ABSTRACT
In their introduction to Contending with Words, Patricia Harkin and John Schilb argue that the literacy crisis in America during the 1970s was defined by critics as a failure on the part of American colleges and universities to teach writing and reading in ways that were consistent with conventional values (3). The mere existence of a literacy crisis is nothing new, for critics have been identifying literacy crises since 1870, and the coupling of literacy crises and American educational institutions is not surprising; in fact, some have argued that the most recent literacy crisis is more the result of the appropriation of literacy by educational institutions and a meritocratic social order and less an actual decline, whatever that may look like, in the literacy practices of Americans (Ohmann, “Literacy” 217; Trimbur 294).
