A NEW LITERACY PRACTICE EVOLVED FROM THE COFFEE SHOP

Ironically, it was in the coffee shop and not the classroom where the students acquired a new literacy practice. What supported this and why did the coffee shop become the setting in which a new practice was learned as opposed to the classroom, which focused on literacy development? The coffee shop was the key learning setting in the employment preparation program. It was the setting in which literacy came to life, and where literacy skills and tasks turned into literacy practices. The coffee shop had a structure that mirrored participation in a community of practice: there was a clear learning purpose, in which students were engaged in real activities; newcomers were assisted and trained by oldtimers through direct teaching, and modeling; there was a safe and supportive environment, in which students worked in a collaborative manner, supporting each other and learning from each other; and progress was measured in a variety of ways.

Developing literacy in relation to real activities

Reading recipes was an important part of the coffee shop, but it also became a new literacy practice in the lives of all but one of the students. There are important key features of the activity that could lead to further understanding of the role that a program can have in helping students develop new literacy practices. Reading recipes was an activity that could easily slip into a student's home life because it was welcomed and encouraged at home, it had a cultural fit, it was associated with a practical task that the student was already able to do, it had immediate results, and it was not static. When the students talked about taking recipes from the coffee shop and using them at home, most said their children or other family members reacted with enthusiasm towards their efforts. For most of the students, cooking and baking fit in with cultural expectations of their role in the home, and they were not attempting to introduce a culturally unexpected practice. The literacy skills needed to read the recipe supported practical, hands-on skills that the students already had. The students knew how to bake and cook; they were simply expanding their abilities by adding literacy. In this way, the literacy practice became a tool that supported an activity that was already part of daily routine. In addition, their established practical skills allowed them to monitor and self–correct their newer literacy skills. They had an idea of what a measured amount should look like even if they were not as confident reading 1½ on paper. In addition, they had gained enough knowledge about expected ingredients to decipher confusing words: Was the cookie recipe asking for "raisins", "raising" or "rain"? The depth of the students' practical knowledge supported their more tentative literacy knowledge. Finally, the literacy skills that were learned to read the recipe could be repeated in other recipes. Once students had learned to read measurements, abbreviations, and key action words like "fold", "mix," and "stir", they could use this knowledge when reading different kinds of recipes. One small set of literacy skills could be used over and over to produce new results. Can this analysis of recipe reading be used to understand the supports, conditions, and criteria needed to help students develop other kinds of new literacy practices in their daily lives? In addition, what happens when some of these supports are missing, when the literacy practice is not a cultural fit or is not encouraged?