This chapter explores the forms and functions of literacy in the sorts of experiences adults make when they negotiate worklife transitions across their life course. It also reflects on the sorts of learning and agency that may arise from such literate practices and their contributions to the richness, diversity and heterogeneity of educational provisions encountered by adult workers across their lives. Based on 14 life history interviews of informants of the Australian population and by borrow- ing from the theoretical frame of interactional ethnography and multimodal semiot- ics, the chapter investigates the forms or shapes of literate practices and literacy events in worklife histories and reflects about the sort of learning that might arise from such experiences across the life course. Findings of the qualitative and quanti- tative empirical analysis show that literate practices often emerge as guided experi- ences, which take place both in formal and informal settings. These experiences also constitute means for continuity and coherence across working lives, and not only as obstacles or causes for disruptions and discontinuity.