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A literacy event as defined by Shirley Brice Heath in her article Protean Shapes in Literacy Events: Ever-Shifting Oral and Literate Traditions is, “a conceptual tool useful in examining within particular communities of modern society the actual forms and functions of oral and literate traditions and co-existing relationships between spoken and written language." Heath also defines a literacy event as, "any occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of participants’ interactions and their interpretive processes.” (371) Heath, a professor of linguistics and English as Stanford University, studied literacy events in an African American community known as Trackton. An example that she studied was at church. Following along in the Bible as the minister preaches or singing along with the choir from a book of hymns is a great example. Many different literacy skill levels can be found at a church service, but yet they can all come together and form an expected pattern or model.
This can be applied to Sheman Alexie's literacy narrative The Joy of Reading and Writing because he is proof that literacy events are how we first learn to understand and eventually comprehend how to read. He went from looking at pictures to understanding what a paragraph was to learning how to read in school and eventually becoming a writer. Without using these tools he would not have been as advanced as he was at such a young age. He also discusses how he overcame the judgements of Indians in America and also how he thinks he is perceived by Americans. This helps the reader relate to him and get a better understanding of why it was so important that literacy events influenced his ability to read and write.