[AAACE-NLA] Framing adult literacy arguments

[AWilder106@aol.com]

George,

There are two problems here.

One is  coming up with a way of framing an argument that is brief and has immediate impact to the listener or reader.  It needn't be PR, meaning "kind of phony," or "not matching some more thought out reality."  It  should in fact be considered an essence, rather than a reduction.  (Though in cooking you reduce in order to get  the  essence.)

Tom's phrase, "From the margins to the mainstream" is just such a reductive and essential phrase.  We know what margins are and we know what mainstream is.  Margins = cast aside, marginalized; mainstream = where we want all students to be.  "To mainstream" has become a verb.

Tom's phrase is useful because it resonates with many associations in the hearers' minds.  Ideally, any phrase does that--like "bootstrap" does, though anti-gravitational, it does suggest people who get going to achieve somethng on their own.

David ditched "deserving" because it suggested "undeserving," and we don't want to divide learners up like that.

What we need is a message to tap into already formed associations.  Then, if someone says, "Hmmm.  I think I know what that means, but could you explain it more to me..." away we go. It could be argued (but I won't) that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," launched a new country in certain clear directions; or it is merely an expression of what people were thinking about already.  In any case, that phrase is certainly mainstream for Americans.

Two, these two weeks were set aside for you to talk about your  work, and I'm sure you want to do more of that, so I will retire on this issue and get back  to my own immediate concerns.  There are a ton of people on the list who are more adept at these arguments  than I am, and for sure more thinkers who can "think outside the box."

Andrea