This term, I am fortunate enough to be in Dean Keen’s Capstone class on ‘Literature in Action’ where, each week, we read a book on the role and power of literature on modern day society. The class is a culmination of the English Major at Washington and Lee University and ends with a 20+ page research paper on a topic of our choice about a book that was published in the United States. In the first week of class, Dean Keen had us explore the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN) and write our own literacy narrative (click here for a link to their website). What is the DALN?
The DALN is a collection of narratives from people of different races, gender, ethnicities, economic backgrounds, life goals etc. (a true melting pot) that is concerned with one thing: the documentation of the experience and importance of books and reading on peoples lives. These narratives serve as a historical documentation of the role of books in every aspect of a person’s life and is available to the public. Each person’s narrative can be in a variety of formats: “music, photos, diaries, blogs, letters, stories, poetry, speeches, sermons, videos, school papers, chat room exchanges, text messages, gaming profiles, zines, sound recordings, ETC!” It represents the culmination of past and present technologies that express the connection of stories to humans and collects them all in one website that serves as a time capsule on the impact of stories on modern human existence.
The book The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottshall tells how the story, the land of “make-believe,” impacts human development and existence. It was a very enlightening read for me to put the narratives in DALN in perspective and see the impact of stories and imagination on humanity. Take the time to go and read a literacy narrative on DALN, click here to get to their website!
I highly recommend that you read the Q&A with a woman named Rhonda to get a feel for the sheer emotion and poignancy of some of these narratives. Rhonda talks about how her dyslexic, high school dropout brother Jeff taught her how to read at a college level by the time she was 10. I put to you the same question that the DALN asked Rhonda: “Just say your name and tell your story… Do you have a story about literacy?”