Winter 2008 546
Denney Hall
T,Th 9:30-11:18 am Graff.40@osu.edu
Office hours: T,Th 292-5838
2:00-4:00 & appointments
This is a foundational course
for graduate students interested in engaging in further studies in literacy. It
is also an interdisciplinary course relevant to graduate studies in disciplines
across the humanities, social sciences, education, public policy, and related
fields.
The study and understanding of literacy has changed enormously in recent years. Although its importance is undoubted, literacy emerges as a much more complicated, mediated, and context-dependent subject than previous students, scholars, policymakers, and publics appreciated. It is therefore a much richer, challenging, and, in some ways, significant subject. Writing, reading, and other literacies are seen as pluralistic cultural practices whose forms, functions, and influences take shape as part of larger contexts: social, political, historical, material, and ideological. Literacy studies demand new, interdisciplinary, comparative, and critical approaches to conceptualization, theories, analysis, and interpretation. This course examines these currents as they take shape, and seeks to understand how a field of study is created among the disciplines and interdisciplines. Linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and history play prominent roles as various traditions, old and new, cohere or clash.
Toward that end, our topics include: ”great debates” over
literacy, its uses, impacts, and meanings; theories of literacy; histories of
literacy; literacy and literacies; reading and writing and beyond;
ethnographies of literacy in everyday life; academic and school literacies;
literacy and language; literacy and schooling; literacy and social order—class,
race, gender, ethnicity, generation, and geography; literacy and collective and
individual action; recent research; research design and methodologies.
The course has a number of goals:
· Developing new understandings of literacy and literacies, their importance in history and contemporary society, culture, polity, and economies
· Probing the nature of literacy in theory and practice, with respect to definitions, conceptualization, contextual understanding, and complex relationships
· learning to analyze and critically evaluate ideas, arguments, and interpretations, and practicing analysis and critical evaluation from a number of perspectives
· developing advanced skills in written and oral expression
· engaging in an interdisciplinary conversation about literacy studies, including critical approaches to literacy/ies followed in different disciplines and professions
· comparing and evaluating different approaches, conceptualizations, theories, methods, and sources that relate to the study and understanding of literacy in its many contexts
Literacies in Mesoamerica and
the
Deborah
Brandt, Literacy in American Lives Cambridge 2001 (0521003067)
Anne Haas Dyson, The Brothers and Sisters Learn to Write: Popular Literacies in Childhood and School Cultures (Teachers College Press, 2003)(0807742805)
Harvey
J. Graff, The Literacy Myth: Cultural Integration and
Social Structure in the Nineteenth
Century (Transaction 1991 [1979]) (0887388841)
Shirley Brice Heath, Ways With Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classroom (Cambridge UP, 1983) (0521273196)
Donald McKenzie, Bibliography
and the Sociology of Texts (Cambridge UP, 1999)
(0521-64495X)
Mike Rose, The Mind at Work: The Intelligence of American
Workers (Viking, 2004)
(0670-03282-4)
Optional:
Ellen Cushman, Eugene R.
Kintgen, Barry M. Kroll, and Mike Rose, eds., Literacy: A
Critical Sourcebook (Bedford/St. Martins, 2001) (0312250428)
David
Barton, Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of
Written Language 2nd ed (Blackwell,
2006) (1405111437)
Paulo Freire, The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation (Bergin and
Garvey, 1985) (0897890434)
Brian V. Street, Social Literacies: Critical Approaches
to Literacy in Development, Ethnography,and
Education (Longman, 1995) (0582102219)
In addition to readings
indicated above, films may include
“The Wild Child”
[Wk. 2]
“Children and
Schools in Nineteenth-Century
“My Brilliant
Career” [Wk. 6 or 8]
“High School” [Wk.
8]
Requirements
1. Regular reading, attendance, and participation in seminar discussion. Attendance is expected and taken into account in evaluation. Each week one or more students (depending on the size of the group) will draft and circulate questions for discussion in advance of that week’s class meeting. Questions must be posted by email to the class with copies to Graff’s office no later than 7:00 a.m. on respective Tuesdays or Thursdays, and preferably the day before. The student(s) responsible for circulating discussion questions each week is also responsible for leading seminar sessions that week.Preparation for class includes writing at least 4 1-2-page commentary papers offering critical perspectives and raising questions about the assigned reading in a particular week. Select any 4 class sessions from week 2 to week 10. In addition, I expect each student to come to all other sessions prepared and with questions. Papers are due at the class at which that topic is discussed. None will be accepted late.
2. Annotated bibliography of 6-8 items
on a topic or theme of your own choice, selected with the advice and consent of
the instructor. Format also to be decided with my approval. Due
week 5
3. A comparison of two studies in a critical essay that focuses on authors’ distinct approaches and methods including their conceptualization and contextualization of literacy, their
uses of theory, their sources, their research design, the basis for their interpretation and conclusions, the significance of the work, etc. Your choice of entries for the bibliography
assignment might well reflect this assignment. This final essay should be no less than 5
and no more than 8 pages. Due
week 10
1=approx. 40%;
2=approx. 20%; 3=approx 40% of final grade
Assigned reading. A seminar is pointless, and painful, unless the
participants have read the assigned material with care. I expect you to read
all the material assigned for each week's discussion. Some of the books may be
out-of-print (not because they have lost their importance or value but because
publishers now take books out of circulation very quickly). However, copies of
all of them are on reserve in the library. So plan ahead. I encourage you to
think about useful questions for discussion, or issues that occur to you after
the seminar is over
Leadership of one or more seminar
sessions. One (or depending on the
number of students in the class two) student is responsible for leading each
seminar. The most important task of this assignment is to present questions and
perspectives on the major topics and issues of that week, and on the reading
specifically, that will generate good discussion. Think about how you will
stimulate discussion. For most weeks, questions and tasks should be made
available to all seminar members prior to class, no later than 11:00 a.m. on
Tuesdays, by email and at the instructor’s office.
Suggestions: choose particularly important passages in the
works for analysis, photocopy them, and spend some time on their explication.
(Better yet, distribute them in advance, along with discussion questions.)
Choose key ideas and terms for elucidation, or focusing on the questions the
work asks, its answers, and its relation to larger
issues or themes, including previous weeks’ work. Collect some reviews from
academic journals and serious publications for nonspecialists and organize
discussion around the assessment of these evaluations. Remember that the goal
is not especially to find out what is wrong with the work, although that is
important, but to understand its significance and contribution to large issues
and questions. Think of ways of identifying themes and issues that include
specific readings but may also look back to earlier weeks or look ahead to
future weeks and topics. Depending on class size, the plan for the session
might include breaking into small groups with specific tasks for part of the
time. Seminar leaders are not expected to be responsible for the entire
session.
Commentary papers. Students should write at least 4 1-2-page papers commenting on the week's reading. These should not summarize the book. Rather, the papers should present your reaction to the book: what strikes you as particularly interesting, important, outrageous, thought-provoking or worth thinking or talking about. They should include questions the reading raises for you and/or questions you wish to raise about the reading. Those questions as well as your comments will help you to prepare for seminar sessions. I will keep track of these papers, but they will not be given formal grades. They are very important. They prompt you to think about the reading before you come to the seminar, and they give me a good idea of how you are reading the material and how you write.
I expect one paper every
two weeks, approximately, starting with the second
week’s reading assignment. These papers are due at the end of the session at
which a book or articles are discussed. They are not acceptable later, and they
are an integral part of the seminar. To receive credit for the seminar, you
must turn them in on time. I may ask students with especially interesting
papers to share with the whole seminar.
Turning in
assignments
All work that is turned in for evaluation or grading should
be typed, usually double-spaced, with margins of 1-1 ½ inches on all sides;
printed in 12 point font, in a legible type face. Be sure that your printer
ribbon or toner allows you to produce clear copies. Follow page or word limits
and meet deadlines. Follow any specific assignment requirements (formatting or
endnotes or bibliography, for example). Use footnotes and endnotes as necessary
and use them appropriately according to the style guide of your basic field.
Commentary papers may be “semi-formal” and also use short titles (as long as
they are clear) instead of footnotes. Your writing should be gender neutral as
well as clear and to the point. If you have a problem, see me, if at all
possible, in advance of due dates. Unacceptable work will be returned,
ungraded, to you. Submitting
work late without excuse will result in lowered grades.
Civility
Mutual respect and cooperation, during the time we spend together each week and the time you work on group assignments, are the basis for successful conduct of this course. The class is a learning community that depends on respect, cooperation, and communication among all of us. This includes coming to class on time, prepared for each day’s work: reading and assignments complete, focusing on primary classroom activity, and participating. It also includes polite and respectful expression of agreement or disagreement—with support for your point of view and arguments--with other students and with the professor. It does not include arriving late or leaving early, or behavior or talking that distracts other students. Please turn off all telephones, beepers, electronic devices, etc.
Academic Honesty
Scholastic honesty is expected and required. It is a major part of university life, and contributes to the value of your university degree. All work submitted for this class must be your own. Copying or representing the work of anyone else (in print or from another student) is plagiarism and cheating. This includes the unacknowledged word for word use and/or paraphrasing of another person’s work, and/or the inappropriate unacknowledged use of another person’s ideas. This is unacceptable in this class and also prohibited by the University. All cases of suspected plagiarism, in accordance with university rules, must be reported to the Committee on Academic Misconduct. For information on plagiarism, see http://cstw.osu.edu/ especially http://cstw.osu.edu/writing_center/handouts/index.htm.
All members of the OSU community are invited to discuss
their writing with a trained consultant at the
The Office for Disability Services, located in 150 Pomerene Hall, offers services for students with documented disabilities. Contact the ODS at 2-3307
Class cancellation
In the unlikely event of class cancellation due to emergency, I will contact you via email and request that a note on department letterhead be placed on the classroom door. In addition, I will contact you as soon as possible following the cancellation to let you know what will be expected of you for our next class meeting.
ENG 750
Harvey
J. Graff
Winter 2008
Background:
Ellen Cushman, Eugene R.
Kintgen, Barry M. Kroll, and Mike Rose, eds.,
Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook (Bedford/St. Martins,
2001)
David
Barton, Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language 2nd ed.
(Blackwell,
2006)
* reserve
and/or Carmen reading
Jan. 3, 8 Week
1 First Things
For background, as needed: David Barton, Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of
Written Language (Blackwell, 2007), Chs.1-3, more if desired
*Jack Goody and Ian Watt, “The
Consequences of Literacy,” in Literacy in TraditionalSocieties,
ed. Goody (
Introduction
*Ruth Finnegan, “Literacy versus Non-Literacy: The Great
Divide,” in Modes ofThought, ed. Robin Horton
and Finnegan. (Faber and Faber, 1973), 112-144
*Kathleen
Gough, “Implications of Literacy in Traditional
in
Traditional Societies, ed. Goody
(
*Harvey J. Graff and John Duffy,
“Literacy Myths,” Encyclopedia of Language and
Education,
Vol. 2 Literacy, ed.
(
Jan. 8, 10 Week 2 Impacts
and Influences
*Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole, “Unpacking Literacy,” in Literacy, 123-137 [originally published in Writing: The Nature, Development, and Teaching of Written Communication, ed. Marcia Farr Whiteman (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1981)]
*_____. “Cognitive Consequences of Formal and Informal Education,” Science 182 (1973), 553-559
*Brian V.
Street, Social
Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development,
Ethnography,
and Education (Longman, 1995),
160-178
*Harvey J. Graff, “Literacy, Myth, and
Legacies: Lessons from the History of Literacy,” in Graff, The Labyrinths of Literacy (exp. and rev. ed.,
Additional: Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole. The Psychology of
Literacy. (
*Shirley
Brice Heath, “Protean Shapes in Literacy Events,” in Spoken and
Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy, ed. Deborah Tannen
(Ablex, 1982),
91-117
*_____, “The Functions and Uses of Literacy,” Journal of Communication, 29
(1980), 123-133
Jan. 15, 17 Week 3 Writing/Reading/Producing/Consuming
“Texts” & The History of the Book
Donald McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of
Texts (Cambridge UP, 1999)
*Robert Darnton, “What Is the History of Books?” and
“First Steps Toward a
History of
Cultural History (Norton 1990),
107-135; 154-190
Select from:
*Carolyn Steedman, “Poetical Maids and Cooks Who Wrote,” Eighteenth-Century
Studies, 39 (2005), 1-27
*Barbara
Sicherman, “Sense and Sensibility: A Case Study of Women’s
Reading in
Late-Nineteenth-Century
*Jan Radway, “Interpretive Communities and Variable Literacies,” Daedalus
113 (
Summer 1984), 49-73
Additional: Jerome McGann, The Textual Condition (1991)
G.T. Tanselle, "Textual Criticism and Literary Sociology," Studies in
Bibliography 44 (1991): 83-143.
Jan. 22, 24 Week 4 Literacy
and Literacies and their Worlds
*Niko
Besnier, “Literacy and Feelings: The Encoding of Affect in Nukulaelae
Letters,: in Cross-Cultural Approaches to Literacy,
ed.
Literacies in Mesoamerica and the
Writing and Recording Knowledge,” 3-26; Stephen Houston,
“Literacy among the Pre-Columbian Maya,” 27-49; Mignolo, “Signs and their
Transmission: The Question of the Book in the
Additional: John Duffy, Writing From These Roots: Literacy in a Hmong
Community (
Niko Besnier. Literacy, Emotion and Authority: Reading and Writing
on a Polynesian Atoll. (Cambridge UP, 1995)
Walter D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy,
Territoriality, and Colonization (Michigan, 1995)
Jan. 29, 31 Week 5 Literacy,
History, and Myth
Harvey J. Graff, The
Literacy Myth: Cultural Integration and Social Structure in theNineteenth Century (Transaction 1991
[1979])[you may skim the quantitative chapters
in Part I; read the introductions and conclusions carefully]
1st
essay--Annotated bibliography due week 5
Feb. 5, 7 Week 6 Popular
Literacy
Anne Haas Dyson, The Brothers and Sisters Learn to Write: Popular Literacies inChildhood and School Cultures (Teachers College Press, 2003)
*Glynda Hull, “Hearing Other Voices: A Critical Assessment of Popular Views
on Literacy and Work,” Harvard Educational Review, 63 (1993), 20-49
Additional: Dyson, Writing Superheroes (Teachers College Press, 1997)
or the work of Elizabeth Moj
Glynda Hull and K Schultz, eds., School’s Out! Bridging Out-of-School Literacies
withClassroom Practice (Teachers College 2002)
Margaret J. Finders, Just Girls: Hidden Literacies and
Life in Junior High (Teachers
College/NCTE, 1997)
Victoria Purcell-Gates. Other People’s Words: The Cycle of Low
Literacy. (Harvard University
Press, 1995)
Feb. 12, 14 Week 7 Literacy, Community, Ethnography
Shirley Brice Heath, Ways With Words: Language, Life and Work in
Communities andClassroom (Cambridge
University Press, 1983). Prologue, Part I, Epilogue
*_____. “The Children of Trackton's Children: Spoken and written language in social
change,”
in Cultural Psychology: The Chicago
Symposia on Human
Development, ed. J. W. Stigler,
R.A. Shweder, & G.S. Herdt, eds. (
University Press, 1990), 496-519
*Elizabeth McHenry and Shirley Brice Heath, “The Literate and
the Literary: African Americans as Writers and Readers—1830-1940,” in Literacy,
261-274 [reprinted from
Written Communication, 11 (1994), 419-444]
Additional: Ralph Cintron, Angels’ Town: Chero Ways, Gang Life and Rhetorics of theEveryday (Beacon 1997)
Jacqueline Jones Royster, Traces of a Stream: Literacy
and Social Change Among African American Women
(Pittsburgh, 2000)
Elizabeth McHenry, Forgotten Readers: Recovering the
Lost History of AfricanAmerican Literary Societies.
(Duke, 2002)
Feb. 19, 21 Week 8 Literacy
and Lives
Deborah Brandt, Literacy in American Lives (Cambridge 2001)
_____,
“Writing for a Living: Literacy and the
Knowledge Economy,” Written Communication,
22 (2005): 166-197
Feb. 26, 28 Week 9 Literacy
Campaigns Compared
*Robert Arnove and Harvey J. Graff, “National Literacy Campaigns,” in Literacy, 591-615 [also: Robert F. Arnove and Harvey J. Graff, ed., National Literacy Campaigns in Historical and Comparative Perspective (Plenum, 1987), 1-28] and at least one or two case study chapters from National Literacy Campaigns
*Paulo Freire, The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation (Bergin and
Garvey, 1985), Chs 6,7,8, 43-65, 67-96, 99-108
*Ira Shor, “What Is Critical Literacy?” Journal
for Pedagogy, Pluralism and Practice
http://www.lesley.edu/journals/jppp/4/shor.html
Mar. 4, 6 Week 10 Literacy
Work and Visual Literacy
Mike Rose, The Mind at
Work: The Intelligence of American Workers (Viking, 2004)
*Paul Messaris, Visual Literacy: Image,
Mind, and Reality (Westview, 1994), 1-40, 165-199
*Mike Rose, “In Search of a Fresh Language of Schooling,” Education
Week, Sept. 7,
2005
The Future?
Reflecting together…
Mar. 6 John
Duffy lecture
Writing From These Roots: Literacy in a Hmong-American Community (
“Letters from the
and Communication, 56.2 (2004): 223-50.
“Recalling the Letter:
The Uses of Oral Testimony in Historical Studies of Literacy.”
Written Communication, 24.1, January
2007, 84-107
“Never Hold a
Pencil: Rhetoric and Relations in the Concept of ‘Preliteracy.’”
Written
Communication, 17.2 (April 2000):
224-57.
Additional: Scott McCloud, Understanding
Comics (Harper, 1994)
Luc Pauwels, ed., Visual Cultures of Science: Rethinking
Representational
Practices in
College Press, 2006)
Catherine Prendergast, “The Economy of Literacy: How the Supreme Court Stalled the
Civil Rights Movement,” Harvard Educational Review 72 (2002) 206-229 or her
Literacy and Racial Justice:
The Politics of Learning after Brown v. Board of Education. (
Cynthia L. Selfe, Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century: TheImportance of Paying Attention (Southern Illinois UP, 1999
New London Group, “A Pedagogy of
Multiliteracies designing Social Futures,” in Multiliteracies:
Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, ed. Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis (Routledge, 2000), 9-37 (also Harvard Educational Review,
1996)
Final essay due week
10