Topic Development

Assignment
Professor Summey
Haley Wofford

Wofford 2
Overview
My research topic is the literacy rate amongst illegal immigrants in the United States. I
was unable to find out the literacy rate in the United States, but according to UNESCO,
the global literacy rate for adults fifteen and older in 2012 was 80% for women and 89%
for men and 40% of countries surveyed had literacy rates of 95% or higher. What I know
about my topic is that the majority of people in the United State are literate. However,
lots of immigrants (most of whom are illegal) come into this country every day and most
of them are illiterate in their own language as well as English. I want to know what the
literacy rates of both legal and illegal immigrants in the United States is, how many
immigrants in the United States can speak English, and the exact number of immigrants
coming to the United States every day. According to a 2010 article by the New York
Times, the number of illegal immigrants in 2009 fell to 11.1 million and more than seven
million Mexicans make up sixty percent of all illegal immigrants. The reason for this
decrease was the recession, coupled with immigration reinforcement on the Southwest
border and workplaces around the country. This brought the number of illegal immigrants
down by 900,000. My research question is this: what is the literacy rate amongst illegal
immigrants in the United States? Some potential search terms I could search for are
literacy and immigrants, literacy and illegal immigrants, immigration effects, English
Language Learners, and limited English proficiency. My research strategy was this
project was to use the worksheets we worked on in class and start from there. I was able
to find my book easily and from there I went to the databases. The book that I found was
more than ten years old, but it still had a lot of useful information. I was able to use
Google to find a good website that discussed my topic, but the only database that I was

Wofford 3
able to use was Academic Search Premier. I still managed to find some very excellent
articles though.
Outline
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

Introduction
Exact number of how many immigrants come into the United States everyday
How many of those immigrants are illegal
Number of those illegal immigrants that can speak English
Effect on U.S. economy
Conclusion

Wofford 4

Works Cited
"International Literacy Data 2014." Unesco Institute for Statistics. UIS, 17 July 2014.
Web. 7 Dec. 2015.

Wofford 5
Preston, Julia. "Study Finds the Number Of Illegal Immigrants Has Fallen to 11.1
Million." New York Times 2 Sept. 2010: A20 (L). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web.
7 Dec. 2015.