Wow! eBook
Literacy and the Practice of Writing in the 19th Century: A Strange Blossoming of Spirit
Author(s): Ursula Howard (Author)
- Publisher: Natl Inst of Adult Continuing
- Publication Date: September 25, 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 349 pages
- ISBN-10: 1862015643
- ISBN-13: 9781862015647
Book Description
As a history of learning and literacy in 19th-century England, and based on documentary and qualitative evidence, this book explores people’s desire to learn, the ways they learned and practiced writing, and what writing meant for them at a time when there was little or no state education available. Those who learned and used writing skills had practices, purposes, and beliefs in common, including a consciousness of the social nature and purposes of learning, and the sense that writing skill is a powerful asset in enabling the development and exercise of human agency. Literacy and the Practice of Writing in the 19th Century therefore addresses questions which lie at the heart of much literacy scholarship. Are those people who cannot write less able to organize and change their lives? Is the ability to write fundamental to empowerment and self-realization, for individuals and for communities? If so, when and in which circumstances did this become the case? With its unique research, the book contributes original scholarship to the field of literacy studies and to the history of adult learning and education more widely.
