ABSTRACT
In Remembering Writing, Remembering Reading (1994), Deborah Brandt makes a distinction between literacy as a meaning-making activity1 and the meaning people hold and construct for literacy. She notes that studies that have emphasized literacy as a meaning-making activity overlook literacy as a meaningful practice: “These investigations have mostly focused on reading and writing as processes of meaning-making… Only incidentally might these studies consider how people make meaning of reading and writing” (p. 460). This distinction raises several questions. What does it mean to consider the meaning people make of their literacy practices? What meanings do people have for their literacy and how does it influence their practices? Where do these meanings come from? And what significance might this view of literacy have in terms of learning and teaching, specifically in high school language arts classes? In this chapter, I investigate these questions, focusing on the meanings of the literacy practices in a 12th-grade English class and on the meanings and uses that two students from this class make of written language.
