Program Faculty
Cynthia Lewis, Associate Professor and Program Coordinator
University of Iowa
Curriculum and Instruction
College of Education
N276 Lindquist Center
Iowa City, IA 52242-1529
Tel: 319/335-5437
Email: cynthia-lewis@uiowa.edu |
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Cynthia Lewis serves as coordinator of the Language, Literacy, and Culture Program. She teaches courses in critical discourse analysis, theoretical perspectives on literacy research, children's/YA literature, and literacy as it intersects with popular culture and youth identity. Her research focuses on literacy as a social and critical practice, with a particular interest in how literacy practices are shaped by the social politics of classrooms and communities. Currently, she is completing a longitudinal study examining the interaction and development of a teacher study group focusing on response to multicultural literature in a rural middle-school setting. She also has studied young people's digital literacy practices and is interested in the implications of this research for the teaching and learning of reading and language arts. Cynthia is author of Literary Practices as Social Acts: Power, Status, and Cultural Norms in the Classroom (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001) for which she has received the Edward B. Fry Book Award and the Thomas N. Urban Research Award. She is past editor of the media and popular culture column for the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy and co-editor (with Patricia Enciso) of a special issue of Theory Into Practice focusing on the social politics of reading education. Cynthia is a past recipient of the NCTE Promising Researcher Award and a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship. She currently serves on the executive board of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy.
Education
Ph.D. Literacy Education, The University of Iowa. 1995.
M.A. English, The University of Iowa. 1980
B.S. English Education, University of Illinois. 1975.
Teaching Experience
Associate Professor, University of Iowa, Iowa City. 2001-present.
Assistant Professor, University of Iowa, Iowa City. 1997-2001.
Assistant Professor, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa. 1995-1997.
Recent Publications
Lewis, C. & Ketter, J. (2003). Learning as social interaction: Interdiscursivity in a teacher-researcher book group. In R. Rogers (Ed.), An introduction to critical discourse analysis in education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lewis, C. & Finders, M. (2002). Implied adolescents and implied teachers: A generation gap for new times. In D. E. Alvermann (Ed.), Adolescents and literacies in a digital world. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
Lewis, C. (2001). Literary practices as social acts: Power, status, and cultural norms in the classroom. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lewis, C., Ketter, J., & Fabos, B. (2001). Reading race in a rural context. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 14 (3), 317-350..
Lewis, C. (2000). Limits of identification: The personal, pleasurable, and critical in reader response. Journal of Literacy Research, 32, 253-266.
Lewis, C. (1999). Teaching literature to adolescents. (Essay Review). Reading Research Quarterly, 34, 114-127.
Lewis, C. (1998). Rock 'n' roll and horror stories: Students, teachers, and popular culture. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 42, 116-120.
Awards and Distinctions
- Award Winner: Edward B. Fry Book Award
- Award Winner: Thomas N. Urban Resesarch Award, 2002
- National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowhsip. 2000-2002.
- Award Finalist. Outstanding Dissertation Award. The International Reading Association. 1997.
- Award Winner. Promising Researcher Award. The Standing Committee on Research of the National Council of Teachers of English. 1996.
Courses Taught
| 7E/S: 204: Reading Race and Gender in Children's and Young Adult Literature |
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.
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| 7E/S: 415 Theoretical Perspectives on Literacy Research |
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. |
7E/S: 370 Methods of Literacy Research
Critical Discourse Analysis |
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. |
7S: 415: Seminar in Language, Literacy, and Culture
Literacy and Popular Culture |
This course examines the significance of children's and youth cultures as they intersect with literacy and learning. Literacy educators are increasingly called upon to reconceive of literacy in broader terms, terms that now include the wide range of media texts that figure prominently in students' lives. Readings and discussions in this course consider the following questions in order to address some of the challenges literacy educators face in the "age of multimedia": What is popular culture? How does popular culture intersect with the oral, print, and visual literacies of young people in and out of school? How do young people use resources from popular culture to change, challenge, and transgress authoritative cultural norms? How might literacy educators and researchers determine when to make room for the appropriation and creative use of popular cultural symbols? What role should literacy educators play in teaching critical media literacy? In addressing such questions, the course includes theoretical works in critical media, feminist, and cultural studies. |
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