In this course, we will be immersing ourselves in a range of literary texts at the same time that we are thinking through the multiple ways in which those texts and teachers and students interact with one another. Our goals will be to become familiar with ourselves as readers of literature, with the conventions that shape the ways literature is read and taught in school, and with the wide variety of literature intended for the young adult reader.

Reading, Writing, Thinking, and Response introduces students to current theories and asks you to enact them. We will practice the theories we read, and reconstruct them as we examine our practices. As teachers of reading in schools, it is crucial to think about ourselves as readers first, then about our students and their texts. In this course, we explore the idea tbat reading and writing are inextricably connected, that the word "text" has meaning that goes far beyond a commercially printed page. We consider the development of these ideas in light of the more traditional methods with which reading has been taught in schools. Schools not only teach and assess reading, but they also construct socio-political values about literacy. We will consider, problematize, and reconsider issues of race, class, gender, "ability," and "intelligence" in this course by investigating questions about the literary canonk, conducting case studies of standardized reading tests, and "reading" alternative "languages." We will continually redefine what we mean by "literacy" and "text."

This course focuses on race and gender as they are constructed through the dynamic interaction of readers, texts, and contexts. The texts used to examine this interaction are children's and young adult fiction. Readings and discussions focus on the following questions: (a) What positions and world views do readers take up in response to children's/YA fiction? (b) How does children's/YA fiction position readers according to naturalized versions of gender and race? (c) What are the qualities of texts that interrogate and revise these versions of gender and race? (d) How are textual meanings shaped by a reader's gender and race? (e) How do specific contexts-local and institutional-shape readers' interpretations of texts? (f) How might young readers learn to experience texts in multiple ways? These questions emerge from several assumptions: that reading and writing children's fiction are cultural practices with socializing and, at times, transformative functions; and that fictions are critical in shaping the life-narratives of groups and individuals.

This course involves graduate students in the study of key issues of early literacy development, instruction, and authentic assessment, including the process through which children invent written language systems within socio-cultural conventions. Through course readings and expectations, students become familiar with central concepts and significant theorists and researchers in the field. Students are expected to develop personal directions of inquiry for their professional growth and to be reflective about their development. Literacy development is regarded as a whole, including reading and writing, talking and listening.

The focus for this graduate level course is curriculum development for children in early childhood and elementary classrooms. Students will develop a sound foundation of current theories and philosophies about curriculum that is based in children=s interests and expands their knowledge through developmentally appropriate practices. The majority of the semester, students experience authentic learning in a student-selected topic; later they develop thematic, integrated curriculum for children around similar content. The course involves avid reading, discussion, and implementation of theory at a practical classroom level. The approach emphasizes the integrated, holistic and purposeful nature of learning. Multiculturalism and bilingualism are issues central to all course discussions.

How can teachers construct literacy assessment programs that are theoretically consistent with holistic instruction and yet manageable? What assessment strategies enable a valid, strength-oriented view of students' reading and writing development and of the classroom literacy culture? How do these strategies mesh against district and national requirements? How can literacy assessment lead teachers to professional development and social action? In this course students work toward experiencing answers to these general questions and posing additional questions that are most relevant to local settings. The course combines theoretical reading with highly practical weekly assignments called assessment links so that a broad understanding of current assessment issues in literacy education is achieved while meeting pragmatic and realistic classroom objectives.

This course is grounded in the premise that school definitions of literacy can usefully be expanded to consider the immense influence and importance of popular culture and the media in the lives of children and young adults. We will look beyond a view of children and adults as simply passive consumers of media to consider the possibilities that arise from understanding humans as being actively involved in constructing the meanings of their interactions with the media, whether they are viewing media texts or are themselves producing media texts. In this course, we will explore current issues in cultural studies and theory and practice of media education through readings, discussions, and hands-on activities. In addition to weekly readings, reflections and discussion, all students will be involved in learning the basics of digital film production and editing.

This discussion-centered course explores competing conceptions of literacy, and considers how the current school-reform climate often seems at odds with perspectives from our field. Students complete course projects centered on a topic or issue of particular interest. The course is open to Ph.D., MA and MAT students, and emphasizes school-based literacy learning for adolescents and adults. For further information, see our course web site.

7E/S:370 Methods of Literacy Research
Topic: Qualitative Studies in Classroom Settings

This course is a workshop in qualitative research methods, providing ongoing support throughout the process of designing, carrying out, and writing up a small-scale pilot study. Course readings explore a variety of methodological topics and issues, and each student also completes a critique of a book-length qualitative study. This course helps satisfy the LLC research methodology requirement (I occasionally offer a second-semester intermediate/advanced course as well). For further information, see our course web site.

This course focuses on critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a method of data analysis in educational research and literacy studies. Broadly speaking, discourse analysts are interested in how discourse is used to structure social processes and institutions. The course begins with a general introduction to a variety of approaches to discourse analysis in order to provide students with a sense of the interdisciplinary nature of the field and its relationship to critical discourse analysis. CDA examines how social and power relations, identities, and knowledge are constructed through written, visual, and spoken texts in social settings such as schools, families, and communities. Course texts include both theoretical and methodological texts as well as examples of empirical studies that use CDA. The course provides a good deal of practice in CDA methods and addresses the usefulness and limitations of CDA in relation to more ethnographic approaches to educational research.

"Ethnography" is not just a research method; it is its own written genre. It is both a post-modern critique and a paradigm for seeing how particular cultures construct their knowledge. This course/seminar offers both a practical and theoretical background for conducting ethnographic field studies in literacy, schooling, or language. We draw methods, methodologies, and perspectives from anthropology, sociology, folklore, literary criticism, feminist theory, composition theory, and fiction writing. We read ethnographies and view ethnographic films from education, folklore, sociology, anthropology and popular culture. We discuss the roles and responsibilities of writer, reader, and viewer, and informant. We use the ethnographer's tools and methods, and then experiment with the writer's techniques for rendering ethnographic text. Ethnographers cannot emerge in one semester, but we can try the methods, consider the theories, and read the texts. Readings draw from many fields including literature, composition theory, anthropology, sociology, education, psychology, and the fine arts. Students design or continue a research project, conduct fieldwork, keep a research portfolio, and write a book review.

This practicum allows students to observe and assist a faculty member in the teaching of an undergraduate elementary or secondary teacher education course.

This course uses a sociolinguistic perspective to understand how language is used to mediate learning in the classroom. It also introduces students to ethnography of communication as a research methodology. During the first part of the course, we will read and discuss topics related to sociolinguistics, classroom discourse, language variation, ethnography of communication, and linguistic- and cultural-diversity. During the second part of the course, students will choose a particular aspect of language that they want to study in relation to how that particular aspect of language is learned, taught, or facilitated in the classroom. Possible topics include language development, reading, writing, second-language development, text analysis, or the use of language in a particular field (e.g., science, math, art, etc.) or for instructional or communication purposes (such as classroom interaction patters, teacher talk, peer talk, etc.). The class will be conducted as a seminar/workshop where students will discuss and critique readings, do data collection and analysis, and become more proficient at scholarly writing.

At the center of discussions of literacy and education as socio-cultural or discursive practices and products are questions of identity and representation. In this seminar participants will study the historical and theoretical developments that brought conceptions of identity and representation to the fore. Beginning with colonialism and Marxism, we will trace arguments in identity and representation to current theorists working from post-colonial, critical pedagogy, psychoanalytic, feminist and queer post-structural, and critical race positions to identify some of the differences in the ways these theories are applied in education today.

The purposes of this course are twofold: to read and discuss in depth the work of Michel Foucault (in English translation) and to then consider how Foucault's ideas may inform and be informed by theories and practices in education. We will pay particular attention to Foucault's notions of power and knowledge in relation to the field of education, schools, classroom life, and literacy issues. Given the tremendous impact of Foucault's work in multiple disciplines throughout the academe, I am working from the hypothesis that teaching ourselves to read Foucault can facilitate broader reading in a variety of disciplines, provide us with a language and knowledge base that allows for discussions with colleagues from other disciplines, and offer tremendous potential to influence our own readings and research within literacy and education.

In this seminar, we will explore the history, structure, and politics of teacher education. Beginning with a look at the ways in which teaching as a profession has been shaped by history and culture, we will move on to examine research on the lives of teachers and teacher educators, the structure of current practice, and the rhetoric of several different agendas for reform. We will spend a portion of our time discussing new developments in teacher assessment and how these may affect the direction of teacher education. Students in the course will be asked to do a fair amount of reading, to write brief reports on their reading.

This course focuses on theoretical perspectives that have informed socio-cultural research on literacy from the 1960s to present. The course begins with an overview of foundational debates in literacy studies that have social and political consequences. From there, the focus turns to the following theoretical frameworks: (1) Vygotskian and Neo-Vygotskian theory and cultural-historic activity theory; (2) Functional systemic linguistics and genre theory; (3) Dialogic theory; (4) New Literacy Studies and situativity; and (5) New media and multiliteracies. Course readings will include empirical studies informed by these theoretical perspectives. Like other fields, literacy studies is characterized by a continually emerging knowledge base informed by related and evolving theoretical frameworks. This course aims to help students understand the context within which each theoretical framework has developed, how each is situated within the field, and where the frameworks intersect and diverge.