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Reviewer Comments (summary):

this manuscript requires:

• a stronger theoretical framework,
• a more explicit description of the methods used,
• an extended analysis of participants’ literacy narratives
• a concluding argument that expands the field’s approaches to the study and teaching of adult learners.

The decision to focus on "mainstream" adult learners:

...it isn’t made clear what criteria the author uses to define “marginal” or “mainstream,” or how/why the participants in this study fit into the latter category. An additional discussion of these key terms would help clarify the significance of this study.

The distinction between adult learners “at the margins” and those that are “mainstream” could be made stronger by additional discussion of research in composition, literacy studies, and adult education, as well as a rationale for the author’s decision to focus on the latter group.

Methods

...the author does not explain what methods were used to code the data. There is insufficient rationale for the categories on which the author focused (participants' early home/family experiences with school and literacy and participants' current literacy practices in the home/community and, especially, workplace contexts).

Conclusion

What I would like to see, though, is a discussion of traditional teaching practices, how/why those are inadequate, and specifically what new practices or pedagogical approaches the insights of this study would foster.

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One place I can begin is with the Method section...I have already begun to rethink the marginal/mainstream piece and this doesn't require a good deal of work.

One question I am having is about whether or not I should write an article which addresses BOTH the issue of literacy stories/narratives AND current literacy practices. In my reading of the Cohen article, I may have stumbled upon a framework for analyzing the "everyday writing" that adult students produce. But I still don't have a sense of how to organize or analyze the stories participants tell. Unless I go back to the work of

Sponsorship as a framework?

I need to go back to the Lytle article--she articulated the framework that I used in my study and that needs to be made clear in the article. The question of how to analyze the data, what lens to read it through is still there, though...

Unit of Analysis:

Narrative/Story (school and literacy experience)

Current Literacy Practices (outside of school)

A revised organizational structure (adapted from Smagorinsky, 2008):

Section 1: Theoretical Framework

Section 2: Adult Learners in Composition and Literacy Studies

Section 3: Methods

Section 4: Context

Section 5: Results

Section 6: Discussion