ABSTRACT
Schools are quintessentially literate institutions. They are literate institutions not only in virtue of the fact that they have a virtual monopoly over the teaching of the skills of reading and writing but also because they are organized by means of written documents —laws, mandates, curricula, texts, and tests. Thus, there are reasons beyond their specific responsibilities as to why schools are such predominantly literate institutions. First, they inherit some of this reliance on writing from the other literate institutions of the society as they provide the training needed for participating in those larger institutions, whether of science, literature, government, or the economy. Second, the history of school is a reflection of the historical development of a literate society. Third, schools in the modern age have become mass institutions, designed to deal with large numbers and consequently have developed group methods of instruction that put a new emphasis on writing as a convenient means of dissemination and surveillance, that is, for keeping track of the academic activity and learning of a large group of learners. Fourth, schools provide for the development of specialized cognitive competencies that are, arguably, by-products of learning to write and otherwise deal with the specialized genres of written language. And fifth, historical shifts in assumptions about the relation between writing and literacy altered the uses of texts and writing in the school. These five factors provide the structure for this chapter.
