It never occurred to me before how different cultures use their oral traditions for such different purposes.The folks of Roadville used their stories to build up a sense of community and camaraderie. In Trackton however, stories were told to promote one's self. I also found it interesting how these two communities viewed what they considered "good stories" so differently. In Roadville a good story is a
true story that shows conformity to their cultural values. Sometimes these stories are told just for a laugh, but other times are told to illustrate a lesson to be learned. By comparison, in Trackton, stories are very loosely based on actual events, the details of which are fictionalized to the point where very little to none of the story that is told is actually true. I thought about students I've had over the years as I read through this chapter. I've had some good storytellers and great entertainers over the years. I wonder how many kids in schools across the nation get a bad rap and are viewed as liars when its just a case of cultural misunderstanding. I loved the last sentence of this chapter which summarized everything so perfectly. It says, "In short, for Roadville, Trackton's stories would be lies; for Trackton, Roadville's stories would not even count as stories.
The next chapter discussed how the communities of Roadville and Trackton viewed and used text. In Trackton, adults didn't buy books for their children which I found extremely sad. Young children would read cereal boxes, and other various items which carried familiar logos. They relied heavily on the context of where they would see or use the print and that knowledge wasn't easily transferred to new situations. In Trackton, the meaning of print isn't in the print alone, but in the experience related to it's reading. It seems that there is a strong link in this community between oral and written communication and both are very much a group activity.
In Roadville, reading written text is not a group activity like it is in Trackton. It seems that the people of Roadville collectively agree that reading is a good thing that should be practiced thoroughly at all ages, but few people actually follow through. The most common types of things people read are letters, magazines, and children's bedtime stories. When being read to, children in Roadville are expected to sit still and listen.
I can see where there may be hardships for some students from communities like Trackton if their teacher didn't realize that they came from a culture which valued communal participation in the reading process.
Another thing that stood out to me was statement about how people from either community who work at the mill have very few occasions to use reading on the job. This was also mentioned earlier in the book where they discussed how children's schooling didn't prepare them for anything they would be doing at the mill.
As a classroom teacher, you can easily see how students from both communities would potentially struggle when writing across genres (since one group would be good at embellishing stories and the other would stick to factual accounts).
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