All my Essays In One Day: Commentary and Publicity via Emails

=Challenging traditional literacy

Published: 14 Nov 2010

Trinidad-born US-based writer and professor Joanne Kilgour Dowdy will in the next few months release Connecting the Literacy Puzzle.Co-edited with Dr Sandra Golden of Ohio the book will feature work from Eintou Springer, Nancy Herrera ALTA and internationally writers from Morrocco and Senegal.Kathy Dunn of the Kent State University reviewed an advance copy of the book.
Connecting the Literacy Puzzle weaves together a collection of biographies, essays, personal narratives, an interview, and poetry to form a tapestry of traditional and cultural literacies. Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, as editor, encompasses a broad definition of “being educated” rather than simply “being literate.”
African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and continental African women who participate in not only reading and writing, but in the performing arts as well, challenge the traditional Eurocentric definition of literacy.
Dr Sonja Fagerberg-Diallo fulfills her passion for literacy by working with Senegalese women and helping them learn to read and write in their native language-Pulaar. In her poem and her essay, Sandra Golden captures the spirit of the American Black woman growing up in a predominantly white society. Jen Pugh doesn’t speak Ebonics, but she wishes that she did.
Lawrence M Epps discusses the history of hip-hop and the negative portrayal of the African American female in the genre. An interview with Dowdy reveals her Trinidadian roots, her artistic fame, and her passion for teaching multiliteracies and “education in motion.”Queen Macoomeh writes a letter to young black women, advising them of proper behaviour in order to gain proper respect. She then translates the letter into the Trinidad dialect for an encore.
Professor Lillie Gayle Smith celebrates the role of the African American grandmother who helps rear her grandchildren and pushes them to excel academically. Diedre L Badejo in her narrative “Academe’s Gilded Stairway” traces her journey from New York City to Ghana to the academy. Along with those already mentioned a variety of other perspectives grace the pages of this fine edition that lauds the literate accomplishments of women across the globe.Available at HamptonPress.com
 

Joanne Kilgour Dowdy
Professor
Adolescent/Adult Literacy
Kent State University


I have an essay in here as well, entitled

In Recuperation: Revelation of Illiteracy in Trinidad & Tobago

            A Woman Writing Illiteracy