Shannon Carter

HL 112

903-886-5492

Shannon_Carter@tamuc.edu *

 

(By far, email is the best way to reach me)

 
 

SUMMER II, 2007

Goals

Literacy is multiple, socially-situated, people-oriented and, in the end, much more than the ability to encode and decode print-based texts. Thus it seem appropriate for those of us interested in the teaching of reading and writing to develop a nuanced understanding of the way literacy lives within a variety of contexts, for a variety of purposes, and within a variety of very different activity systems. In our next few weeks together, we will do just that.

Required Materials

Cope, Bill and Mary Kalantzis, eds. Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. NY: Routledge, 1999. (apparently unavailable to the student bookstore until 6/15, though I've had my desk copy for several weeks already . . . instead we'll read Selfe and Hawisher's fabulously interesting Literate Lives in the Information)

Selfe, Cynthia L. and Gail Hawisher. Literate Lives in the Information Age: Narratives of Literacy From the United States. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. 

Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Harper Paperbacks, 1994.

Rose, Mike. The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker.  Penguin, 2005.

A Second Life account (free!)

Additional readings available in eCollege

Recommended Texts

Second Life: The Official Guide. Sybex, 2006.

Course Activities

Discussion (Threaded Discussion Activities): The heart and soul of an online course is the class discussion. Of course this is true of classrooms that function primarily in brick-and-mortar spaces, but it seems worth making explicit nonetheless. Our "discussions" each week will focus on the convergence among our experiences, our readings, and our discussions with others in lifeworlds beyond this class. Each week I will provide 3-4 discussion questions in an attempt to get the conversation rolling. All will be connected to our readings for the week, and (usually) at least one will focus on gathering ideas for upcoming Difficulty Papers and your more formal Final Project (more on both below). Each week, you will expected to contribute at least one post to each Threaded Discussion Activity (TDA). Each post should go beyond merely summarizing the required readings, but it should also be obvious from your post that you have read everything assigned for the week (of course no one in a graduate-level course would ever fail to read an assigned reading :). That's the minimum. MUCH better would be to post more than once and engage with your classmates' posts as well.

We'll talk more about this as our days together unfold into weeks. As any good classroom depends on its ability to function as a true community, we will begin building our community through a TDA dedicated to introductions.

"Difficulty Papers" (DP): You will have two "Difficulty Papers" this term. In The Elements (and Pleasures) of Difficulty (2004), composition scholars Mariolina R. Salvatori and Patricia Donahue show us how an assignment they call the "Difficulty Paper" helps writers grapple with difficult readings. In this class, I want you to think of "reading" in terms that extend beyond the books listed above and the articles included in the rest of our "reading list." "Reading" here will also mean reading your own experiences (as text) and the experiences of those you will be asked to interview. For more about how these Difficulty Papers will work, please visit the link above or go to Michael Arnzen's useful description at "Pedablogue: A Personal Inquiry into the Scholarship of Teaching" at http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeArnzen/010483.html

DP 1 will be due in Week 2. DP 2 will be due in Week 3. Much more about the specific requirements of each very soon, but the basic premise is that, for DP 1, you will be expected to locate a "community of practice" with which you are largely unfamiliar, identify a key informant in order to learn about that space, and interview him/her to learn about more about that space (and what it takes to be literate in the target community of practice).

Final Project: The culminating project for this course. Your final project should contribute something new(ish) to the scholarly conversations about literacy and literacy education. Make extensive use of the conversations to which you were introduced in this course. In fact, it seems likely your Final Project will emerge directly from one or more of your Difficulty Papers or discussion posts. Ultimately, your project should be one you'd consider presenting at a conference. If you wish to develop an academic argument utilizing alphabetic text, that means you should limit your project to about 8-10 pages. If you wish to develop something in another mode (or a "mutimodal" project), talk to me about it. By the end of the course, you will have been introduced to many different kinds of texts (and the variety of "literacies" required to make meaning from these various texts). You may contribute to that conversation about the multiple literacies in our lives in a variety of ways. Given the complexity of the conversation (and the fact that we have only a few short weeks together), it may be a good idea to try to translate this multiplicity into a linear, more traditionally "academic," print-based, alphabetic "paper." But that's entirely your choice. I leave it up to you! But please, let me help guide you in that choice.

Academic Honesty (the policy we include in our English 100/101/102 syllabi . . . . I'm sure we won't have to worry about this year, but . . . )

The official departmental policy: “Instructors in the Department of Literature and Languages do not tolerate plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonestly. Instructors uphold and support the highest academic standards, and students are expected to do likewise. Penalties for students guilty of academic dishonesty include disciplinary probation, suspension, and expulsion. (Texas A&M University-Commerce Code of Student Conduct 5.b [1,2,3])

If you ever have any questions about a particular use of a source, always ask your instructor. They want you to avoid plagiarism, too, so they will help you do so whenever and wherever they can. Do what you can to take advantage of this support—to look innocent in addition to being innocent when it comes to charges of plagiarism.
 

Additional Official Statements

Student Conduct: All students enrolled at the University shall follow the tenets of common decency and acceptable behavior conducive to a positive learning environment. In addition, you are requested to turn off your cell phones before entering the classroom. Common courtesy says you do not receive or answer calls during class. If there is an emergency that requires you to leave your phone on, talk to me about it beforehand and switch the phone to vibrate so you don't surprise me when you leave class to take a call and you don't interrupt class when the call comes in. Also, Instant/Text Messaging is off limits.

Americans with Disabilities Act Statement: Students requesting accommodations for disabilities must go through the Academic Support Committee. For more information, please contact the Director of Disability Resources and Services, Halladay Student Services Building, Room 303D, 903.886.5835.
 

Schedule

  • Week 1: Introduction to the course and one another

     

    • READ: New London Group's "A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies," Brandt's "Accumulating Literacy," and the two page "Introduction" to "Multiple Literacies: A Compilation for Adult Educators" (all readings for this week are available online)

    • WRITE: in response to all TDAs and in preparation for Difficulty Paper 1 (due in Week 2)

     

  • Week 2: Literacies in Cyberspace

     

    • DUE: Difficulty Paper 1

    • READ: Gee's What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy

    • WRITE: in response to Gee's arguments and your own experiences

    • EXPERIENCE: Second Life, in preparation for Difficulty Paper 2.

     

  • Week 3: Literacies at Work

     

    • READ: McCloud's Understanding Comics and Rose's The Mind at Work

    • WRITE: in response to McCloud's and Rose's arguments, as well as your own experiences

    • EXPERIENCE: Second Life, in preparation for Difficulty Paper 2.

     

  • Week 4: Multimodality

     

  • Week 5: Applications to Current Systems for Literacy Education

    • EXAMINE: the various syllabi and other "texts" (video essays, short article about our Basic Writing Program at A&M-Commerce, audio essays, etc) that illustrate the ways in which courses and assignments can facilitate the learning of multiple literacies. See "Week 5" in eCollege for list

    • DUE: Final Project (see above)

 
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[ Shannon Carter, PhD ]

June 2007