Multimodaliating: Shipka (2005) Engineering Sound(ly); Smagorinksy, Zoss & Reed (2006) Composition

Toward a Theory of Multimodal Soundness

Shipka's work is based on what she calls activity-based multimodal theory of composing. She challenges her Composition students to really think about what it is they want to compose and decide what media and modalities they use. Each submits a mega-multi-genre project in the end (though she says it's not a multi-genre project). The projects that she cites go far beyond paper and ink; in the sense that genres change the way we think about a topic, then I think these projects do fall into that category. I love how she then has her students de- then re-construct their creations --

Check out activity theory.

That last line is one of my favorites:

In privileging rigorous play, purposeful choosing, alternate goal structures, and the articulation of choices in relation to goals, an activity-based multimodal theory of composing provides us with a way, but, perhaps more importantly still, it provides students with a way to begin attending to the various ways a greater variety of senses, modes, and materials might be brought together, if only briefly and if only in sound-for-now ways, to help them accomplish the kind and quality of work they are most invested in pursuing.

"Rigorous Play" is such a cool idea -- I thing Vygotsky would agree wholeheartedly. Csíkszentmihályi's ideas about bringing "flow" into activity has to do with personal control, a high degree of concentration and a distorted sense of time. Check out "group flow" where he suggests extrinsic means for creating a hospitable environment for flow (closely linked to rigorous play) to grow. She has a blog, too -- check out her "crazy" cards activity.

Complex Composition

Smagorinski et al are pushing notions of composition toward the borderlands of craft (as in craftsman) and of art. Despite the dissing that interior design as a high school course gets because of its cultural link to housewifery (which doesn't deserved to be dissed, either), Rachel taught it like the best of writing composition using study models (door styles, p. 303), prolonged consideration of student work, and small group and pair work. Again, the notion of flow comes up when Dee (repeatedly) loses track of time as the bell rings "too soon".

I think it's very cool that the researchers conducted the protocols with Dee in situ rather than in an artificial setting (ex situ?). The investigation of the composition process as it relates to literacy seems so critical nowadays -- how did he happen to do it? To look at interior design, and in that school, with that student (and her pretty fabulous teacher)? I wonder if people in the arts are getting at some of the same kinds of things?

...(W)e have argued that the notion of writing across the curriculum ought to be reconceived as composing across the curriculum to account for the limits of writing and the appropriateness and potential of other symbol systems in some disciplines (p. 327).

Are literacy people the only ones looking at composing across the curriculum?

Thomas (2004) Cybergirls; Lankshear & Knobel (2003) New Literacies; Hawisher & Selfe (2004) Info Age

"Digital Literacies of the Cybergirl" Angela Thomas
Feels like a research (article) rollercoaster. I find after reading Cybergirl that I'm more focused on the body de- and re- construction than on their skillful use of digital literacies. Seems like that "easy" conclusion about the avatars that are "complicit with patriarchal idealiogies idealising westernised feminine beauty" (p. 379) is an altogether legit place to come out. Check out this part of a chapter in An Introduction to Sociology: A Feminist Perspective (2005) by Abbott, Wallace and Tyler (pp. 319-320). It all seems pretty toxic. Christy had the discovery that cyberlife could be more than posing and pouting and powerful positioning -- she was genuinely excited about community building which is a more confidence inducing kind of "making" (p. 375) than spending all that time as subject and object of one's own fantasy life (p. 376).
Thomas's theoretical discussion is pretty fascinating -- she pulls from Film Theory, Freud, and Foucault among many others. This notion of performance of self, for the self is pretty interesting.

Lankshear and Knobel (2003) "Implications of 'New' Literacies for Writing Research"
This is going to be a sort of here and there response to a few points in the article --
I'd love to see a wiki-evolving list of New Literacies, and it'd be cool to see a genealogy of where each "comes from".
I'm particularly taken with scenario planning and their example of using it to train preservice teachers (a la Hawisher & Selfe) "...we might frame the question of what learning and teaching of literacy and technology might look like within educational settings for elementary school age children 15 years hence" (p. 4). It seems to me that scenario planning requires abilities to research, synthesize, collaborate, and critically evaluate -- a potentially powerful approach.
So is Jon Stewart's Daily Show culture jamming?
And. Lankshear and Knobel (again like their next-door neighbors Hawisher et al), pretty much implore writing researchers t "avoid as far as possible the 'schoolification' of the practice in question" (p 15) -- (shudder) in other words, don't kill it and pin it up by the wings. They then suggest that gaming manuals might hold a key to understanding the "new" practitioners of these "New Literacies".


Hawisher & Selfe with Moraski and Pearson (2004) "Becoming literate in the Information Age: Cultural ecologies and the literacies of technology"
Reminicent of Brandt's work, this piece is broad in scope. The authors assert that especially teachers of English approach literacies in a narrow, alphabetic, print kind of way. They say teachers don't see what the kids are interested in, and can't because they're invisible -- because they're not valued. Thus, teachers end up moving "instructional practices and values....further and further away from those [literacies] that students consider important" (p. 676). We have to meet the kids where they are with New Literacies as well as with ways of being. Interestingly, the authors suggest that a more open (and humble) attitude needs to originate with college faculty in the training of new teachers (p. 677).

Silences:Kamler (1994); Queer Youth: Blackburn (2003); Boys and Reading: Martino (2001)

Here's the link to Lauren Hill's amazing Doo Wop ode to gender

Gender and Genre in Early Writing
Two and a half years is certainly "prolonged engagement" during which to follow Peter and Zoe through five classrooms. Her data was well triangulated as well, and Kamler used an interesting and traceable Hallidayian analysis. Her results, though, were chilling: "free choice" was really an "April Fool's" kind -- none at all. I was struck at the damage that was done from the not-teaching -- no substantive feedback, and nothing that encouraged or moved the kids beyond the stuck or outgrown place where each was in their thinking as people in the midst of constructing their identity, and as young writers who needed real apprenticeships. Although she didn't say, I wonder if the classrooms were in a school or district where "process writing" had been mandated.
Check out p. 14 in Halliday's Linguistics and the Teacher -- social justice through linguistics.

Exploring Literacy Performances and Power Dynamics at The Loft
Maybe one of the big take-away points here is that in whatever (D)iscourse community we are involved -- and Molly Blackburn self identifies as gay, lesbian, and queer (p. 472-473) -- we need to trouble our literacy performances as performances of self in order to make visible power relations so we can work toward a more socially just world. Meeting these youth in their out-of-school site enabled her to see their strengths and not their deficits (p. 487). I had thought that "queer" was synonymous with "gay" -- wrong. Blackburn explains it as broader and more critical. Wikipedia explains queer theory as encompassing all sexuality. Was it a bit disparaging to call the glossarizing of terms "schoolish"? Or am I reading more into this? I sometimes think a call to glossarize tons of terms -- a grass roots effort (!) -- might be a step in the direction of shared understandings and elimination of a lot of rhetorical smoke and mirror work as well as plain ol' misunderstandings.

Boys and Reading: Investigating the Impact of Masculinities on Boys' Reading Preferences and Involvement in Literacy
When I read the words of the participants in Martino's article I was struck with repeated references to activeness and physicality. Their rejection is not of reading per se, but English class "type" reading (whatever that means). I wish he had discussed what that does mean because I am left to surmise that it might mean the literary analysis that commonly occurs in high schools -- Down Under, too, I assume.
Jen made a great point about how the feminized teaching profession no doubt affects some of how things are taught -- but certainly, how school is perceived by these young men. Yeah -- gender is socially constructed -- and Martino is right to call for more culturally relevant literacy teaching for boys. I was kind of surprised not to see any of Rosenblatt's work cited here. She asserted that it was our job to, first, engage the student with whatever it was that was of interest (probably not Playboy -- but everything in it's own time and place) then, respectfully and sensitively, move alongside the student toward a critical literacy, and toward a broader repertoire of readings.

Godley, Carpenter and Werner "'I'll speak in proper slang': language ideologies in a daily editing activity" ---

Like other teachers who are willing to participate in collaborative research with university folks, or who conduct taped, actions research, Cynthia Weber both making a real contribution AND was really shocked when she saw on tape, the disconnect between what she thought she was doing, pedagogically, and how those actioans actually affected her students (p. 124). She saw that her students were really and truly guessing at answers. And what a monolithic view of "correct" English she laid on her African American students. Inside herself, the article says that she wanted to take them to that place of equal access through explicit teaching -- like Delpit talks about. But, instead, she ended up belittling her students and "annoying" them. I'm suprised she didn't have an insurrection -- well, she did, I guess. It must have been agonizing to sit through week after week of unchanging Daily Language Practice -- for the researchers and the kids. I like the way the authors take us through a painstaking ascent to their vantage point and end up with a strong recommendation for creating critical dialogic classrooms and classroom cultures. That said, I also think Cynthia and other teachers whose work is studied are courageous in their service to the field as a whole. We all need to dust off those tee shirts and bumper stickers that said "Question Authority" ....

Taylor Mali on what teachers "make"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU

Taylor brings it to the streets.

early Fecho

I find Fecho's particular brand of honesty, refreshing. I like how he talks about how, at heart, he is a shy guy -- and a bit of a loner. His way of appreciating difference is specific – not a kumbaya generalization. He talks about the culturally-based, fullness of responses his kids brought with them, and how it has helped him expand (p. 8-9).
He refuses the teacher-as-miracle-worker myth and positions himself as a learner in the inquiry-based classroom. He says he doesn’t have all the answers – in fact, he says there are “no miracles” in his stories (p. 24) and “no tidy formula” (p. 29). I saw some of my own teaching experiences in his descriptions and realized through his appreciation of some of the “flashes” that I’ve had a hard time remembering those – or rather, perhpas, giving them their due. Maybe I bought into the miracle myth. It’s helpful to read about teaching and reflection as loopy and non-linear.

Life IS (a) Contact Sport; Lens; Improvisation; Sheet; Network

Oh my! Gaughan wisely uses a combination of sequencing and pacing -- the balance of kinds of activity -- to help his students move from one stage or "rung" to the next: up and moving (like 4-Square), writing a reflection, a short whole class reading, quick-write reflective/mess-it-up activity (like responsing to The Language of Sex: The Heterosexual Questionnaire, Rochlin, 1992, on p.115), small groups in Lit Circles, etc. to help his students with energy and focus. He is creating a situation in the Deweyian sense of the word, anchored by theme...in which the students can transact (ok, Rosenblatt-ian) with various texts (in the Friere-ian sense).
While I don't agree with everything he says (I think he's a bit male-centric on p. 137, top; and loses his vision of what he's really doing in the whole "am I destroying her faith?" [pp.125-129+/-] thicket he's machete-ing his way around in), I do heartily admire him for asking the tough questions of himself and his teaching. He includes plenty of disconfirming or at least disconcerting evidence in the form of letters from parents and students, and excerpts from papers that keep the Teacher-As-Hero myth at bay. A big take-away for me is that learning to think critically is a messy, uncomfortable, potentially scary business. Not the least of the risks is that the Guide/Facilitator/Teacher will "see red" and go "off" on a student with whom he or she doesn't agree. Gives a whole new meaning to the word "safe". But, complacency, a binary world view, and mis-placed trust in toxic narratives are far more terrifying. Reading "Reinventing English -- Teaching in the Contact Zone" has gotten me thinking about how I might structure a learning experience for pre-service teachers to (1) begin to ask questions (if they don't already) using thematic units that follow a similar structure to what (I'd hope) they would use in schools; (2) put the ladder model out there and even construct it with them (like if Love is the top or near the top of the Sexuality "ladder" -- or murder at the top of the Discrimination Ladder --then what's at the bottom?, one up from there?, approaching the top? etc.) (3) Engage them in the practice of the reading/thinking/questioning/discussing/writing/ cycle and (4) apprentice them into a more critical world view. Just as we recognize that it's silly to expect novice teachers to be as up-to-speed as their 20-year veteran neighbors down the hall, I think it's just as silly to expect that these young people have deeply (and independently, somehow) examined their own (pre-) conceptions.

Methods

As I read Smagorinsky's and Whiting's "How English Teachers Get Taught", I was struck with what a good idea this book was. Is there an updated version planned for anytime soon? A methods course is part of an apprenticeship into the professions; so, by definition, it's a dense experience. I like how the authors talk about the work involved in a methods course and how tht work must be engaging, relevant and lead to "flow": "Our criterion of work as a requisite part of a methods course refers to the process that leads to growth and complexity in understanding, infused with high levels of affect and engagement" (28). I've been thinking about what I want to include and how I'd orchestrate all of it....it was heartenting to read the authors' recommendations for a "less is more", or depth-over-breadth approach, while still warning of a tendency of that approach to lead to an unrealistic or even "parochial" view of what good teaching is. I agree that it cannot all happen in one course. I think one should emerge from a methods course with a running engine made up of an intact ethic of inquiry, reflection, and student-centeredness, and "with an understanding of how students learn" (23).

"Walking resumes"

I gotta say, the Shape-Shifting chapter by James Gee (Ch. 9) shows how much we end up commodifying ourselves with "tags" -- like the student who helped build houses -- in the Caribbean -- not just plain ol' Hometown, USA. As "walking resumes" we're always on the lookout to stand out. What a metaphor! Remember actually sending out paper documents for a job? And, choosing the resume paper weight (the really good stuff was heavy with fiber and expensive), and the color (ecru? snow? dove grey? or....pink?!) -- he's remarkably right on with his "tag" of our "tags". The “new economy” has written us into particular niches of identity in order to create consumer markets. We buy the stuff that reinforces our identity, then the stuff shapes our identity (p. 165)...and, eventually, we shape the stuff that then shapes us...(Sheesh). No wonder fundamentalism is on the rise -- the pressure to shape shift can be disconcerting and dizzying. A black and white/yes-no/binaried world is a far easier place in which to understand one's role, place, and expectation.
When thiking about enfranchisment and disenfranchisement the skills of the New Literacies always figure. Chapter 11 by Wilder and Dressman addresses how schools have “routinely failed to capitalize on its promises” (p. 206) and the authors ponder why that may be. They consider reproduction theory as an explanation for negatively differentiating computer tasks as a reflection of the sorting and tracking that happens in schools (rote tasks are heavily emphasized in working class schools while integrative tasks that require synthesis and evaluation are emphasized in upper middle class schools. See Jean Anyon's "Social Class and School Knowledge"). Reproduction theory speaks to teachers’ and students’ habits of engagement; and, that teachers who already face an overemphasis on coverage look at New Literacy exposure as just another thing to cover (of course...when you put it that way..how did I miss that?), rather than a means for completely revisioning and enlivening, and making relevant one’s curriculum and classroom practices (p. 209).
My thinking tends to run like this: In order to meet the status quo and businesses' increasing demand for low wage service sector jobs (e.g. burger flippers), when there's a push in learning theory, like constructivism, New Literacies, there's a push from the other side to intensify teachers' work, add tests; call for accountablility, put up a smoke screen that points to schools not doing the job. That effectively shields policy makers from allocating the funds to the folks that should have them, and instead, routes them to test makers and textbook companies; and, in an elegant turn keeps the blame on teachers, students, and schools.

Moje and Dillon -- How not to be taken seriously...Seriously?

Chapter 5 “Adolescent Identities as Demanded by Scientific Discourse Communities”
Elizabeth Birr Moje and Deborah R. Dillon
The authors revisit a study they did for the first edition of this book (in 1998) – about two female 9th grade students – Carolyn and Heather. Each girl is in a science classroom with a well-reputed teacher. Carolyn is in Mr. Ruhl’s biology class. Heather is in Ms. Landy’s chemistry class. Moje and Dillon talk a lot about the various identities each girl (and each of us) bring to various other situations and, interestingly, suggest we look at the interplay between identities (p. 90).
The first time through, they concluded that it was teachers who needed to do a whole lot more critical self-examination. They came up with a terse set of “helpful” questions of self examination that “good” teachers would, no doubt, embrace.

Moje and Dillon re-looked at their data and came up with different conclusions, based on their study of new research conductd since the first edition. They remain committed to a critical stance – but seem to have critiqued their own work in light of new information. They came up with the various participation structures and even the room arrangements which can serve to disenfranchise a student – e.g. call on her least appropriate identities for the situation at hand as in the case of Carolyn. She had plans to be a vet, but Mr. Ruhl saw her as a ditz; thus, she was passed over for opportunities that only a teacher’s belief in a student can afford.
They end up voicing the concerns of teachers who have 150 students every single day, that it’s not realistic or fair to ask them (like in 1998) to REALLY REALLY (a la Zoolander – only kidding) get to know their students but then also to look deep within themselves for self critique.

Now, the authors have become aware that discourses are colliding, and participation structures may be contributing to the student’s poor self-positioning; and, to the teacher’s not-seeing of that student’s other, agentive identities. They also acknowledge that for teachers to really get to know their students and to do the kinds of reflection that is necessary, we need small schools, smaller classes, block scheduling and time for teachers to really engage in reflective practice that holds the key to genuine change. These authors have credibility for me in that they, themselves, have examined their own practice and revised their former positions which is an essential part of what they are asking teachers to do.