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English 750: Introduction to Graduate Study in Literacy - Graff SP 2006

Introduction to Graduate Study in Literacy

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.

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. Readings may include the work of Shirley Brice Heath, Jack Goody, Deborah Brandt, Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole, Brian Street, Donald McKenzie, Harvey Graff, David Barton, Ruth Finnegan, Mike Rose, among readings across the humanities and social sciences.

• 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

Books

• Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter D. Mignolo, eds., Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes (Duke UP, 1966) (082231388X)
• 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)

In addition to readings indicated above, films may include "Children and Schools in Nineteenth-Century Canada"
"My Brilliant Career"
"High School"

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 11:00 a.m. on Tuesdays and preferably earlier.
   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. Critical review of a book-length study, chosen from the course books (or for any others, with the advice and consent of the instructor (3-4 pages) Due: week 4
3. Annotated bibliography of 6-8 items on a topic or theme selected with the advice and consent of the instructor Due week 7
4. 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. 1/3; 2 & 3=approx. 1/3; 4=approx 1/3 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.

Writing Center
All members of the OSU community are invited to discuss their writing with a trained consultant at the Writing Center. The Center offers the following free services: Help with any assignment; One-to-one tutorials; one-to-one online tutorials via an Internet Messenger-like system (no ads or downloads); Online appointment scheduling. Visit www.cstw.org or call 688-4291 to make an appointment.

Disabilities Services
The Office for Disability Services, located in 150 Pomerene Hall, offers services for students with documented disabilities. Contact the ODS at 2-3307

Syllabus

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 (Blackwell, 1993)
* reserve reading

Mar. 28, 39 Week 1 First Things
For background, if needed: David Barton, Literacy: An Introduction to the Ecology of Written Language (Blackwell, 1993), Chs.1-3

• Jack Goody and Ian Watt, “The Consequences of Literacy,” in Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Goody (Cambridge UP 1968), 27-68
• Ruth Finnegan, “Literacy versus Non-Literacy: The Great Divide,” in Modes of Thought, ed. Robin Horton and Finnegan. (Faber and Faber, 1973), 112-144
• Kathleen Gough, “Implications of Literacy in Traditional China and India,” in Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Goody (Cambridge UP 1968) 69-84
• Optional: Goody, “What’s in a List?” in Literacy, 32-51 [reprinted from Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge UP, 1977), 74-111]

Apr. 4, 6 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, “The New Literacy Studies,” in Literacy, 430-442 [reprinted from “Introduction: The New Literacy Studies,” in Cross-Cultural Studies in Literacy, ed. Street (Cambridge UP 1993), 1-21 AND/OR
• _____, Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development, Ethnography, and Education (Longman, 1995), Ch. 1, 17-27; Ch. 4, 74-99; Ch. 8, 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., University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), 318-349
• Additional: Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole. The Psychology of Literacy. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981. Rpt. 1999) Brian V. Street, Literacy in Theory and Practice. (Cambridge University Press, 1984)

Apr. 11, 13 Week 3 Writing/Reading/Producing/Consuming “Texts”

• 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 Reading,” in his The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History (Norton 1990), 107-135; 154-190
• Barbara Sicherman, “Sense and Sensibility: A Case Study of Women’s Reading in Late-Nineteenth-Century America,” in Reading in America, ed. Cathy N. Davidson (JHUP, 1989), 201-225
• Jan Radway, “Interpretive Communities and Variable Literacies,” Daedalus 113 (Summer 1984), 49-73

April 13 John Murray talk

Apr. 18, 20 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. Brian V. Street. (Cambridge UP 1993), 62-86
• Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter D. Mignolo, eds., Writing Without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes (Duke UP, 1966), Boone, “Introduction: 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 New World,” 221-70; Mignolo, “Afterword: Writing and Recorded Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Situations,” 293-313
• Additional: 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)

1st essay due week 4