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-Posted on behalf of Thomas Sticht, retired International Consultant in Adult Education and longtime supporter of adult learners all over the world-

Colleagues: One month from tomorrow, September 8, 2019 is International Literacy Day and then September 22-28, 2019 is Adult Education and Family Literacy Week. To celebrate adult literacy education during the month of September I am offering my 4th free lottery drawing of the year. In this 4th drawing you have a chance to win one of three important historical literacy artifacts:

1. A Replica of the Rosetta Stone: On October 14, 2005, I spoke at the British Library in London, England as part of a conference on adult basic skills education. Following the conference, I visited the British Museum and there I purchased a 12 inch by 10 inch faux stone replica of the Rosetta Stone, the original of which is on display in the British Museum. The Rosetta Stone contains the same message in three language scripts, including Greek, and was foundational in helping scholars learn to read and translate Egyptian hieroglyphs and hence gain access to the history of Egypt back over the centuries before the Common Era. This is a useful artifact for teaching about the history of writing and literacy as discussed in E. B. Huey’s 1908 classic book on the Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading. 

2. A Page Printed on the Gutenberg Press: Invented around 1439, Gutenberg's movable type printing press initiated a revolution in print technology and literacy. His press allowed manuscripts to be mass-produced at relatively affordable costs and become usable by the masses of people in learning to read. In 1979 I participated in a conference in Mainz, Germany, sponsored by Stiftung Lesen (German Reading Foundation). In a break in the conference I visited the Guttenberg Museum, also in Mainz, and was selected from the visiting crowd to step into the printing press area and to print a copy of a page from the original Guttenberg Bible. The page was given to me and it is this page that I am making available in this new drawing. Suitable for framing, this is another useful artifact for teaching about the history of writing and literacy.

3. A Set of Prints of WWII Film Strips Used for Reading Instruction: World War II saw the use of film media materials for teaching adults to read, including a 1943 film strip entitled Meet Private Pete which introduced 40 sight words. In this film strip, soldiers are introduced to Private Pete, a fictional soldier who is also learning to read. In a trip to speak in Washington DC a decade and a half ago I went to the National Archives, waited three hours for the frozen film strips to thaw out, and then printed out each of the frames of the 1943 film strip for reading. I presented some of these pictures in a poster session at a conference of the International Reading Association and have used them in workshops about the history of adult literacy education. It is this set of 40 film strip prints that I am giving away in this drawing for literacy artifacts.

If you would like to participate in this free drawing just send me an email (tgsticht@gmail.com) saying “enter me in the drawing” and include your snail mail address so in case you win I can mail the artifact to you. I will announce the winners on September 1, 2019 so winners can display or otherwise use the artifacts in celebrating  International Literacy Day and Adult and Family Literacy Week.

Like this drawing, my first three drawings each made three awards and the winners of these awards were:

  • Heidi R. Bacon, Assistant Professor of Language, Literacies, and Culture, College of Education and Human Services, Southern Illinois  University, Carbondale, Illinois.
  • Belinda Biscoe, Senior Associate Vice President for University Outreach, University of Oklahoma and Member of the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame 
  • Dena Giacometti, Program Director, Chicago Citywide Literacy Coalition 
  • Daphne Greenberg, Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of Adult Literacy, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia
  • Carol Rachfalski, Adult High School teacher, Cherry Hill, New Jersey
  • Thelma M. Regan, Director, Piscataquis Valley Adult Education Cooperative, Dover-Foxcroft, Maine
  • Donita Joy Shaw, Associate Professor, Literacy Education, Oklahoma State University, of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
  • Norman Stahl, Professor Emeritus at Northern Illinois University and Member of the international Reading Hall of Fame (a winner in both the 1st and 2nd drawings)

These previous winners are welcome to enter this new lottery drawing, too.

Tom Sticht, tgsticht@gmail.com

 

Comments

Hi, John. I double checked, and the email for Tom is, indeed, tgsticht@gmail.com. The info you posted includes much more that just the email. Maybe the link had extra info got added somehow. Please try again. Best wishes. Leecy.