Institutionalizing literacy

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In this book, Mary Trachsel discusses how college entrance examinations have served as an instrument for the academic institutionalization of literacy. By considering the interaction of educational, political, institutional, technological, regional, and economic forces at work in the academy's definition of literacy, she argues that entrance examinations chart a change of view from literacy as achievement to literacy as aptitude. Trachsel begins her study by outlining current theory on literacy. She identifies two separate approaches to the task of defining literacy: a "formal" approach that explains literacy as an exclusively academic activity and a "functional" approach that lies in basic opposition to mainstream academic values and practices. Trachsel then examines testing as an academic practice that enforces a primarily formal definition of literacy. In presenting a thorough documentation of historical developments in entrance examinations in English, she notes that while these examinations originated in academic departments of English, they have long since been taken over by bureaucratic agencies the values and goal of which are at odds with the concept of literacy upheld by the professional community of English studies scholars and teachers. In her final chapter, Trachsel presents a critique of present-day English studies. She illustrates her critique with a historical consideration of entrance examinations in English, providing samples of actual test questions which indicate the larger ideological struggles that form the history of English studies. In voicing her co…

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