In this commentary, the author explains why she prefers the term literacy animator to literacy educator. In explaining her preference, she touches on violence against women, globalization, misappropriation of resources, male-dominated theory, education as competition, and multiple literacies. Her intention is to be persuasive and provocative in order to stimulate dialogue, debate, and introspection on our purposes and actions as teachers of reading.

The article consists of the following sections:

• Introduction
• What Is a Literacy Animator?
• How I Became a Literacy Animator
• Whose Ideas Are Privileged and Promoted?
• Countering the Autonomous Model of Literacy
• References

Michelle Commeyras is an associate professor in the Department of Reading Education at the University of Georgia (309 Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA 30605, USA; e-mail michelle@coe.uga.edu). She earned her Ph.D. in Education at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana and her M.A. in Critical and Creative Thinking at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She strives to be a feminist literacy animator who brings critical inquiry and creative processes to her teaching and scholarship. Her work has appeared in many publications, including the International Reading Association's print journals The Reading Teacher, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and Reading Research Quarterly. During the 1997-98 academic year she was a Fulbright lecturer on gender and education at the University of Botswana in southern Africa.

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