Reflection on Whistlin’ and Crowin’ Women of Appalachia

I have never read a literacy narrative before. In fact, I never had even heard of a literacy narrative before this book. I do not mean any offense to the author, Katherine Kelleher Sohn, but it was not incredibly exciting. However, she does provide an extremely in-depth look at the literacy practices of these three women. I found it to be incredible that Lucy actually kept going to school, even when her husband Matt forced her to leave her books in the car and she was not allowed to study at home.
I thought that it was good of Ms. Sohn to try to disprove some of the stereotypes of Appalachia when she wrote these literacy narratives down. The way that she uses actual people to show that there are women in Appalachia that are trying to become educated is a very persuasive argument against both female stereotypes and Appalachian stereotypes. All of the stories are very inspiring with some parts that are just amazing. For instance, in the chart on pages 30-31, I found that Jean went to college twenty years after leaving high school. I do not think that I would be able to go to elementary, middle and high school for thirteen years and then go back to school twenty years later to spend at least another four years in college.
The literacy narrative that I did for class was not nearly as in depth as what Ms. Sohn did for her literacy narratives. I think that it would have been very interesting if it were at all possible to interview one of our subjects’ family members. I think that the reactions of family members to their wives or daughters or sisters going to college helped to portray how people react to such a “radical” idea. Even though they were all from the same area, the people in the women’s families reacted in dramatically different ways. Lucy’s husband abused her, while Judith’s daughters used Judith as a role model for their future. In my high school, most students were generally expected to go to college and their families almost always supported them. The copyright year on this book is 2006 and, frankly, it is difficult to imagine that there are still people in this country that are against the education of women. I think that it is important that women are given equal chances of education as men without the fear of abuse.
This study was very informative, but one thing that I did notice was that men were not included in this study. I think that it would be interesting to see how men in Appalachia use literacy in the workplace. It would also be interesting to see if the wives or girlfriends are more supportive of men going back to school. I think that this would not only be just as interesting, but it would also make the study a lot more complete. Another possible angle would have been to see if there were any husbands and wives that went back to school together. It would have been interesting to see if there were any families that were going to school at the same time to get an education.