Writing a Community

Abstract

This chapter examines community writing, the most direct evidence in the newspapers of community literacy practices. Because each paper relied on local correspondents to write in with news from far-flung communities, the correspondent columns offer a glimpse into what local writers viewed as particularly important events. In these reports, there is ample representation of literacy practices, and the attention with which these are reported illustrates the value placed on literacy in these communities. The chapter also considers how the correspondents interacted with one another and with the editor. The editors served as recruiters and enablers of literacy, to use Deborah Brandt’s terms, but also as suppressors who ultimately exercised control over what correspondents could say in print.