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.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
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
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
Thursday, April 8, 2010
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.
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.
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