ACL 225 — Adult Literacy Practices
This interdisciplinary survey course introduces students to the role that the multiliteracies play in both the private and social lives of adults. Students will explore the relationships between adults’ identities, personal experiences, social worlds, and their literacy practices, examining how literacy practices help adults build community, engage in personal growth and exploration, acquire cultural capital, and engage in leisure and pleasure. Students will also critically analyze how access to organizational literacies (e.g., workplace, senior care) shape adults’ personal agencies, identities, communities, and access to social capital and power. Interrogating and troubling a broad range of ideologies about adult literacy, students will also explore how adults utilize literacy skills and practices to access their voices, dissent or resist, and advocate for social change. Special attention will be paid to empathically understanding the role that literacy practices play in the private and social lives of seniors.