Many literacy practitioners recognize language also excludes those who are poor. The goal of a critical pedagogy will be to teach adults to read and write language, all the while being cognizant that language is subjective and has the power to shape reality. How can we justify teaching literacy learners a language from which they have been excluded.

We know that it is "crazy-making" if our experiences are misnamed or if there are no names for our experiences. Chris Weedon says that, "What an event means to an individual depends on the ways of interpreting the world, on the discourses available to her at any particular moment" (1987, p. 79). For example, what language describes the events in your life if you are a single mother on benefits who has a female partner/lover? Are you a housewife? Are you a working mother? How do you see/describe yourself compared with how others see/describe you? Where are you represented in your children's readers that depict "family" life?

This experience of going through life and not finding your experiences represented is what literacy learners experience. It is powerful when literacy learners get together in groups and name their experiences. We have learned from feminism of the power of getting together with other people who think and speak the same as you do: when your experiences are affirmed you know you are not crazy.

It is true that language experience stories told by learners to tutors are part of good pedagogy. The stories create effective learning exercises for literacy students. They may also be shared with other learners because they are good learning materials. Learners find these stories interesting when they see their own struggles reflected. Because the language of learners is used in the stories they are easy to read. Language experience stories can also provide a source of inexpensive and creative reading material where materials are direly needed.

But these stories, if they are part of critical pedagogy, will also have another dimension. This dimension will reflect the intention to bring learners' language into the public sphere. It is within this sphere that the stories demonstrate their power and they make visible the class, race and gender bias in language.

It is a transformative act to document learners lives: to publish oral histories and to bring them into the public realm. Through this act we are challenging what is considered to be literature. In part, literature is considered "good" because it accurately reflects the experiences of its readers. Historically literature has been primarily the domain of a male white elite and what passes as good literature is what accurately reflects their experiences.

Two instances where learners' stories challenge the common conception of "literature" come from literacy programs. In one example from Britain, literacy practitioners sought government funding reserved for the "arts" to publish student writing. In doing so they asserted that the stories of working class writers are literature. This challenge to what counts as literature forced the funding body to articulate why the working-class stories were not literature. In doing so they revealed the class-based nature of that which is recognized as "literature" (Maguire et al., 1982).

Our second example is from a community-based literacy program in downtown Toronto. East End Literacy published some of their learners' stories as part of a reading series for literacy learners. A recent book launching for a story about a woman who was physically abused and sterilized was a major celebration. This public event, which hundreds of people attended, presented the learner as author, not as poor literacy learner. This challenged our notion of who creates literature in our society and allowed us to see literacy learners as story-tellers and authors of words.

East End Literacy's practice of encouraging learners to take on the rigorous work of authoring also acts as a catalyst for their learners working together in groups. They take ownership over the production process when they write and edit stories together. Teams of learners work on many of the stages of the production process. In this collective process of producing print materials about their lives learners share their experiences and find a language to speak together.

In conclusion, we no longer feel disheartened by the superintendent's words but are challenged by them. This is because they lead us to a process of discovering how our voices can speak the meaning of our words. This article, which was inspired by numerous discussions with feminist colleagues working in literacy, begins that process. As practitioners we have a strong commitment to working for social change. As feminists we know any theory will have to reflect our experiences and articulate our goals. When search for the meaning in what we do we build the theoretical basis for developing a critical literacy practice.

References

Goodman, K. Language and Literacy: The Selected Writings of Kenneth S. Goodman. Ed. F. Gollasch. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.

Maguire, P., Mills, R., Morley, D O'Rourke, R., Shrapnel, S., Worpole K. & Yeo, S. The Republic of Letter Working Class Writing and Local Publishing. London: Comedia Publishing Group, 1982.

Smith, F. Reading Without Nonsense. New York: Teachers College Press, 1978.

Spender, D. Man Made Language. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

Weedon, C. Feminist Practice and Post-structuralist Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.

Weiler, K. Women Teaching for Change: Gender, Class & Power. Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey, 1988.

Elaine Gaber-Katz and Jenny Horsman are feminist literacy practitioners from Toronto who have collaborate Dona number of different literacy projects. They facilitated an evaluation of the Community Literacy Program in which Elaine was working. Together they co-chaired the Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy for several years. Now they've begun to write together.