2308 Tolman

Some literacy links

Dave — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:56:17 +0000

There have been some interesting literacy stories in the news recently. Going to start a running list here…if you come across others, please comment them in!

Wired Magazine, August 24 2009, “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy” (hat tip: Sharon)
Stanley Fish, NYT, August 24 2009, “What should colleges teach?” (hat tip: Mi)
Mark Richardson, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 7 2008, “Writing is Not Just a Basic Skill” (hat tip: Sharon)
Motoko Rich, NYT The Future of Reading series, August 29 2009, “A New Assignment: Pick Books that you Like“

Literacy summer to fall

Dave — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:00:42 +0000

Thanks to everyone for all your contributions to this blog, and to everyone in ED140 who pushed themselves in a new genre of writing this semester. Overall, I’d say our trial with blogging in this class has been a big success, and I hope everyone finds a way to keep reading and writing in your own places on the blogosphere.

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Dave — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:31:11 +0000

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Now playing: Mama at Twilight

Dave — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:21:54 +0000

Anyone inspired by literacy in performance and who wants to see a great show, be sure to check out & pass on the word on “Mama at Twilight: Death by Love” playing at the Sister Thea Bowman Theater this and next weekend, at the Prescott Joseph Center for Community Enhancement, 920 Peralta St. in Oakland. Images below hyperlinked to the Yard Theater homepage.

Performance reflections!!

Dave — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:23:56 +0000

Thanks again to everyone for all your hard work, depth of thought, feelings & humor, heart & soul that you brought to the stage in your performance reflections yesterday.

I’m sorry we weren’t able to get Robina’s dance video playing well–here it is!

And Molly’s digital story…

Anyone else who’d like to add any of your words, sounds or other media to this post, just let me know! –dave

Just like the balloon says…

Dave — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:19:34 +0000

Multimodal literacies undermining school-based learning?

Dave — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:20:42 +0000

In the passage from her paper that we have for our class, Jessica Parker (Berkeley GSE graduate and professor at Sonoma State Univ., visiting ED140 Tuesday) writes provocatively, “When multimedia literacies are integrated into school-based learning, the legitimacy of school is directly and acutely challenged.” This is not an empty or purely ‘theoretical’ statement in common parlance: schools around the country and around the world are struggling to reconcile the growing role of multimedia and non-written modes of communication in the lives of youth with school-based curricula that continue to teach and assess students based largely upon standardized practices of writing.

Echoing this reality in her study of literacy practices in post-apartheid South African schools, Pippa Stein writes,

[the] act of repositioning the body as a multimodal sign and resource for meaning in the classroom challenges the hegemony of language, particularly written language, in the ESL classroom. Multimodal pedagogies allow for the expression of a much fuller range of human emotion and experience; they acknowledge the limits of language, admit the integrity of silence, and do not presume closure. I argue from an equity perspective that such pedagogies offer students a more representative base for representation (Stein 2004: 95)

We might all agree on one level that literacies and means of communication are multiplex (to use Ruth Finnegan’s word), and that schools ought to incorporate a greater diversity of representational means into their curricula. But how should this actually happen? If schools acknowledge the “hegemony of language”, then what is to become of curricula based primarily upon written texts and the knowledge they are supposed to contain? What is the future of the five-paragraph essay in a multimodal future? And if ‘performance’ in dance and filmmaking (to take a few examples) is to assume a place alongside ‘performance’ on a written exam, how should performance be assessed?

One questions

2308tolman — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:35:22 +0000

We’ve come a long way in our 6-week ED140 class! At this point in a fall or spring semester course we’d just be feeling settled into our mentoring sites, starting to get the feel of writing field notes, and thinking about the social, cognitive, developmental, and individual aspects of literacy.

Not so in the summer, though! Just over a month into the class, we’re already reflecting on our experiences, planning performances for Thursday’s last class, writing our case studies and thinking about next steps.

I’d like to say thank you again to everyone who’s been a part of this class — Ayodele Nzinga, Maurice Harper, Julie Merrill, Daniel Gray-Kontar (aka Replife), Amy Stornaiuolo, John Scott, Anand Chitravanshi, Glynda Hull, P. David Pearson, Hardeep Dhillon, Usree Bhattacharya, Aaminah Muhammad Norris, Sera Hernandez, Jessica Parker and others we’ve yet to meet this Thursday have visited us in person — and to invite everyone to visit us again here and share a few thoughts. Considering the compressed timeline and how we’re very much still in-process, instead of “final” or “parting” thoughts, I thought I’d ask for your thoughts and comments on a more forward-looking topic:

What’s one question(s) about literacy and learning that’s compelling for you today, stimulating your thought, challenging at your school, necessary for our society, urgent in your research, or otherwise moving, fascinating, troubling, beautiful in your experience?

Performance, reflection

Dave — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:20:19 +0000

Over the next several days not only will I be trying to post on here at least once a day, but it’d be great if we could collectively highlight & share some texts that show the potential of literacy-made-multimodal, to get the ideas going for our own performance reflections this Thursday.

Digital storytelling using iMovie (on Macs) or Movie Maker (on PCs) or other movie-making software is one popular way to create powerful meanings across video, still image, music, spoken word, written text, and other modes. The digital story above, Life-N-Rhyme by Relixstylz, is one we watched in class together. Much like the Kidnet media projects, it was made a few years ago in an an after-school program connected to ED140.

Any other favorite media that say or show much about literacy & identity?

Language ideology: where do these statements fit in?

2308tolman — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:51:55 +0000

A big thanks again to Sera Hernandez for leading us in exploring ideologies about language in the many voices that surround us in the media, in schools, and in our own families. Be sure to check out the new links she told us about, in the right-hand column of this blog: the U.S. English group advocates for English to be enacted as the official language of the U.S. (already well on its way–see H.R. 997, the so-called “English Language Unity Act of 2009” in Congress); the Mass English Plus Coalition explains the movement for language policies that promote multiple linguistic competences and combat discrimination enacted through language policies; the Institute for Language Education and Policy, an advocacy organization headed up by long-time bilingual education scholar James Crawford.

And in the spirit of exposing the different ideological “voices” we live with on language, policy and education, where do these comics fit in?? (all are hyperlinked to source site)

English