past newsletters

As you may be aware, we are developing a Literacy Studies Working Group with the aim of promoting a sense of collaboration among different disciplinary clusters and their constituents, from the social and natural sciences to the arts and humanities, medicine, and law. The Literacy Studies Working Group intends to foster a critical, cross-campus conversation and investigation into the nature of literacy, bringing historical, contextual, comparative, and critical perspectives and modes of understanding together to stimulate new institutional and intellectual relationships.

We have a rich and exciting agenda for spring quarter 2005, including

Visual Literacy Across the Disciplines
Thursday April 7, 2005 3:30-5:00
George Wells Knight House, 104 East 15th Avenue
Please let us know if you plan to attend at 688-0265 or
lantz.38@osu.edu

Mike Rose
Graduate School of Education, UCLA
Tues., May 17, tentatively 3:30-5:00
Mike Rose is the award-winning author of Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education in America (Houghton Mifflin, 1995) and Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America's Underprepared (Free Press, 1989). Rose will talk about issues arising from his new book, The Mind at Work: The Intelligence of American Workers (Viking, 2004)

Literacy Studies Interest & Discussion Groups
Last quarter we consolidated the list of interests from the survey of participants in meetings and programs into six interest and discussion groups. The groups will define their purposes and activities with the support and assistance of the LSWG.

1. History of the Book
   Convener: Cynthia Brokaw brokaw.22@osu.edu
   
   
2. Evolution of Literacy
   History of literacy; reading, writing, old and new technologies; postliteracy. Convener: to be announced. While we wait for a response from those who indicated willingness to provide initial leadership, we invite volunteers interested in these topics who might assist in getting the group off and running.
   
   
3. Domains of Literacy
   Institutional literacies and communicative contexts; visual, aural, social, civic, scientific, and religious. Convener: E.A. Caldwell caldwell.122@osu.edu
   
   
4. Economics of Literacy
   Cultural and political contexts; moral and social implications; human and civil rights. Convener: to be announced. While we wait for a response from those who indicated willingness to provide initial leadership, we invite volunteers interested in these topics who might assist in getting the group off and running.
   
   
5. Literacy and Learning
   Pedagogy and curriculum; teaching and learning contexts; theories, expectations, policies, and practices. Convener: Anne Fields fields.179@osu.edu. The organizational meeting for the Literacy and Learning discussion group will be Monday, April 4, from 3-4 pm in the conference room in 280 Sullivant Hall in the Education, Human Ecology, Psychology, and Social Work Library. (You'll need to knock on the door to the 280 office suite, but someone will be there to let you in.) Come prepared with ideas and calendars. If you're interested but can't attend, contact Anne Fields.
   
   
6. Literacy Processes and Research Methodologies
   Connecting research and literacy; neurophysiology; cultural contexts; research design and methodologies Convener: to be announced. While we wait for a response from those who indicated willingness to provide initial leadership, we invite volunteers interested in these topics who might assist in getting the group off and running.

If you signified interests, but have not heard from anyone, it may be because the group needs a convener. We are working to remedy that and would welcome volunteers or recommendations. Contact Mollie Blackburn blackburn.99@osu.edu or Susan Hanson hanson.94@osu.edu. In the meantime, please feel free to contact the convener of any group that interests you, regardless of whether you indicated that interest or completed the survey.

The Literacy Studies Working Group Plans for 2005-06 call for initiating

• regular seminars, for example, for graduate student and faculty research;
• programs focusing on key issues and questions in literacy studies and practices including multiple literacies and their interrelations, connections between modes of reading and writing, literacies and academic disciplines, "new" literacies and "old" literacies, literacy and everyday life, public policy issues; and
• visits from Ohio-based literacy scholars.

Other Topics of Special Importance include:

• The Future of Literacy Studies @ OSU and the Literacy Studies Working Group, including possible organizational forms, university and other support, large and small group activities and public programs, prospects for undergraduate minors and/or graduate interdisciplinary specialization in Literacy Studies
• Literacy Studies information and communications channels and networks, electronic and other--for activities, exchanges, course information and syllabuses, news and information

Literacy Studies @ OSU
The Literacy Studies Working Group is compiling a list of all literacy-related courses offered at OSU. If you have taught, taken, or plan to teach any courses at OSU that address literacy (broadly conceived), please reply to hanson.94@osu.edu with the course name, course number, a brief description, and if possible the syllabus.

We are also compiling a list of literacy-related research projects and publications. If you have conducted or are conducting research related to literacy (again, broadly conceived), or if you have published in the area, please reply with the title and a brief description of the research and/or publication information.

Subscribers may post messages to literacystudies@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu

Because our current subscribers include faculty, administrators, and students, as well as colleagues from other institutions, our hope is that this forum will be used primarily for brief announcements and informational messages. In other words, since the messages will not be screened for content (this is not a managed list), we need to depend on each other for collegial participation.