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I Can't Lie On Paper

Amoroso, Henry C., Jr. "On Becoming Literate: Personal Perspectives." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (68th, New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 1984).
Amoroso, Henry C.,Jr."Organic Primers for Basic Literacy Instruction." Journal of Reading; v28 n5 p398-401 Feb 1985
Amoroso, Henry C., Jr. "Commentary: Conversations with a New Literate." Journal of Reading; v29 n6 p484-88 Mar 1986
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I had never written my own story--stories belonged to others. This changed the day my son asked me to tell him about the authors who had influenced my thinking. I drew a blank. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the real influnces in my life had been my father, a school drop out, and my grandmother, an uneducated immigrant.
I extended the analysis to my reluctance as a reader and writer, and to my son's literacy. Our stories pointed to struggle. What could have gone wrong? . I needed to know.

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The Rationale____________

Like Howard Zinn, author of a People's History of the United States I believe history is written from an elitist perspective. Most historical accounts of schools focus on economic and instructional issues without paying attention to the lives of students or their parents on whom theories are dropped. That is why we need to consider the effects of school practices on people.
Consider tracking and testing. Frequently our well intended theories add up to unforeseen consequences. Did anyone warn us that standardized testing would be used against so many children? Are we smart enough or wise enough to avoid the same mistakes? Does anyone know how assessment will effect today's children? Without a historical perspective, sorting out unintended consequences is impossible. Yet horror stories abound.
I chose to examine school practices by chronicling the lives of my family across the twentieth century. Following the prologue, I drop back 100 years to sketch the character of my grandmother who came to this country without a formal education. Before long she found work in the mills of Lawrence Masachusetts. She married in 1910 but was widowed several years later with three small chldren .
Family life went on in the shadow of poverty and suffering I try to capture the hard life she led because her story inspired me as a child. Her plot includes the Lawrence strike, romance, and fictitious encounters with famous Americans. Right from the start I knew her story was special.