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Quote by Roseanna M. White

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The Collector of Burned Books

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Roseanna M. White

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“...Gabriel was a traveller. Not of the pith helmet and bamboo stick variety, nor even of the Baedeker guide and Gladstone bag kind, but a traveller in the mind, scaling the mountains of learning created by historians and philosophers, scientists and poets and novelists. The books in Number Four King's Bench Walk were friends into whose warm embrace he fell every evening and who held him until bedtime at half-past midnight every night. Few knew of these travels, since Gabriel read not to acquire knowledge, nor to impart it, but simply because he could not help himself.”

“The evidence that the gap is to some extent "built in" is certainly consistent with some of these observations. However, advocating alternative forms of literacy seems like poor advice given that print remains an essential medium, and reading skill (the traditional kind) continues to be a prerequisite for engagement with major institutions that greatly affect quality of life. Are alternative literacies a means to empower a minority population or to ensure their disenfranchisement? A bleeding-edge theory that creates additional barriers to print literacy or encourages opting out does not look like progress to me, a higher-SES white person who has benefitted from the traditional concept of literacy. Perhaps these options would be judged differently by parents for whom it has been an obstacle. More likely, they would not have a say in the matter because they would be unaware that this educational theory was being tried out on their children.”

“Teaching children to read has been superseded by an emphasis on developing literacy, which includes text, but also using sound, pictures, video, and other media. Reading as I've construed it is hardly a part of literacy in this sense, its role being comparable to spelling or typing. Yet the reading education part—helping children to become skilled readers, to be motivated to read, and to be able to comprehend and interpret texts for various purposes—is not easy.”