by Beverly J. Moss
A Community Text Arises emerges from an ethnographic study of literacy in three African-American churches. The study illuminates the ways that the primary model of a literate text is shaped and used in African-American churches. In Chapter 1, Beverly J. Moss examines how the African-American church has operated as a community within larger African-American communities. In Chapter 2, Moss introduces, through ethnographic descriptions, the churches she studied. In Chapter 3, Moss highlights the features of the major literacy event and text in African-American churches—the sermon. Through close analysis of individual sermons, Moss illustrates how the sermon functions as a community text. Chapter 4 focuses solely on the sermons of one minister to highlight rhetorical strategies that are used to create and main community identity. The analysis in chapters 3 and 4 provides a view of a text that calls into question traditionally held notions of text inside and outside the community. In Chapter 5, Moss considers the implications of the study for how text is defined and for the relationships between oral and written texts.
