The nature of literacy is discussed from the perspective of a tutor who teaches adults how to read and write. It is argued that: (1) the effects of literacy discussed in the literature do not differ qualitatively from the effects of language and (2) literacy is equivalent to skilled reading. (Author/MT)

Discusses Kenneth Burke's ideas regarding the rhetoric of form as a productive way to begin to conceptualize and analyze the rhetoric of form. Traces human forming from the level of tacit symbolic "fixing" through systematic "knowing" to the manipulating of technical forms for the purpose of evoking response. (JMF)

Examines the challenge posed by the naturalist philosophy of language--the view that the meanings of symbols are fixed by the environment. Compares the naturalist philosophy with that presented in an activist Native American essay that argues for the preservation of traditional native languages. (SRT)