Gallatin’s Sixth Annual Literacy Review Features Writers from 50 Countries

The travails of a food line in the former Soviet Union, Sunday matinees at a movie theater in the Dominican Republic, and a New York City fairy tale, “Little Red Riding in the Hood,” are a sample of the essays that make up the Literacy Review, an annual book of writing by adults in Basic Education, GED, and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) programs throughout New York City. 

      Now in its sixth year, the Literacy Review has five student editors and a 17-student editorial board and is also designed and photographed by Gallatin School of Individualized Study undergraduates. The Literacy Review has grown from an inaugural volume of 76 pages by 36 writers from 16 adult literacy sites to 120 pages by 63 writers from 31 sites. Contributors to Volume Six of the Literacy Review include authors who emigrated from 50 different countries as well as native New Yorkers.

      Serving as an editor on the Literacy Review requires enrollment in Gallatin’s “Literacy in Action” course, which provides a methodological and philosophical framework on adult education and includes volunteering at a designated adult education center in New York City. This year’s publication was coupled with an early May celebration and reading by more than 20 of the publication’s authors at Rosenthal Pavilion in NYU’s Kimmel Center for University Life.

      Supervised by June Foley, Gallatin’s writing program director, the book and celebration were funded by the Gallatin Writing Program, the NYU Office of Community Service, and Gallatin alumna Claire Morris Stern (B.A. ’89, M.A. ’98). 

      Gallatin provides free copies of The Literacy Review to any adult literacy site that requests them. The Writing Program’s Literacy Project also includes weekly courses in writing at University Settlement Society and the annual, all-day Literacy Review workshops in teaching writing to adults.

      For further information or a free copy of the Literacy Review, e-mail June Foley: jaf3@nyu.edu.

—James Devitt