Rose, Mike. “At Last: Words in Action: Rethinking Workplace Literacy.” Research in the Teaching of English 38 1 (2003): 125-28. Print.

Rose attempts to disrupt the traditional conceptions about how much knowledge is required to complete blue collar work in this piece.  Specifically, Rose focuses in on the use of numeracy and graphics to demonstrate that what some researchers have called “lower order mathematics” leads to “a rich source of higher-order thinking” (127).  In so doing, Rose calls attention to the fact that despite a lack of “literariness,” most workplace literacy involves a complex and nuanced system of communication that deserves more than a passing gloss in composition studies scholarship.

Rose illustrates his point by drawing attention to a couple of workplace literacies that are far more complex than first glance might denote.  Rose notes traditional categories gloss our understanding and the use of single signifiers might actually carry with them a range of notations that embed an understanding of a process, a history of experience and a set of possible operations for action.  Rose also highlights how workers witch between relevant literacies for different contexts.  In the end, Rose hopes that composition scholars will take the time to investigate the rich symbolic world of workplace literacy to counter the typically espoused views of work speak as repetitive, simplistic, and utilitarian.