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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
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Week 1:
Introduction to the course and one another
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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)
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WRITE: in response to all
TDAs and in preparation for Difficulty Paper 1 (due in Week 2)
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Week 2: Literacies
in Cyberspace
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DUE: Difficulty Paper 1
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READ: Gee's What Video
Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy
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WRITE: in response to
Gee's arguments and your own experiences
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EXPERIENCE: Second
Life, in preparation for Difficulty Paper 2.
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Week 3: Literacies
at Work
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READ: McCloud's
Understanding Comics and Rose's The Mind at Work
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WRITE: in response to
McCloud's and Rose's arguments, as well as your own experiences
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EXPERIENCE: Second
Life, in preparation for Difficulty Paper 2.
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Week 4:
Multimodality
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