Heath defines a literacy event as, "a conceptual tool useful in examining...the actual forms and functions of oral and literate traditions and co-existing relationships between spoken and written language. A literacy event is an occasion in which a piece of writing is integral to the nature of participants' interactions an their interpretive processes." The town of Trackton does not really approve of reading; exceptions included religious affiliated readings. Any reading was done in larger groups that did not focus on the individual. This was so they would be social, and to ensure this, they told narratives and jokes, along with sidetracking talk, and negotiation. Reading along in the Bible with the pastor at church was an example Heath had for a literacy event.
Sherman Alexie learned to read by looking at comic books and narrating aloud what was happening in the pictures. The other Indian children did not know how to read so well. They were expected to be stupid by the non-Indian teachers at the school. Alexie states, "they struggled with basic reading in school but could remember how to sing a few dozen powwow songs." Now, as an adult, Alexie goes back to these schools to help teach the children to read and to talk about what happens in his narratives.
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