appropriately. In this section, we will
describe what a literacy narrative is,
and we'll provide some examples of such
narratives. We'll also talk about the
Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives,
the DALN, as a repository for such
narratives. We'll also explore the
challenges of working with and for
community partners. And we'll think about
how to prepare volunteers or students to
undertake such a project. We'll also
discuss the forms and the scheduling and
the logistics involved in such a course,
and we'll give some hints about
uploading literacy narratives to the DALN
so they can be preserved for history.