Issues in learner-centred curriculum go beyond student writing, of course. There are other forms of putting learner-centred materials into place, for example in "thematic" approaches to curriculum,145 which develop reading and writing as means of approaching practical questions of finding employment, raising children, renting housing, and so forth. This raises, among other questions, the issue of how student writing is related to other distinct forms of written material — such as bureaucratic documents and forms, or newspapers and other sources of public discussion — which involve distinct activities of reading and writing, and distinct bodies of background knowledge. Pedagogical experimentation and theorizing is necessary to clarify how "learning from experience" can address these distinct forms of written material.146

Related questions arise in workplace literacy, where experimentation and negotiation are under way to find balances between machine- or job-specific reading and writing, and a broader literacy encompassing not only job performance, but also questions of health and safety, union participation, and general education.

A number of programs across the country offer mother tongue literacy teaching.147 Some do so as a matter of general political principle — that people have a right to develop literacy skill in their own language; or pedagogical principle — that developing strong literacy skills in one's first language is the best basis for subsequent learning. Other practitioners understand mother-tongue literacy as a defence of indigenous and official languages (which, although endangered, still have possibilities of surviving across generations).148 The underlying principles need extensive discussion, and experiences in these programs should be documented.

145 As developed in British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education and Job Training, Adult Basic Literacy Curriculum Guide and Resource Book, Victoria, 1987, or Ministére de l'éducation du Québec, Guide de formation sur mesure en alphabétisation, Montréal, 1988 (its forthcoming English version is called A Guide to Customized Literacy Training).
146 Cf. Richard Darville, "The Language of Experience and the Literacy of Power," in Maurice C. Taylor and James A. Draper (eds.), Adult Literacy Perspectives, Toronto, Culture Concepts, 1989, 25-40; and Franca van Alebeek and Tineka Krol, "Research Behind a Language Textbook for Adults in Basic Education," in Jean-Paul Hautecoeur (ed.), Alpha 90: Current Research in Literacy, Montréal, Direction générale de l'éducation des adults, Ministére de l'éducation du Québec, 1990, 239-59.
147 For example, Québec offers mother tongue instruction in Spanish for Latin American immigrants, in Creole for immigrants from Haiti, and in Inuktituk and Cree for aboriginal people. The Toronto Board of Education sponsors a Multilingual Literacy Centre that offers mother tongue literacy instruction in Portuguese, Spanish, Urdu and Punjabi. The Northwest Territories provides literacy programs in English and six aboriginal languages. Francophone programs in some predominantly anglophone parts of Canada strengthen the French linguistic community while developing literacy skills. English literacy programs in Québec can be viewed in the same light.
148 Two-thirds of First Nations have languages that are endangered (less than half of young people speak the language), declining (less than half of adults speak the language and there are few young speakers), or critical (there are few living speakers). Assembly of First Nations, Towards Linguistic Justice for First Nations, Ottawa, 1990.