IRA vs. NCTE

Though as a teacher and a NWP TC, I thought the idea that there was a difference between reading and writing was absurd.  But now I think it is indeed true.  I've attended both NCTE and IRA, and there are differences in tone at each conference. 

IRA, attended mostly by US reading specialists and higher ed faculty, seems to be more concerned with struggling readers and implementing RTI (Response to Intervention, a tiered system that emerged from the most recent reauthorization of IDEA 2006, the Individuals with Disabilities Act).  NCTE seems to be more concerned with moving the teaching of English away from just about anything that constituted the "traditional" teaching of English.  What does this mean?  You probably aren't going to see a whole lot on Shakespeare and grammar workbooks there - except in the vendor areas.  Both conferences have an interesting dichotomy between the content of the sessions and what is being hawked in the "marketplace areas."  I really question just how many sessions some practioners attend.  Instead, they are lured away from the content by free gifts and author signings.  I have no issue with author signings, but when you must wait for nearly an hour for a book to be signed and therefore miss sessions, you must really questions why you (or more likely, your school district) paid over $200 for the conference, for hotel, meals and often airline tickets. Is the conference about learning more or getting free posters? 

The vendors sell promises of making the teaching of reading easier by "taking out the hard work."  I know how much work teaching involves, but I'm always leery when someone tries to sell me something by promising that it "takes the thinking out."  Interestingly, at IRA, this is advantageous to many teachers.  If they need a scientifically based program and they must maintain fidelity to the program (i.e., read from a script or simply plan for the next day by turning a page in the teacher's manual), why go to sessions?  (Both the terms "scientifically-based" and "fidelity to the program" figure prominently in the language of the 2006 reauthorization of IDEA, and teachers must select and use programs that are in compliance with the law.)  Maybe their districts ARE sending them to find the best "program" so they are in compliance wih federal law? 



IRA primarily has an elementary feel.  If secondary teachers are in attendance, they are generally reading specialists.  Many (if not most) of the attendees are married to programs that are "scientifically-based" and to which they must maintain "fidelity."  Using graphic novels and movie making software are great, but they are at the periphery of the "typical" attendees concerns.  Please don't get me wrong, the Heinemann booth (a publisher that certainly "keeps the thinking in") was thronged, but even they have, by necessity, become more programmatic.

 By contrast, NCTE seems to take the opposite tone.  Attended primarily by high school, but also by middle and elementary teachers, NCTE seems to embrace that which is novel - no pun intended.  Session proposals that focus on the "anti-cannon" are more likely to be accepted.  NCTE seems to promote a questioning of the norm and has a wider range of conference attendees.  As if discussed in previous posts, NCTE developed both the National Day of and Gallery of Writing.  Though reading is by no means discounted by NCTE, reading seems to be a conduit for thinking.  Comprehension is obviously the ultimate goal of reading teachers, but, following the lead of the National Reading Panel, it is the last ciritical skill after phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency and vocabulary.

The Academy vs. The Practioner

I've begun to realize how little of what I considered to be pretty pervasive professional books (Calkins, Atwell, Fletcher) have actually become part of writing instruction in real classrooms. Maybe my perception is skewed since I hang around with so many NWP people, but it seems that the more you move out of the realm of NWP or schools that provide a lot of professional development, there is really very little understanding of how best to teach writing. You begin to see a lot of "hamburger" paragraphs and 5 paragraph essays - not that that is always a bad thing, but there is certainly more to life than the five paragraph essay. But my guess is, there are few kids that know more than that. And even fewer who have been exposed to writer's workshop.

I've begun to question why theory (research?) does not enter more into practice. I was talking to a friend who was going to do her dissertation on narrative and expository writing. One of her advisors convinced her to switch the terms to to transactional and poetic writing.  (She mentioned Britton, but I wasn't familiar with him.). We sort of laughed and I said, "Now no teacher will actually know what you are talking about."

I had always intended to pursue a dissertation topic that was relevant to teachers. In my opinion, if not relevant to practicing teachers or parents or administrators, why do it? Who reads it? Twenty other college professors? But I've begun to sense that there is a disregard in the Academy for the practioner. But if there weren't practioners, the Academy wouldn't exist.  And this is my struggle of the week!

I wanted to add this poem that I wrote as a part of Jen's presentation, as I thought it resonated with this post:

Implication and inference
can have so many
different
contextual meanings
the sordid
the cerebral
the mundane
the absurd

and my meanings
may differ wildly from your meanings

As our scholarly lens becomes more focused on our topic
does our view of others
become more distorted?

We must be careful
not to view as grotesque
or ill-formed
the views of those
who do not look at life
through our
lens

Ch. 18 The History of Schools by David Olson

It seems that many of the chapters in the Handbook allude to the role class has played in the history of writing (see my posts on the Wysocki and Howard, chapters 15 and 37) . This idea emerges again in this chapter when Olson writes about the growth of literate societies. He describes how the rise of Protestantism led to greater literacy, though reading spread more rapidly than writing, which was taught through guilds in feudal societies. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I try to stay away from religion, but it has been a hard topic to avoid in the history of reading and writing. Although for one reason or another (the Inquisition? Auto-de-fes?) my ancestors chose to remain Catholics; I loved the idea that Lutheranism promoted the, "goal of allowing readers to consult the word of God for themselves as private, often silent, readers, rather than public auditors" (p. 284). How very liberating literacy and education are.


The idea of high and low brow literature emerges as well. Olson describes how by the mid-19th century, different writers appear who wrote for very different audiences. Thus, the working public read Dickens and the educated elites read Henry James. This access to literacy created the need to form a canon of great works which Olson describes as, "inaccessible to a not insignificant proportion of the student body" (p. 285). This immediately brought to mind my last post as that addressed the use of graphic novels as well as Katie's post on The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Somehow, making reading more accessible makes it less. Why is that? It brings to mind how educators in the 1920's thought their high drop-out rates were indicative of how challenging schools were. (It also mirrors the comments of a few AP teachers I've encountered.)


While the first few sections of the chapter were interesting, I thought the heart of the chapter could be found in the section on thinking for writing and the sections that followed. Just as some feel writing trumps images, Olson seems to indicate that in schools today writing trumps talk by pointing out, "talk is cheap; what gets written down is important" (p. 286). Olson also points to the connections between reading and writing again (why didn't I cite him in my paper?) by noting, "Learning to write and to organize one's thoughts for writing requires reading, teaching and a great deal of practice. Consciousness of language is in part a consequence of learning how to deal with written text whether in reading or writing ((Morias & Kolinsky, 2004), p. 286." This made me think of the seminal work by Carl Nagin and the National Writing Project, Because Writing Matters.  Dr. Kist also brought up the notion of teaching students to be "critical writers" (just as we teach them to be critical readers) and I thought this study conducted by Perry (1970) supported that very idea: "In a series of studies with undergraduates, Perry discovered that as students become more educated they move from a naive, uncritical approach to a present[ing] information to a more critical approach, perspectival stance" (p. 287).


Finally, I was a thought the inclusion of the final sections on textbooks was interesting (as they are formalized, written documents), but I didn't completely understand why this topic should take such a prominent role in a chapter on the history of writing in schools. In my experience, I rarely had a writing textbook - maybe a handbook. Textbooks were the domain of other subject areas.

Big Ideas From Chapter 37: Visual and Digital Writing Practices

While I realized there was a bias toward the textual, I had no idea just how virulent that bias was until I read Mitchell (1984) interpreting the writings of G.E. Lessing by "writing that the, 'image is the medium of the subhuman, the savage, the 'dumb' animal, the child, the woman, and the masses" (p.600)

Apparently, Lessing felt that poetry (more largely, words) had the "masculine potentials of theory and action" (Wysocki, p. 600).  Well, the certainly doesn't jive with the whole premise of Reading Don't Fix No Chevys! 

In talking with other teachers or parents about the potential for using graphic novels (especially in social studies), I'd sometimes hear an audible sneer when they mimicked back the term "graphic novel." Clearly, the implication was, "You can call it whatever you want, sister, that book is a comic." But Wysocki elucidates the root of the underlying feeling that graphic novels are some how less because, historically, they were less: "...in the development of comic books, the tension between word and picture is that of class" (p. 600)  Texts that relied more on visual or pictorial information were created to keep defined class lines in place and to keep those in the lower classes from, "...getting ideas of what their lives should be" (p. 600).  Even kids can sense some adults snub comics, as this fifth grader points in an article from Time for Kids, "Usually teachers tell us to put comics away," says Deshaun Osborne, a fifth grader at Magnolia Elementary, in Joppa, Maryland. "I was shocked to hear we'd be using comic books."  But the article describes how some states are actually incorporating comics into their language arts curriculum. 

But, like many "new media" (and I don't know, are these really new media?  My 89 year old grandfather was reading Disney comics at 9 years old), comics/graphic novels not only offer kids the chance to improve their reading skills (I loved this PowerPoint on inferential thinking and comics), but they also offer kids a chance to compose using a medium that is not solely print-based.  This article describes how fourth grade teacher and National Writing Project Teacher Consultant uses a program called Comic Life to help students more easily create their own comics.  In light of the thinking I've been doing about inference and implication, I think this is a particularly powerful idea.  One of the articles I read for my research was by Stephan Petrucha, an author who writes both traditional and graphic novels.  He points out that graphic novelists in particular need to understand the art of implication (showing, and not telling - really) by noting that the author of a graphic novel has to use implication carefully stating, “…in dialogue sequences, I always try to have the characters doing while they chat, from the overt, like setting the fuse on a bomb, to the sublime, like tearing up the last letter from an ex-boyfriend, to the small, like flicking some ice cream off a straw” (Petrucha, 2008, p. 60).  He goes on to describe how he must imply action or meaning carefully by noting, “It is the standard rule in comic writing that one shouldn’t, for instance, show a picture of a car pulling out of a driveway with the caption reading, ‘The car pulled out of the driveway,’ and a character saying, ‘Look, a car is pulling out of the driveway.” (p.62)  But he begins the piece with a quote from a gentleman at a book expo, "Now kids don't have to read them" (p.60)

My guess is that new literacies will be in defense mode for sometime.  Those who will continue to attack are those who (like my mother, God love her) don't know how to use ATMs, refuse to "check email" and teachers who probably use their classroom computers primarily for Accelerated Reader.  (From where did this tone emerge?  I promise, I will return to my congenial self after submitting my paper this Monday.)

I found it interesting that most of the research into the visual aspects of pages emerges from the field of advertising.  I'll admit, I just don't know enough about semiotics, social semiotics and visual culture to have taken much from this section.  I did find some of the ideas that emerged from the New London Group (NLG) in developing a "pedagogy of multiliteracies to help students work with available literacies (visual, linguistic, audio, spatial, and gestural) so that students become 'creative and responsible makers of meaning'" (p. 604) to be totally applicable, especially to some of the thoughts I'd had on the opportunities comic composition offers.

The crux of this chapter for me was the final section on digital reading and writing.  I, too, questioned what constitutes writing now, though Wysocki seemed to focus more on how the "momentary shape of the internet" makes "audiences form and disperse quickly" (p.606).  So too does the internet begin to make fuzzy the notions of author, reader and writer when content can be copied and reformulated so much more easily than it was when it was solely print-based.  In addition, newer writing environments like blogs and wikis expand the notion of authorship to include the reader.  Perhaps the most fascinating and affirming part of what I'd read was that "hypertexts could give even more control to writers than printed texts..." (Wysocki noting the work of Douglas, 1994 and Johnson-Eilola, 1994 on page 606).  This helped to strengthen my own feelings that hypertext can offer the author more opportunities to clarify implied meanings both at the word and sentence (or stanza, whatever thought unit) level.  My hope is to go on and read these works, especially Douglas's.  I've found that the references at the end of these chapters are the best resources for my own research.  I've had much better leads with the citations offered by the authors of each chapter than I've had, say, using Education Research complete or one of the other search tools through the KSU Library.

Contentious Intention

I have been reading a book called Intention and Interpretation this week desperately trying to find a "good" definition of authorial intention to include in my paper. My problem: as far as I can tell, there is no "good" definition of authorial intention. Instead, opinion (and I would argue, it is opinion) varies from E.D. Hirsh's stance that the text means what the author intended to subjective reader response (led by the work of David Bleich) that presumes, "reader's responses are the text, both in the sense that there is no literate text beyond the meanings created by reader's interpretations and in the sense that the text the critic analyzes is not in the literary work but the written responses of readers" (p. 178, Tyson, 2006). Honestly, I feel a little bit like Alice in Wonderland; the further I go into the territory of interpretation, the more confusing and bizarre things get! I guess it is a sign that I am learning more when I have more questions, but I sometimes feel that in the field of education, you will always have a critic. There is no 'correct.' I can always disagree with your theory as long as I ground my own response in another theory - or better yet, make up my own theory. Doesn't it seem like some things should be universally true? But that isn't necessarily the case, as Tyson points out (when writing about subjective reader-response) that, "What is called 'objective' knowledge is simply whatever a given community believes to be objectively true (p.179). She wisely points out the widely held belief that the world was flat and that the sun revolved around it. She goes on the say, "...'truth' isn't an 'objective' reality waiting to be discovered; it is constructed by communities of people to fulfill specific needs produced by specific historical, sociological, and psychological situations." Subjective reader response is not some free-for-all - students do need to negotiate meaning within classroom communities. It also seems that students do need to identify aspects of their responses that are rooted in the text - so there is a return to the text. But there is no talking to someone else during high-stakes testing, whether on the 3rd grade OAT or the GRE. There is the reader and the text - and there is a correct answer. And this is where I always remain a teacher and a pragmatist: I think I owe my students both a love of reading (and writing) but I also want to provide them with the "keys to the kingdom." I want them to have the skills to do well on tests like the SAT and ACT so they can gain admittance to "the Academy," or med school, or whatever career they desire. Their ability (or lack thereof) should not determine there career/pursuit of passion; their interest should. For lest we forget, one component of admission to the doctoral program was the GRE....




I really haven't felt so confused after I've read so much on one topic before. It is a little maddening. I will reveal my bias here that whether or not a reader interprets what I have written to mean what I intended, there is no doubt that as an author I intended to convey meaning by carefully selecting (or omitting) words. As I think about what it means to infer, I think that both Hirsch and Bleich (and likely everyone in between) has something to offer. As a reader, I'm taught to make inferences based on what I know about author's craft (but I do think that must be taught...or experienced) and by my visceral reactions to what an author has written. I'm still coming back to the fact that as an author, there are some topics/words/symbols that I can use (within a certain cultural context) that will very likely elicit a certain type of reaction from my readers. Pilkington identifies something called strong and weak implicature - strong I've left clues for (Hirsch) and weak a reader reacted in a way I could not envision (Bleish). There is also a belief that writers create their readers as they write (this was in the article I read by Kroll, and it is late, so I'll look it up and add it later!). So either way, there are theorists who would almost negate the importance/role of the writer or the reader. It just depends on whose lens you chose to look through. Guess this is where all this talk of "knowing your theoretical stance" comes in....

It is late, I am salty, and I am going to bed! 

The Trouble with Local Literacies

I'm not sure if I am the only one, but I am having a hard time engaging with Local Literacies by Barton and Hamilton. I've tried starting at different places in the text so I could get a "footing," but the only chapters I've found even slightly engaging are the four chapters that chronicle the experiences of four different members of the study. Perhaps these are more narrative in nature? Maybe I'm expecting some sort of "story line" to emerge and that isn't what I should expect from an ethnography? I've most enjoyed reading this as a sort of cultural voyeur. I found it interesting that the USA, Canada and Australia all undertook major studies into reading difficulties/ illiteracy far before the UK did in 1990 (p163). And while there were some places that I could use context clues to figure words or expressions out with which I was unfamiliar (bin collectors and school-leavers) there were others where my limited background knowledge impeded my comprehension. I decided to take to the web and was helped somewhat (see below). Also, when I read about Shirley's struggles with her son's school, I had a hard time understanding how government run schools were structured. I think she mentions writing to one of the commissioners? Is this like a school board member? I'm just not sure I see as many connections between this study and my lines of inquiry, so perhaps that is why I'm having such a hard time with this. Are there some sort of "big ideas" that we are supposed to be walking away from this book with that I am missing? It seems to me that a lot of what I've read thus far in Part III is just logical. Maybe this is because I was a part of the National Writing Project - a group that "takes teachers where they are" as writers and celebrates our writing histories? I don't know, but I'm interested in hearing everyone else's responses.


I thought I'd try to get some background knowledge using the internet and found these sites interesting, though I still have a lot of questions:


Lancaster
I thought this site, on the Lancaster City Council, was quite interesting.  It really makes you realize just how much has changed since this study was conducted - and it really doesn't feel as if it were that long ago!

Poll Tax
A great site for Anglophiles or a lovely chronology of the history of the UK.  Apparently the poll tax issue coincided with the end of Margaret Thatcher's leadership?

This site helped me to understand that a poll tax regressive and thus is always going to have a greater impact on the economically disadvantaged.  It also helped me to connect how poll taxes were also used in the United States.

And for when you just don't have a clue what a word means, no matter the context:
This is a great site that "translates" British English to American English created by a school.  Just fun to read!

Chapter 27 - The Reading Writing Nexus in Discourse Research

I selected this chapter because the focus of my (life?) paper is on inference at the intersection of reading and writing. More specifically, I wondered how inferential thinking in reading relates to implication in writing and how we can use writing as a tool to develop both. This whole idea really came from Karen who commented on how she used what she did as a writer to help her develop inferential thinking skills in her readers. The interesting thing is, there really isn’t that much out there on this topic specifically. Instead, I’ve had to go venturing into the worlds of reading, writing, psychology, composition and rhetoric to try and put together a lens through which to view the topic. I knew that we needed to select one chapter for our paper/presentation and after previewing and reading this chapter, I felt it was the best. Because I know that you will be asked to read parts of this chapter, I wanted to highlight the parts I felt were important. The very act of “bulleting” the chapter helped me to delve back into the chapter and to distinguish what supports the work I’ve done and still raises questions. It was really a writing to learn activity (which is discussed in the next chapter – chapter 28).


I still struggle with the best analogy for how reading and writing are connected. In my paper I call them opposite sides of the cognitive coin. This chapter (and many other texts I’ve read, all of which fall under the theory of social discourse, I believe) positions both reading and writing as an act of construction – the writer has to construct meaning and the reader, in reading what the writer has written, must also compose meaning. Because readers bring different background knowledge and assumptions to a text, they may construct meaning from the same text very differently than the writer intended. Knorr-Cetina is quoted on page 439 as noting, “a text can be considered ‘co-produced by the authors and the members of the audience to which it is directed.” (p.439) While this can’t be avoided, there are certain endeavors a writer can undertake to better consider and support her readers. And to me, this is the heart of where inferential thinking lies.

Readers look to clues from the author to make an inference, but an author must leave some sort of “hole” for a reader to fill in order to promote inferential thinking. Do most of us set out to “write an inference for our readers”? I don’t think so, but we do want to weave a web of language, so to speak – and there is the struggle. We can’t leave too many holes for readers to fill because our writing will be disjointed. If our writing is literal to the point of austerity, then we have only given our reader a superficial, “surface” piece. If anyone out there knits (who has time?), you might be able to connect this to knitting a scarf or a sweater: too many dropped stitches and the piece is a mess, but by using a technique like purling, a knitter creates a more interesting, complex final product. Do syntactic and semantic complexity demand more of the reader? Yes. (See Kroll, 1986 on page 439.)

How then do writers get readers to “think” (ergo, infer)? It seems that certain literary techniques invite a reader to do just that: the use of figurative language, hyperbole, allusion, etc. We tend to judge high quality literature by the devices the author uses – a part of his or her craft. What is it about the richness of certain works that invites us to think inferentially? Why aren’t I constantly seeing something new when I read, “Go, Dog, Go” but I do when I read “Encounter” by Jane Yolen or “Voices in the Park” by Anthony Browne? When a writer enumerates instead of describes, the result is often unengaging to readers. (Nancy Atwell offers a lot of good examples of student “before” and “after” pieces in Lessons That Change Writers.) And where do visual inferences enter this realm that seems so dominated by text? Why have writing teachers asked their students to, “show, not tell”? Isn’t it because they are asking novice writers to write with the reader in mind? Aren’t writers forced to infer something about their readers when they write? (See the Witte study on page 436.) Nelson (the author of this chapter) points out that, “Writing is an intentional act; writers intend their texts to have particular effects on their audience of readers,” and that, “Writers can be said to ‘read’ their readers – to consider readers and the ways in which those readers might understand, misunderstand, or even refute texts.” (p.439) I think Volosinov (1973) captures the connection between reading and writing best by pointing out that, “word is a two-sided act. It is determined equally by whose word it is and for whom it is meant.” (p.86)

I have also struggled throughout my research and writing to try and focus more on the writing side of the connection. Like Deb said when she came in to speak about the Writing Project, I have a difficult time seeing the two dichotomously. I was heartened when I read the following on page 436, “Some of what is now known about writing comes from studies considered reading research, and some knowledge about reading comes from studies considered to be writing research. Whether a study is considered reading research or writing research has often been a function of the community from which the researcher belongs, the forum in which the report was published, and how the study was framed.” While reading may have “trumped” writing through attention it garners because of federal mandates and funding, reading and writing are different, yet the same. Writing offers us so many opportunities to help students improve both as readers and writers; but so too does reading do just the same. The section subtitled “Acquiring and Applying Discourse Knowledge” was very instructive in regards to what I think is a somewhat superficial separation. The studies conducted by Shanahan were the most enlightening (and I’m sure they will be even more enlightening once I take statistics and know exactly what it means use a “linear structural relations procedure” (LISREL)!


I hope this post sets the tone for our conversation on Monday, April 5. You can see I still have a lot of questions and I’m sure my initial literature review has barely scratched the surface on the subject.
Not to be snarky, but I found great joy in discovering what appears to be an omission in the references section of this chapter. The Vipond and Hunt 1984 study is cited, but not the 1986 study/ publication. If someone out there can find it and I am wrong, great! Would you please let me know? I really like to read it before this paper is due!  You'll also note that the year of the Kroll citation is inaccurate.  Maybe I am just engaging in this editorial schadenfreude becuase I got my official rejection for the article I wrote last semester.  Sigh.

Chapter 27 – The Reading-Writing Nexus in Discourse Research


Chapter highlights:

• The cognitive revolution of the 1970s overturned the behavioralist “black box” paradigm and reading comprehension became a major focus of research. -435

• The attention to reading comprehension helped facilitate connections with writing, because comprehension was being viewed as the making, instead of the reception of meaning. -435

• Both reading and writing came to be viewed as a came to be viewed as generative processes, and a composing model of reading was even proposed (Tierney & Pearson, 1983). – (436)

• The two could no longer be viewed as simple inverses with one strictly generative and the other strictly receptive. (436)

• When reading one’s own writing, one evaluates it (Flower & Hayes) – 436

• Some of what is now known about writing comes from studies considered reading research, and some knowledge about reading comes from studies considered to be writing research. Whether a study is considered reading research or writing research has often been a function of the community from which the researcher belongs, the forum in which the report was published, and how the study was framed. (436)

• Witte study (1983) conducted a writing that had important implications for reading. College writers all revised the same text so it would be easier to understand but maintain information. “The superior revisions were made by writers who, as readers, made inferences among topics and cued those relations to their own readers.” (436)

• Is development in a particular aspect of reading accompanied by development aspect of writing and visa versa?

• Participant Connection

• What is discourse research? - 437

o Cognitive and social are dichotomous, but what is considered cognitive derives from the social. Discourse knowledge – cognitive, but acquired socially.

o It is applied socially – pragmatically – in acts of communication

o Various types of linguistic knowledge fall under this umbrella, including metadiscourse: knowledge of authorial devices for guiding the reader

o Although cognitive research in writing has not seen as much expansion, the body of knowledge regarding the writing process continues to grow and more is being done by researchers in Europe

• Is development in a particular aspect of reading accompanied by development aspect of writing and visa versa?

o Intervention and correlational approach

o Shanahan and Lomax study (1986) – interactive configuration – reading and writing influenced each other – as opposed to a one-way influence

o Imitation (mimesis) – writers acquire new discourse features for their own texts from reading texts with those features.

• Writing for Readers

o From writing end – writers’ efforts to accommodate their readers – the kind of support that goes by the name response

o Readers relationships with writers – Volosinov (1973) “word is s two-sided act. It is determined equally by whose word it is and for whom it is meant.” (p.86)

o Knorr-Cetina (1981) “a text can be ‘co-produced by the authors and by the members of the audience to which it is directed.” (p.106)

• Writing for Readers – p. 439

o “Writing is an intentional act; writers intend their texts to have particular effects on their audience of readers.” P. 439

o “Writers can be said to ‘read’ their readers – to consider readers and the ways in which those readers might understand, misunderstand, or even refute texts.

o They in a sense “write” or create their readers

o They do not have a direct path into other’s thought

o Writers can generate material for their texts through anticipating possible responses, and also epistemic value, because writers must learn (if they already do not know) much of what their audiences might know.

o Social cognition – the ability to consider the perspectives of others and to make assumptions about what they want to gain from their reading (Rubin (1984)

o Barry Kroll’s research on audience – there is a connection between lexical and syntactic complexity and the ease with which children read (and comprehend) text. (1984 – wrong in the book!)

o Hypertext – potential and problems – 440

• Reading the Writer – p. 442

o Reading researchers have often found that speculating about authorial intent is often an integral part of understanding text (Gibbs, 2001)

o “Accomplished readers often seem to “read” (or invent or construct) the author making inferences and assumptions, and their perceptions can influence their understanding of a text.” (p. 442)

o Rhetorical reading – “readers actively trying to understand the author’s intent, the context, and how other readers might respond.” (Haas and Flower, 1988, p. 181)

o Vipond & Hunt (1984) – sophisticated readers “imputed motives” (p.26) as they sought to discern what the author was getting at, 1986 study by same authors looked at how writers lead readers to the points they want to make using nonstandard elements

Chapter 15 – History of Writing in the Community

Chapter 15 – History of Writing in the Community
History of Writing in the Community - Ursula Howard

I thought it was particularly relevant to comment on this chapter after our discussion this week. Unless I am way off, this clearly relates to the idea of “the big D” – Discourse.

Though this movement began in the UK, I can see some of the vestiges of it. First and I’m sorry if I write about this ad nauseum, I can see how the National Writing Project builds upon these principles. The first I attended the Summer Institute in 2001, each of us brought pieces of writing that reflected who we were and how we’d used writing. We pinned each piece on the wall and did a gallery walk, using sticky notes to post our thoughts here and there. It was amazing to see how the pieces varied – from grocery lists to very revealing personal poetry. Right away, we all knew each other a little better as writers – and a lot of the “mystique” of being a writer vanished. We were all writers now. To me, this also reminds me of Barton and Hamilton’s work: each participant was literate – just to a greater or lesser extent. I’ve read other posts about how people don’t feel like writers yet; I would argue we are all writers; maybe not in the academic sense, but that comes. It is just a different genre! Shame, shame on teachers who use writing and language as a barrier rather than a tool. NCTE seems to be taking an advocacy role in this realm by promoting “The National Day on Writing” and the National Gallery of Writing. It is the written version of NPR’s StoryCorp, which is oral, not written. Just like we all have stories, we all have things to write about – or about which to write…

I also found it interesting to see how literacy was used to subjugate groups who were disadvantaged. In the UK, it was mostly the poor and women. Howard writes that, “Opposition to writing reflected broader fears about teaching the working classes that could upset the social order.” (p. 241) In the US, the disenfranchised groups who were excluded from the “literacy club” were mostly women and African Americans. But I think I have to be careful about claiming that Americans were more inclusive in some way, because though we did educate the poor and later generations of immigrants (mostly from Ireland, Italy, Eastern Europe and Asia), I think the worry about providing "too much" education existed (exists?) here as well. Education and literacy have had the capacity to both create and break barriers – that seems to be fairly universal. I do conjure up images of serfs and lords when I think of Europe, though. I know people who have family that have lived in the same town in Belgium for over 400 years! It seems that it would be harder to break through cultural barriers that have existed that long.

Howard writes about how writing led to self-improvement and ultimately, social change. (p. 246) to write is to be, to read is to think; without the capacity to do either we can neither share our ideas nor be exposed to other’s ideas. Howard cites Raymond Williams on page 239 noting that, “…the first half of the 19th century was the moment of change following 2,000 years of ‘cultural division’ during which writing was known only to a minority. In this period, a majority of people rapidly achieved at least ‘minimal access to writing’ giving rise to a ‘confusion of developments’, a confusion exacerbated by a continuous relocation of the boundaries that kept the social divisions in education, cultural production and life choices in tact.” You wonder what role political revolutions like the American, the French and the later Russian revolution played in this opening of the world of literacy- and where the internet will lead us as we progress through the digital revolution.

I wish every potential high school drop out could read an (abbreviated) version of this chapter. It might help them to reconsider the relationship between education and empowerment.

I also have a lot of thoughts about the role of literacy within the context of religion, but in order to avoid offending anyone, I'll refrain from posting my thoughts in a public forum. If anyone wants to talk more abut it, I'd LOVE to meet before class and discuss it over coffee at Grounds4Thought!

Nystrand, Greene and Wiemelt

Although I alluded to my reading Nystrand in the last post, I wanted to take some time and comment on it article more deeply.

I still stick by my initial assessment that the first few pages are a tough read unless you have some background in literary criticism or linguistics. It does provide an excellent background of the study of teaching writing and composition in the 1970s after the open-admissions programs at CUNY and the Newsweek cover story "Why Johnny Can't Write." (1983) After reading this article in addition to the other assigned readings, I find it interesting that composition and rhetoric is literally another entity within English Departments at the collegiate level. One of the site leaders at the Kent National Writing Project is a doc student in Comp and Rhetoric now. At our meeting this weekend, I asked him about the reading/writing connection at the collegiate level. He told me that a lot of folks in the English Department might not necessarily see a reading/writing connection. Though this may not be news to others, it was certainly news to me. Apparently, you either teach writing courses or literature courses in the English Department - you don't do both. This makes me wonder if we are being honest enough with our students about what they are expected to do at the university level. I always thought divorcing reading and writing was the worst pedagogical idea since corporal punishment. I realized that English Education folks may be alone in considering how writing can be used to teach reading (not merely assess it) and how reading well-crafted texts can be used to inspire and teach writing. Perhaps because I am clearly in the education camp, this article held quite a few surprises for me. I'm guessing this was written for more of a rhetoric and composition audience.

This article helped me to situate my understanding of the different types of critical theories we will encounter in the Tyson book. I think it is an important read before we begin those conversations. I would like to discuss the three different types of rhetoric mentioned on page 269 and 270 - cognitive, expressionist, and social-epistemic. Though I recognized some "big names" as proponents of each (Emig, Flower and Hayes and cognitive rhetoriticians, Peter Elbow and (Donald?) Murray as expressionistic rhetoriticians, and (Carolyn?) Burke as the social-epistemic rhetorician), I would like to discuss how these different theorists might approach the act of teaching writing differently. I can draw my own inferences, but I'm curious how each would figure in today's climate of standardized testing - the great highjacker of pedagogy today.

As I mentioned, I have been looking at this article through the lens of the reading-writing connection - specifically in relation to inference as intention in writing. I found it interesting that, "the study of composition emerged from the strictly pedagogical domain of composition instruction to become a vital area of research on discourse and language processes, akin to psychologists' studies of reading, psycholinguistics' investigations of speaking and language development, and anthropologists' and sociolinguists' research on speech communities." (p.271) I am discovering that as I move away from pure pedagogy into theory, I must have some basic understanding of these other fields. Education does not exist in a bubble. This aspect of the course is what separates my graduate studies from my doctoral work: even master's students still approach the field of education with a practioner's stance. This is the first time I have been forced to consider the implications of theory and, to some extent, science. In light of my reading- writing lens, I thought this quote was the most telling regarding the field of composition studies, "More than anything, the field evolved in its efforts to understand the central problem of meaning in discourse." (p. 272) This is where I see a disconnect between the division of reading and writing paradigm and the act of writing as encompassing writing, reading, listening and speaking. I would really enjoy hearing from a guest speaker one night from the English Department at Kent. If we are preparing teachers to teach students, I think it is important to know what is expected of our elementary and secondary students if and when they reach the university. What are the expectations in a university level English course? Does it differ from teacher to teacher? Is it much different than what I was expected to do fifteen years ago as an undergrad? Has much changed? I was very well prepared for courses I took through the English Department at KSU, but then I had a teacher who, looking back, probably viewed literature and literary criticism through the lens of the New Critics. I took detailed notes about what the professor said the book meant and when I did have to defend my thoughts on texts through literary analysis, I was very good at finding textual support. Are we preparing students for the "game of school" or are we preparing students to be real readers and writers?

But I digress. After reading Nystrand I also had a better understanding of the various "periods" in both literature and composition studies (because, you will notice, even in an analysis of composition studies, it is tough to remove literature). I thought the authors did a nice job of prefacing the description of each consecutive movement and time period by commenting, "In this article we seek to trace the changing centers of gravity that carries composition, linguistics, and literary studies across the last half of the century, not to define hard boundaries or set strict chronologies between the evolving intellectual positions. The irony is that it is only through an articulation of differences in formalist, structuralist and dialogical approaches that we can begin to see important connections among them." (p. 274)

Nystrand, Greene and Wiemelt, or, For An Article I Started Out Hating, I'm Sure Citing It a Lot

Reading this article really made me reflect on my myself as a reader.  When I first attempted to read this article, it was the first week of class.  I hadn't had the priviledge of hearing Dr. Kist speak about the different eras of English education or the predominent forms of critical theory used to interpret literature.  I literally had, "nothing in my suitcase," to quote on of the teachers I interviewed on the teaching of inference; in other words, I had NO background knowledge on this topic.  Since my first attempt at reading this article I've read all of the chapters in The Handbook of Research on Writing as well as my chapter on New Criticism in the Tyson book.  It is as if I am reading a different article.  The text seems much more conversational (though not nearly as much as Tyson) and I'm less angry at the authors for being verbose and (in my opinion) needlessly name dropping -isms!  I wish every social studies and science teacher in the world could keep this principle in mind.  How often was I assigned to read a chapter say, on the French and Indian War or imperialism before the class discussion?  Often!  How much deeper would my reading have been if I'd been given a 1-5 minute preview/ highlights/ chapter walk before the assignment? 

RefWorks and JStor

Is anyone out there using RefWorks?  From what I understand, I should be able to import articles from JStor (the best way I've found to get a full PDF from any NCTE publication), but when I hit the export button, I get a pop-up blocker.  I disable the pop-up blocker, but it still won't work.  If you've done this, I'd appreciate any feedback.

Silent films and inferential thinking

I thought this was a great clip to use to highlight how we "read" film and as an opening to discussing what it means to infer.  If you are in class with me now, there is a good chance you will see this one again!

Charlie Chaplin - "The Lion's Cage"

Meyers, Monaghan and Saul

Meyers Changing "Our Minds: Negotiating English and Literacy" and Monaghan and Saul "The Reader, the Scribe, the Thinker: A Critical Look at the History of American Reading and Writing Instruction."
Both of these pieces helped to situate my understanding of why writing instruction is so often subordinated to reading instruction and to give me a historical overview of why the IRA and NCTE exist as two separate entities (although they now put forth joint position statements and created the Read. Write. Think resource jointly). I also paid very close attention to the dates of both articles. If I am correct, both pre-date NCLB (2001) and the National Reading Panel (2000). That changes much about my reading of each.

Monaghan and Saul argue that there has been a surge in research on writing, and while I would agree, I would say that again the political pendulum has swung back to the need for a greater governmental, nee societal, control of reading. Monaghan and Saul point to, “A study of the teachers guides put out by two publishing companies between 1920 and 1980 documents a decline in trusting the teacher as a professional.” (p.93) I would argue that with certain government approved, “scientifically-based” reading programs that emerged from Reading First that we are again at a time when societal forces are trying to “teacher-proof” reading instruction. Writing, on the other hand, takes the back seat because subjects that are not tested is often less valued – and it is my understanding the state of Ohio has removed the writing assessment from all grade levels except the OGT. Although I would argue, at least in Ohio, all of the subject-area tests test writing to some extent through extended response questions. If Governor Strickland prevails, the ACT will replace the OGT (are you keeping up with all of this), but the ACT (and SAT) have recently reintroduced writing components. (So the issues of reliability the authors outlined on page 100 seem to have again gone by the wayside…for now.) So the reading crisis the emerged from Sputnik and the Great Society that was then replaced by the writing crisis of the 1970s has again been replaced by the reading crisis spawned by NCLB and the NRP in response to whole language… I’m very interested in investigating the research, “…studies that show that children who learn to read while very young actually prefer to start on the road of literacy by writing, not reading. (Durkin, 1970, as cited by the authors)

This year, NCTE went so far as to create a “National Day of Writing” to attempt to convince policy-makers and every day Americans just how important writing is to all of us, everyday. Perhaps the latest emphasis on “21st Century Skills” will again bring writing to the forefront? Monaghan and Saul point out that “…reading has been defined more clearly than writing.” (p.87) Reading also seems to allow societal forces to exert greater control of students as well as teachers, as the quote on page 91 outlines, “Society has focused much more on children as readers because, historically, it has been much more interested in children as receptors than produces of the written word.”

Monaghan and Saul outline to some extent the changing definition of what it means to be literate (to read is to say, to read is to decode & respond to literal questions, to read is to understand), but I found that the Myers chapter provided a richer, historical overview. While Monaghan and Saul’s main point seems to be that reading is more political because it is about control (of teachers, of students, of content, of values), Myers more skillfully outlines the epochs of literacy in America. I truly had no idea that recitation literacy was the focus of American literacy instruction until almost 1920. I guess I never realized that the definition of what it meant to be literate changed dramatically three times in the course of American history – and perhaps given that these chapters have a 1996 publication date, you could argue that with web 2.0, they have changed again. The vignette Myers highlighted that captured the first shift so well was on page 87, when the author pointed out, “In 1916, draftees into the US Army were encountering a new definition of reading: reading is silent decoding and analysis of the parts of unfamiliar materials. These recruits were being criticized for not doing what they had never been taught to do.” I haven’t gotten my Tyson book from Amazon yet, but I’m wondering if that shift from recitation to decoding, defining and analyzing is when the “New Criticism” paradigm emerges. Although the article places the end of this era roughly in 1983, I would argue that much of my experience in high school English classes mirrored the work that students did in this period more so than the transition to a new standard of literacy. It wasn’t until I starting teaching in the upper grades that I began to read professional texts that suggested students could have their own personal interpretations of text – if those students could ground those interpretations in textual evidence. I seem to remember one way of interpreting literature: the English teacher’s way, which, I realize now, was probably the literary critic’s way. She parroted their interpretations of literature just as we parroted hers.

I would like to hope that we are, by the nature of the workforce, moving toward a different type of literacy marked by higher order thinking skills as Meyers points out, “These gains [in standardized test scores], however, were no longer adequate by the 1980s. Higher order thinking skills were becoming essential for all students, but decoding/ analytic literacy had not attempted higher order thinking for all students,” (p.101) I see a tension today between reading programs that are governed by one day of testing, be it in March or May, and the need for 21st Century skills. I have heard teacher’s stories of warning students not to think too deeply on testing days and of the need to teach the genre of testing. I believe we are at a time of another upheaval in what constitutes a literate person, and I certainly hope that the emphasis on literacy as thinking is what emerges – and not just thinking to pass a test, trying to guess what someone else’s correct answer is or using the right number of sentences in a paragraph.

Chapters 1,9 & 10 - Handbook of Research on Writing

Chapter 1
Though I'm not sure I agree 100%, Schamandt-Besserat & Erarad, argue that writing developed more distinctly from art and as a need to record & manage consumer transactions. (Wait a minute, how many goats did I sell you?) Dr. Kist brought this up in class as well.

I think this text thus far has been very careful with presenting the how writing emerged in the world, not just from a very western perspective. Writing emerged in three different geographical areas: Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica and China. Societies that placed a greater emphasis on writing were of course societies that we tended to better understand, thus to value as more "cultured."

As a person who has studied phonics (through the form of spelling - I didn't use a spelling book to teach spelling, I used more of a developmental spelling approach), I found the way that different forms of writing emerged grapho-phonemically really fascinating: while cuneiform began as a logographic system (one sign = one concept), it eventually evolved to include the concept of different syllables, but not individual sounds making it a syllabary. (p.15) I also found it absolutely amazing that the alphabet emerged only once and that ALL alphabets derive from the same first alphabet. Now here is where I would love to ask a speech pathologist if this is because these same sounds have a physiological component to them. The alphabet as we know it began with 22 letters (all consonants) which were phonemes. It apparently sure beat learning 600 cuneiform signs. It was the Greeks who added letters for vowels (adding some aspects of their Indo-European language to the Semitic), so it was easier to transcribe the spoken word. From the Greeks the alphabet spread to the Etruscans who were conquered by the Romans who went on to conquer a whole bunch of people, thereby spreading the Latin alphabet that we know and use today. The chapter also cleared up some misconceptions I'd had about Chinese in that most characters do represent speech sounds (p.16).

I thought the John Goody quote on page 18 that characterizes writing as " technology of the intellect" (p.18) was a good one to keep in the pocket.

Finally, writing is still evolving - we are not "there." I remember the first time I saw an emoticon and thought that the person sending the message had clearly missed a few days of school when the teacher was going over punctuation...

Ch. 9
A quote for potential future use:
"The invention of writing made knowledge more readily and reliably remembered, transported across time and space, and shared, by copying among multiple people and sites." But writing to, "construct[ing] abstractions apart from instances" leads to the possibility of multiple interpretations - thus, the reader has to make inferences to reconstruct situations. (p.143) As Dr. Sandmann said, "Without writers, readers would not make inferences." I thought the next few quotes also had implications for literary inferential thinking (as I can make inferences visually as well as auditorally as well - inference is found not only in the domain of the printed word):
"Writing facilitates inspecting exact wording to hold authors accountable for what was said, as well as comparing accounts and inconsistencies, differences and contradictions. Although these tasks can be carried out in oral contexts, and none are necessarily consequences of the acquisition of literacy, these facilitations nonetheless are consistent with historically observed changes occurring with literacy." (p.144)
{Are writers always writing to capture things exactly as they are? I would say that when that happens it falls within the range of nonfiction, but as writing became an art (and not just a method for replicating life in printed words), I have to believe that through the use of figurative language, writers were leaving cognitive "holes" that they hoped would be filled with thought. What that thought was was reader dependent. But think of poetry. As a poet, the language used can be pretty spartan ("So much depends on the red wheelbarrow"), but I have to imagine William Carlos Williams wanted it the line to read that way. His "wheelbarrow" might be very different from my own "wheelbarrow."}
"[Thus,] the impact of literacy on thought and knowledge should be understood within particular social, cultural, and historical circumstances and practices."

Historically, writing seems to have initially been utilized for economics, social control and religion (and if you are a Marxist, the last two things are really the same, no?). I found it interesting that the Maya also utilized scribes to "mediate" between the gods and the common people-which is very reminiscent of Christianity during the Middle Ages. I found it so culturally different that in India, writing was considered to be for those too dull to remember and that religious learning was oral. Writing also initially had less value among the Greeks than "rhetoric." We tend to often think of learning in China as being very different than Westernized pedagogical methods - often more test-driven. I'm guessing that is because high-stakes testing appears to have been a part of Chinese culture (the imperial civil service examinations) that lasted for over two millenia (p.151). And we think No Child Left Behind can be awful...
Finally, though I knew that the Islamic world was responsible for "keeping" much of the knowledge that was "lost" during the Dark Ages, I don't think I realized just how much: it seems without translations from Greek into Syriac and Arabic, much of what was known in the ancient world about mathematics and medicine would have been lost to time. (Check out the history of the word algebra.) The Islamic world was also where East met West, thus their collections of knowledge were truly the first that were "international" in scope. (p. 155)

Ch. 10
This chapter helped me to situate much of what I know about what it means to be a scholar in the context of history. I found the emergence of the European university fascinating. Though I suspect I should have known it, I was still amazed at just how much control the Vatican exercised over curricula. (Perhaps this explains why my husband took Latin at his Catholic high school - something that has really served him well on all of our vacations, let me tell you...) It also makes total sense that the Reformation could only coincide with the invention of the printing press - it was the first time people were able to draw their own interpretations and inferences from the Bible. It was at this time (15th century) that, "learning became a competitive force that could enhance the status and power of monarchs.." (p. 159)

Skipping forward a few centuries, the idea of writing as a means of documenting the authorship of ideas (1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the emergence of patents) was really groundbreaking. (Also, over half of patents currently come from the US.) Moving toward the economies of today, I thought the following quote captured an important central idea from the chapter:
"As modern society has become more dependent on knowledge, the economic value of many sorts of information and the texts that bear them has increased, particularly with the advent of electronic communication and the Internet, so that the purchaser may gain only transient use of the purchased knowledge product, the permanent and authoritative copy of which still resides solely in the possession of the owner." (p. 161) Might this explain why I cannot copy and paste to this blog from a word document? Or am I just slow on the uptake? (Likely the latter.)

Finally, I "got" why people said that the language you study depends on what field you plan to study. (Is German still the language of science? Or am I to believe the text that English is now the official language of scholarship from the mid-20th century forward?) It seems that we are still anchored to the Prussian idea of research and scholarship, so someone can throw the Germans a bone there.

"Implication in Writing" and Project Ideas

I spoke briefly with Dr. Sandmann today about this odd idea of looking at inference from the writing, as opposed to the reading, perspective. If you've been reading the blog, you know I haven't found much on the topic. There are a fair amount of professional texts for practioners and as well as research (which tends to focus on one type of inference, say at the word level) on the teaching of inference - but quite honestly, there is not even as much of that as one would expect.

She suggested I try a search term that centers around the quote above. The amount of inferential thinking (from the writer's end, intentional ambiguity) required of a reader is directly related to the sophistication (thus, readability) of the text. Though I think writers at all levels (reread the last page of The Cat in the Hat if you haven't recently) do require inferential thinking of their readers, the more ambiguity (one of the characteristics of good texts used to teach inference Dr. Bintz has developed), the more sophisticated the text. (I'm thinking of the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg in Gatsby.) So, after I do a bit of searching, I'll post my results.

My other question (if this one does not work out) will be, "Why use new technologies (like podcasting, Scratch, GarageBand, etc.) to help students communicate their thinking about a staid topic like grammar?" Why not just use work books? Or even just good old art projects? What cognitive and pedagogical benefits are there of using "new media" to share student thinking about one of the bedrocks of the teaching of English?

I'd be interested to hear from all of you out there. Do you think there is an angle I am missing? Is there anything you've read that you think I should check out? Also, does anyone have Ralph Fletcher's Craft Lessons that I could borrow?

Push by Sapphire/ New Criticism

I must get back to reading for class now that I have finished this book. I just can't stop thinking about it. I hope my daughter has a Miss Rain every year in school.

Off to read about New Criticism. A bit daunting now. While the text says that this form of criticism is out of vogue now (everything you need to know to analyze a text is found within), I would argue that state assessments are still asking students to read this way. During my inference interviews (conducted with teachers) one teacher went on at great length how she has to teach her students NOT to put themselves "in" what they have read when tested on thier reading in May. She commented again and again about the importance of text evidence, especially when the class was doing, "test genre."

So is "close reading" gone? I would say no.

Copy and Paste?

I wrote a post in Word, but can't seem to copy and paste here. Is anyone else having this issue?

Reading Response - Menand

I started reading the Menand article ("Show or Tell: Should Creative Writing be Taught?" from The New Yorker, June 2009) and thought he provided a good overview of the history of writer's workshop (which is what I'm interpreting as his "creative writing"). His lens is that of the college level workshop attended by those who aspire to be professional writers - not your average 5th grade classroom with the author's chair.

He did get me thinking a few different ways:
1. Isn't "show, don't tell" really a writer's recipe for inference? Really, it is one thing to explicitly write, "Dora is angry," and quite another to write, "Moving in on Diego from behind, Dora proceeded to smash a glass bottle over his head. That would be the last time he consulted Map without discussing it with her first."
I'm thinking a lot about how if as a writer you can use various tools like foreshadowing, aren't you better suited to identify writer's techniques as a reader - and ultimately comprehend what you have read more deeply?

2. My absolute favorite quote is the last page, 112, when he comments that, "Teachers are the books that students read most closely, and this is especially true in the case of teachers who are living models for exactly what the student aspires one day to be - a published writer." This makes me think of Dr. Bintz's quote, "You take the teacher, not the class."

3. In light of the fact that I recently submitted my article from a class last semester to English Journal, I thought this point was also relevant, "Writers are the products of educational systems, but stories are the products of magazine editorials practices and novels are products of publishing houses." Thus, our teachers influence only extends so far; we all have to pass through the editorial filter to come out on the other side a published writer....

Though Menand situates the writer's workshop in a historical context and outlines the nebulous nature of the workshop model, he concludes, "For, in spite of all the reasons they shouldn't, workshops work." (p. 112) And I do agree, to a large extent. Although I did give students some models for writing, I ultimately found that studying and "trying out" the craft of successful authors worked best. There is no one formula for writing, but teacher scaffolding is necessary.

Finally, I think the heart of Menand's argument (which is echoed in Monaghan and Saul's, which I've read and just haven't had time to write about yet) is that writing is production - writing is creation. You compose, therefore you exist. Menand captures it this way, "I don't think the workshops taught me much about craft, but they taught me about the importance of making things, not just reading things. You care about the things that you make, and that makes it easier to care about the things the other people make."

This comes back to one of my inquiry ideas that writers read differently because they understand the risks and the difficulties of writing.

Fun and Games with the KSU VPN and Online Searches

Well, tonight I spent about 1 1/2 hours on the phone with 672-HELP. After having to re-install the VPN, then running into issues logging into OhioLINK, I have finally hit a wall with a log in for something called MetaLib. I proceeded to throw in the towel for the evening and email Vanessa Earp.

The good news is that in the academic searches thus far I've not encountered much on teaching inference through silent films and wordless animated shorts. This is not an unknown practice, so I wonder if I just need to refine my search terms. I tried "teaching inference" and "film" - about 47 hits, 2-3 of which seem to lead somewhere. I also tried "silent films" and "teaching inference" - no hits. Finally I tried "silent films" and "making inferences" - no hits. So any thoughts on how I might tweak my search terms would be appreciated.

ORC Inference Resources

The Ohio Resource Center offers two good resources for teaching inference to students in K-5 and to adolescent readers.

This makes me realize I really need to read both Kelly Gallagher's Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts and Kylene Beers' When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do.

Using Silent Films to teach inference

I just started with a good search tonight and found two links that mention using silent films to teach inference:

ProTeacher

Singapore Educational Consultants

The next step is to search scholarly journals, but the idea is definitely out there.

Thoughts on a project....

I'm thinking of two different areas to explore for my class this semester:

1. Since I am taking Dr. Kist's class, should I investigate various projects that students could undertake when completing the Grammar Project (we haven't recently had students do flash animation "School House Rock" videos, nor gaming or songs produced by Garage Band, etc.) that utilize new literacies?

2. Should I investigate how teachers can use silent and animated movies to teach students how to make inferences? (I think I need to investigate what has already been done in that area specifically.) I just wonder if I should dovetail that work I am doing with IRA with what we are doing in this class?