I thought I'd start a new post, since they last one has been so popular with comments.
To me, one of the themes of this book is the question- what is literacy? Similarly, how exactly is a theory built and more importantly to me, who decides what is valued and meaningful? This comes back to paradigms of what research is and should be (I think it was too long into my phd program until I understood what a 'paradigm' is, but it's really a set of beliefs of ideas about something). One's epistemology of what learning is (what is knowledge? who decides?) guides a paradigm, and every research endeavor is influenced by this. Gee has a very different world view than more quantitative or pragmatic researchers and so it's necessary to put on his 'lens' to be able to see and appreciate what he is saying....at least that's my opinion.
What I really wanted to say to begin discussion hopefully...
Gee talks about the ideas of who decides what is literacy but also about this "Literacy Crisis" that he sees as manufactured. What do you all think about this? Many of us work in schools currently or prepare teachers and this is a concern for many in the field. Gee critiques the authors of reports and research by taking to task the problem that they write about; that even when young children receive interventions they continue to be behind. He says that if this is true, why is there so much put into the push for teaching phonics to help struggling readers? We have a “Culture of Inequality”, that will continue to keep a certain group of students back from others no matter what.
Thoughts....?
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OK, I am going to jump in with this new topic of literacy!
I believe it is safe to say that literacy does not merely mean reading and writing. From what I have learned in this course, the term literacy means much more. First of all, literacy is something that is situated socially. It does include reading and writing, but literacy also looks at how the social parameters and practices of a community shape and teach reading and writing and, I will add, speaking. Everyone has experienced literacy events and practices in his or her lifetime, whatever form they may take. I believe people who move in and out of different literacy events understand that there are different ways of doing and if they cannot fully participate, they can understand what is taking place and can make choices to respect and learn from these different practices. Gee's book looks at literacy and language and tries to bring the two areas of study together through critical and social theory. Within his commentary on discourse communities, I felt confused, wondering where exactly literacy comes into play. Gee states that when one is literate, one can not be only partially in a community, neither can one be merely "functionally literate" (155). According to Gee, you can't have one without the other when becoming part of a discourse community. He also talks about the social aspect of communication and how all acts of communication are social (Gee 97). We have seen this aspect in many readings and it has shown us an larger view of literacy. In other words, I totally disagree with Gee's thoughts on not being able to "have one without the other". The way in which we construct our language implies much about our social and cultural view.
In Chapter two,Gee believes that we need to look at why schools produce different outcomes for different students. He believes that the "left behinds", will always be left behind if we continue to teach the way we are teaching with different expectations. As much as I hate to agree with Gee, I do believe this. Teachers are mandated to teach to the standardized test and in doing so, they use direct teaching styles and worksheets to accomplish this. I am glad Katie brought up the "Culture of Inequality". Gee states, The Academy's report does not define the "reading crisis" as a crisis of inequality, though it might as well have done so." (40) While I agree that we need to move past the "Dick and Jane" era and move toward educating the 21st century child, it all boils down to good teaching and using best practice strategies. I do not believe teaching discreet phonics skills to lower achieving students is the answer to success. They need a balanced literacy approach from the best teachers. I have worked with low achieving students and have seen first hand how extra help and constructivist teaching approaches have helped narrow their achievement gap. Targeting tutoring and support classes have helped support these students. Schools and teachers MUST build strong ties with community organizations that offer help and we must all work hard to maintain better relationships with families to foster genuine collaboration with parents rather than the adversarial relationship that currently exists in many classrooms. We shouldn't try to fit all of our students in a learning box. They must c be able to construct their own knowledge.
So literacy...does it ONLY have meaning in our discourses??? If discourses are ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking, believing, speaking, and often reading and writing that are accepted by specific groups of people, whether families of a certain sort, lawyers of a certain sort, bikers of a certain sort, business people of a certain sort, church members of a certain sort, African-Americans of a certain sort, women or men of a certain sort, and on and on and on... Discourses are ways of being "people like us". They are, thus, always and everywhere social and products of social histories. Gee belives language makes no sense outside of discourses, and the same is true for literacy. I don't believe this. Yes, there are many different "social languages" connected in complex ways with different discourses. But does this mean that we can "mingle" in different discourses and not communicate?
It infuriated me to read Gee's statement on page 221 of our book " Should you choose not to adopt this moral stance, then I, and others, like the non-mainstream people we have studies in this book, reserve the right to actively resist you and the ways in which your unreflective performances limit our humanity." WHAT??? Who does he think he is? We as educators should try to help young people think for themselves. We all have different opinions, discourses and beliefs. (Thank God!) Did anyone else think ugly thoughts when reading this statement?
Wow, I really rambled on about many topics. I, like Joe, feel a little overwhelmed with the "loftiness" of many of the postings. Josh, I need to be in your class so I can learn new vocabulary! Katie, maybe when I am at the end of my program, I will learn to put my thoughts on paper and not be random! One day... :o)
Until the next comment-
Betsy
Betsy, I probably wouldn’t have a varied or extensive vocabulary if the schools in New York had adopted Gee’s mushfake strategy. That’s where my dad learned English in elementary school after arriving from Puerto Rico with my grandparents in the 50’s. Had the schools in Brooklyn, where he grew up, or Queens, where I grew up, believed it was okay for Latino students to just “make do” because our culture made it unlikely we could master the language of power, my life would be much different than it is today. I probably would not be in a PhD program or taking part in this conversation.
Regarding Gee’s statement on 221 when he was closing the book, I agree it was arrogant, and I would add hypocritical. He spent the whole book repeating himself about how meaning is constructed and negotiated, and then at the end he attempts to monopolize morality and insists that if we do not accept his view we are somehow unethical. Then he threatens us with retribution (ostracism) if we do not comply with his perspective. That does not sound like much of a negotiation. It sounds like Gee is pressuring us to accept his construction of reality. I literally laughed out loud at the condescension and hypocrisy of the closing statements.
Katie,
On the question of research, outcomes are usually far from being subjective, especially if the research is rooted in science. We can look at bad research as long as we want to and from as many different perspectives as we want to and it will not suddenly become good research. We either may not recognize the flaws or we may choose not to acknowledge them, but if they are there, perspective cannot erase them.
Clearly, Gee’s work in this book is not research and he wouldn’t claim it was. He presents it as theory and my contention is that it’s actually clumsy speculation. But the question is whether his theory is based in sound research, whether his assertions are grounded in substantial rationale. Obviously, I find his rationale remarkably weak for scholarly writing. But I haven’t read anything here to lend credence to the support for his work. It’s not sufficient to say it’s rooted in an alternate belief system, because that is essentially saying that his theory is wholly based in opinion. That works in editorials and talk shows, but it shouldn’t work in PhD programs or in educational policy, where it’s important to be right, since the development of lives is at stake.
We can certainly discuss our own opinions about what hurdles must be cleared to rectify the problems with literacy in this country, and we can ground those opinions with personal experience in public education and with empirical evidence. However, if we are to focus on the merits of Gee’s work, I have still not read good reason for accepting it as sound theory.
I will make one more extensive comment here, and then I intend to sit on the sidelines except for occasional brief responses to the discussion. I think I’ve been hammering out my case, and now want to step aside and allow others to add more of their views.
This post will deal with the literacy myth and the construction of meaning, two of the major themes in the book. In my view, Gee contends that there are two parts to the literacy myth: First, according to him, literacy does not bring with it the inherent benefits we have normally attributed to it. Second, popular culture has led us to believe that the country is in the midst of a literacy crisis, when in fact there is no such crisis according to Gee.
My comments on the first part of the myth will be somewhat limited, since I touched on this in an earlier post when I discussed Plato, Sweden, and the Vai. I already noted that empirical research has shown that writing does in fact assist with memory (contrary to Plato’s belief) by helping information encode into long term memory (Dinnel & Glover, 1985). In other experiments, increased reading comprehension was associated with more advanced cognitive function on both lower and higher order intellectual tasks (Snapp & Glover, 1990). Increased ability to comprehend text also correlated with increased knowledge and understanding of concepts, especially for individuals who had cognitive difficulties with organizing information and filtering out irrelevant information (Thompson, 1998) (Tyler, Delaney, & Kinnucan, 1983). Increased ability to comprehend text has been shown to benefit low level readers the most in their learning (Salmeron, Kintsch, & Fajardo, 2005), suggesting that literacy did indeed have a positive effect. And finally, our own textbook from this course described how functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRIs), which measures brain activity by gauging blood flow in active regions, has indicated that once reading centers of the brain that had limited function are stimulated and activated, the results are long lasting and those areas continue to function well years later (Tracey & Morrow, 2006).
All of this information together would seem to suggest that literacy can and does have a beneficial impact on cognitive functions. Of course, Gee could still argue that literacy and its effects only influence school-related skills and thinking. I would disagree with this and contend that literacy skills, at least in our society, reach much further than the walls of school. Consider that businesses and post-secondary institutions have found that high school graduates cannot sufficiently comprehend complex written information (Hasselbring & Goin, 2004). Combine this with the fact that 75% of adult prison inmates are functionally illiterate (Collins, 2006). I interpret to this mean that the lower an individual’s level of literacy, the more difficult it is to find gainful employment and the more likely that individual is to end up in jail. This brings us to the second part of the literacy myth, whether there really is a literacy crisis.
On page 41 Gee callously argues that literacy is not as important as we believe because the nation actually lacks low skilled service workers, rather than those with high skills. But while more people can read than ever before in our nation’s history and fewer people are completely illiterate, approximately one half of the working age people in the country are only functionally literate and read at or below the eighth grade level (Collins, 2006) (Hock & Mellard, 2005). According to the United Nations, the United States has the highest level of poverty and income inequality in the Western world, and one of the primary determining factors of the Poverty Index is the percentage of adults lacking functional literacy skills (Feng, 2006). So is there a literacy crisis? That is still debatable, and the answer may vary according to your perspective, but everyone should be able to agree that improvements can and should be made and that our citizens and country would benefit from increased literacy. This would seem to dispel the myth of the literacy myth, or in other words, I think it shows Gee is mistaken. Literacy does have positive outcomes in our society and there is a dire need to improve literacy, whether we term it as a crisis or not.
And finally, I’ll discuss the subjectivity and construction of meaning, since the question of the aspirin bottle relates to the literacy myth. The question arises because many people contend that citizens must be able to read well enough to read the back of an aspirin bottle for their own safety and simply to function in society. Gee argues that because all meaning is completely arbitrary and subject to any and all interpretations, even the writing on aspirin bottles is subject to political forces and therefore has no underlying, objective meaning. While I agree meaning is usually subjective to some extent, I believe there is such thing as objective, universal meaning.
If we look at Noam Chomsky’s work with surface and deep language structures, it may help to explain my point. Chomsky argues that every sentence has a surface structure that has to do with how the words and grammar are arranged. Each also has a deep structure that deals with underlying meaning. So a sentence can be constructed with a variety of surface structures but still have the same deep structure. In other words, there are many different ways to form a sentence that ultimately communicates the same message. The subtlety and the nuance may be in the surface structure, and that is where latent political and cultural messages are imbedded. But if we look at the deep structure, is single objective piece of information is at the root. For instance, with the aspirin bottle, Gee gives us what I considered to be a pretentious, condescending interpretation at the end of page 47. But Gee is actually interpreting the surface structure of the passage, and I would not interpret it the same way. Regardless, I believe that there is a deep structure to the passage that would be interpreted the same way by anyone who was literate in English: aspirin can be dangerous, especially to pregnant women, so people should be careful with it. I believe that this deep structure is not subjective or open to interpretation, despite how we choose to interpret the surface structure.
The whole purpose of language is to have a common or shared mode of communication. If we did not, no one would be able to understand anyone else and society could not function. There is nothing to say that that standard should be American Standard English or that variations should not be accepted or valued. But without some standard framework that allows for the transmission of certain simple deep structures, we would not have language at all. This is the point that Gee misses.
Collins, T. (2006). Culturally responsive literacy instruction. Teaching Exceptional Children, 39(2), 62-65.
Dinnel, D., & Glover, J. A. (1985). Advance organizers: Encoding manipulations. Journal of Educational Psychology, 77(5), 514-521.
Feng, P. (2006). Casualties of war. Counterpunch.org. (2006, January, 21/22).
Hasselbring, T. S., & Goin, L. I. (2004). Literacy instruction for older struggling readers: what is the role of technology? Reading & Writing Quarterly, 20(2), 123-144.
Hock, M., & Mellard, D. (2005). Reading comprehension strategies for adult literacy outcomes. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(3ov), 192.
Salmeron, L. C. J. J., Kintsch, W., & Fajardo, I. (2005). Reading strategies and hypertext comprehension. Discourse Processes: A multidisciplinary journal, 40(3), 171.
Snapp, J. C., & Glover, J. A. (1990). Advance organizers and study questions. Journal of Educational Research, 83(5), 266-271.
Thompson, D. N. (1998). Using advance organizers to facilitate reading comprehension among older adults. Educational Gerontology, 24(7), 625-638.
Tracey, D., Morrow, L.M. (2006). Lenses on reading. New York: Guilford Press.
Tyler, S. W., Delaney, H., & Kinnucan, M. (1983). Specifying the nature of reading ability differences and advance organizer effects. Journal of Educational Psychology, 75(3), 359-373.
As I have been these different and interesting discussions I can only feel a certain excitment.I will start with what many people say about Gee's "moral stance" on p.221. I agree with all of you about the fact that such an attitude seems somehow arrogant.I think that it would more interesting if he expressed his opinion and leave us, we the readers can appreciate how we should go about what is going on in the field of literacy.
I understand that he wants his opinion to be heard.I think that this a problem we can have when we want to make a point, especially when one wants to be an engaged writer.
However, I am not sure whether I agree with Yorican on one point, that is, how he reads Gee (p.41) as for for the importance of literacy. In my opinion, I think that Gee is rather making the case that literacy is important.I think that his whole point of writing the book is to show that literacy is important for everybody and that measures should be taken to ensure that everybody has access to effective literacy skills.Of course, at the heart of the whole, is to know what is literacy.
From my reading and interpretation of the book, it seems that Gee thinks that the conventional view of literacy is too narrow and that literacy is embbeded in social practices. For him, there is no literacy that does not take into account the talk, interaction, the culture of the folks engaged in literacy practices.I do not have any problem with this.In my opinion,I think we are all the products of a social and cultural microcosm.No teacher can properly engage a learner if s/he misses that point.That is why we have the hot issue of diversity on our table.Of course,I agree with Yorican that there needs to be a standard framework of language.But is not also true that we need to be aware that many people do or cannot have the possibility or the opportunity to have access to that standard framework?
From my perspective,I think that,beyond some worrying flaws in his work, Gee is raising some crucial issues that we,educators, need to consider.I will mention a couple of them here:
(1)How can we define and teach literacy, especially in a technology-driven society?
(2)How can we make sure all learners in schools develop the more and more literacy skills to be effective and productive? citizens?
(3)How can we value and use the various literacy practices of our students to move them to higher level?
Eudes said: "However, I am not sure whether I agree with Yorican on one point, that is, how he reads Gee (p.41) as for the importance of literacy."
Fair enough. But I have to ask about your interpretation of the literacy myth. My understanding was that Gee had two parts to it:
1) I thought he used the examples of Sweden (57) and the Vai (58) to show how literacy is not a panacea, or in other words, how it is not in and of itself one of the solutions.
2) I thought he made the point that the literacy "crisis" was exaggerated by the powers that be and that there really is not a literacy crisis.
So my question to you is how do you explain the "literacy myth" as described by Gee? What did he mean by the “literacy myth”?
Eudes said: “(1) How can we define and teach literacy, especially in a technology-driven society?”
I’m actually fine with Gee’s definition of literacy: mastery of a secondary discourse involving print (176). This is one statement that he made that was relatively free of controversy. But I think it is also the traditional definition.
As for your other two questions, we could write books on the answers to those. I’ll let someone else tackle the two of them for now.
Eudes asked how we can teach literacy, especially in a technology-driven society. On the whole, I believe that technology has positively influenced our teaching methods in achieving literacy. With the wave of new literacy techniques and products being made available, I think now is an exciting time for teachers as well as learners. Consider the fact that we are able to interact via this blog. Back in my day (even though I’m only 27) engaging in such a literary process was unthinkable. I believe technology such as interactive boards and Playaways (an i-pod like device that plays stories for children) foster an increased motivation in the learning process. And as we all know, motivation is essential to academic success.
Relating the influence of technology on literacy as it relates to Gee’s work, I wonder what type of affect new literacies and new technologies are having on the “Culture of Inequality”. With text messaging now commonplace, youngsters are routinely engaging in written literacy experiences - the quality of these experiences is another story! But still, will the fact that learners are practicing the skill of writing, although in the form of texting, improve their literacy rates? Gee emphasizes that city living leads to increased socialization, ultimately resulting in increased literacy. Text messaging is definitely a social process, so according to Gee’s theory, it should positively influence the literacy rates of those involved. I wonder what you all think about this and/or the impact of any other new technology on literacy. While considering my proposed inquiry, I think it important to note the reference on page 38 stating that the reading crisis is due to increased demands for higher levels of literacy due to technology. So which is it? Is technology effective in increasing our levels of literacy or is technology simply elevating the literate expectations of our learners, failing to actually improve their learning?
I agree with New Yorican in that Gee’s work is mostly theory. I anticipated a more applicable discussion of his theory in the conclusion of the text but was not afforded one. I would have liked him to share more about how we as educators or even just citizens can purpose ourselves to address the political influences on literacy. I believe Freire does a fair job of this in his literature. For example, in Freire’s Pedagogy of Freedom he encourages educators to be curious and always question how they can become better at their skill. Gee, on the other hand, left me feeling somewhat undirected. And while I am perfectly capable of deriving my own plan of action in regards to making up for the home based differences amongst students and their understanding of the relations of power (see page 31 -33), I would have appreciated Gee’s text a lot more had he made known his ideas on how people should apply his theory in the context of real life situations.
In regards to the Literacy Myth that Gee talks about, I also understood it to be a manufactured idea...one that textbook companies, testing companies, and even the national govt. profits for when there is a push for new curriculum, more testing, etc.
I also just have to respond again to the idea that Gee's ideas are not research based or are subjective. No research is totally objective (nor can it be- everyone is biased). There are many different approaches and fields of research, some which may not align themselves with 'scientific' approaches...For instance, a case study of Leona and her use of language and storytelling requires much time, detail, and close observation to get those quotes and to analyze them. Discourse analysis is not often recognized as a 'scientific approach' but it used widely and has offered much to my work, at least. The word 'scientific' is really political and I think it's left much important research in literacy out in the past and present...i.e. the NRP report.
I think any piece of writing that uses literature and work from others may be considered research. Gee is using other's work and his own research- reading, writing, and thought on these subjects to share his theoretical orientation to language and literacy. Research isn't just an experimental endeavor, i.e. a control group and an experimental group where a theory is 'tested'. It often means reading, explorations, observations, and much time and consideration on a topic to develop a theory. Since this text is in its 3rd edition and widely cited in the field, I think that it holds up well as a body of work on a certain school of thought in literacy, that has been used and beneficial for much research looking at populations that have been marginalized or misunderstood (miseducated) by schooling.
Adrienne, I definitely hear you when it comes to a lack of direct classroom application for the most part. I did think that his examples of Leona's storytelling (pp. 132-) gave a good reminder to those that work with students to remember the different patterns of talk different groups may use. The traditional question, reponse, teacher response is not culturally relevant or responsive for some students. We shut them down and say 'uh huh...ok Leona...' not acknowledging their abilities or giving them the time to really say what they need to say.
I don't think that what Gee or any of the New Literacy Studies group believes that literacy and language instruction should be "mushfake" in any way. What I hear from Gee is the instruction- assessment, curriculum, everything, needs to be relevant, culturally responsive, and individualized. I don't think that this type of instruction is easy to do or random in any way, in fact it's much harder in my experience than picking up the teacher's manual and following its guide.
Does anyone feel that we need to address any other topics in the next week or whenever we decide to 'turn this in'? Please feel free to post a NEW thread.
Oh, and Betsy, I am the queen of random:)
Katie,
This gives us the opportunity to negotiate the meaning of “research”, which is good. I think you are using a broader definition, and I am using a narrower one, although I use the broad one at times well. For instance, when I write a paper for a course it’s usually a literature review- I’m reading books and studies, some empirical, some not, and writing about them. When I’m talking to my wife at home or my students at school I will say I’m working on a research paper or that this weekend I have to do “research”. It is the same thing my students do when they write their research papers and the same thing as Gee’s work in Social Linguistics and Literacies. It is a lit review. But that’s the lowest possible standard for defining research.
When I do a lit review I wouldn’t call myself a researcher because of it, and I don’t use the term ‘research’ when describing a lit review when I’m here at GSU. At this level I think that’s a term reserved for empirical studies, and obviously, Gee’s work here did not meet that standard. While research in this sense is usually quantitative, some qualitative work certainly qualifies as empirical and as research. The problem comes when a very limited qualitative piece of work is done and then held up as being representative of the model for how large sections of society function, which is exactly what Gee did with a number of studies in his book. Sure, discourse analysis can be interesting, but it’s simply a false premise for Gee to suggest that that says anything about how groups use language. He just did not have the evidence to support that.
As the social sciences evolve, this will be a conversation that comes up more and more- what constitutes ‘real’ research? And as that happens, Gee’s work will be viewed more as theory and less and less as research-driven material. His type of theorizing is not adequate anymore. In order to affect change, more empirical evidence is necessary than that which Gee provides. When schools or counties or districts or states or the nation attempt to make changes to improve curriculum or methods or the school environment, qualitative work with sample sizes of one or three is not sufficient to inform their decisions. Harder evidence must be there. The reality is that that is the direction education is headed. ‘Real’ research in education will continually move toward resembling the empirical research in the medical field- verifiable studies- and away from Gee’s type of speculating. When we use the term “research-driven” it does not comprise research in the broad sense that also includes Gee’s work.
But I am also not suggesting that Gee didn’t use any empirical research to ground his theory. He did discuss a good bit of it. The problem I saw with it was that the empirical research he used was either old or flawed, and therefore, not strong support. This would leave nothing but the extremely limited qualitative work he discussed and in my view, that’s not nearly sufficient.
Katie, you said, “I don't think that what Gee or any of the New Literacy Studies group believes that literacy and language instruction should be "mushfake" in any way.”
But on page 181, Gee directly states, “I propose that we ought to produce ‘mushfaking’... students.” So he clearly stated that he thinks mushfake should be an outcome of instruction. As a matter of fact, I didn’t see anything else resembling a solution in his book.
As a side note, after looking into Gee’s background I can see why his book may be lacking in practical solutions. Gee has been a student and professor at a number of prestigious universities. But his BA was in philosophy and his graduate degrees are in linguistics, areas that have not shown a great deal of practical relevance in language arts classroom applications. Granted, many schools of education have not produced the desired results either, as methods trickle down from college to teacher to public school student. I just didn’t see anything in Gee’s bio pertaining directly to experience in public education. Lately it seems as if he has been writing about how video games offer better instructional opportunities than traditional teaching (which could lead to a heated debate as to whether they are part of the solution or part of the problem). Regardless, it appears Gee has continued to ground his work in his first interest, philosophy, and has not transitioned very far into the realm of the practitioner.
I, like Katie, did not read Gee as proposing that we accept "mushfake" as an end result of literacy learning. I believe he is advocating a much higher cognitive understanding of the use of language and literacy and a much broader, more inclusive, definition of literacy. In the passage about mushfaking, he spends a fair amount of time talking about "meta knowledge." I felt that he is proposing that we should teach students to think about their own uses of literacy skills and how they might use these skills to gain access to the mainstream discourse. To me, this seems like a much higher cognitive demand than the mere application of discreet skills and the ability to follow the rules within a given discourse.
Like most everyone, I found very little in the way of practical ideas for the application of Gee's theories. However, I think he would appreciate the practices advocated by the Cornerstone Literacy Foundation! They seem to strongly advocate for teaching children to think metacognitively about the ways in which they engage in and practice various forms of literacy, about the connections they draw between texts and themselves, and about how they share these experiences with others. They also encourage the valuing of the primary discourses of students and the participation of parents in the decision making process as the school formulates its Literacy Action Plan and in the evaluation of the school as it implements the plan. All of this is targeted to populations that are traditionally underserved in education with the worst teachers, facilities and equipment/materials. And, unlike the traditional beneficiaries Katie named earlier, only the children seem to benefit from this initiative!
After reading Gee's views on videogaming, I agree with Katie on the heated debate on that topic. I think we can all agree, Gee's theoretical writings are just that...theory. We are all trying to fit our own thoughts and feelings as practioners into his theory. This book was definitely not one that I would recommend for first year teachers! :o)
I totally agree with Joe when he said, "To me, this seems like a much higher cognitive demand than the mere application of discreet skills and the ability to follow the rules within a given discourse." When students are taught to think, it opens a whole new world to them! It makes me so sad to go into a classroom to observe one of our undergraduates teaching a fantastic contructivist lesson and the children have a hard time imagining and thinking because of the lack of thinking strategies being taught!
Hi Folks,
I still enjoy this great discussion.I am learning from you all.I did not have any opportunity to read the new material sent by Katie.Rather,I try to highlight the key points (Chap.1-7) of the text we've been discussing since the beginning.
Gee (2007): Chapters 1-7: My understanding in key points.
Meaning and Ideology
- For Gee, meaning is not homogeneous. It is negotiable and usually only people in power try to impose the correct one. In that case, meaning is linked to ideology.
- Meaning construction can give rise to crisis especially when one is comfortable with a traditional one that is now challenged.
Literacy crises and the significance of literacy
- For Gee, the traditional view of literacy is too simplistic or narrow. It does not take into account the complex skills. It does not take into account students from diverse groups who are growing and are about to be the majority of students that will defend the basis of the U.S. society, creating a problematic situation.
- This problematic situation is worsening because of the fact that literacy in general and reading in particular turns basically around dimensions like phonemic awareness, phonetics, etc. Comprehension is not an emphasis. Socio-cultural aspects of literacy are absent.
Literacy Myth and the history of literacy
- For Gee, the way people in general and those in power define literacy (as an empowerment tool) has never actually been the case. The case of Sweden is illustrating. All the inhabitants of Sweden were taught to read. But for Gee, that reading is related to religion and the interpretation of the religious texts should match what the clergymen wanted.
- True literacy, according to him, is similar to the work of Freire who actually tried to empower the oppressed to think critically. So for Gee, literacy, not only allows to explore the world but to think critically for emancipatory reasons.
- This true literacy is not of course without dilemma. In fact, literacy is never politically neutral. Otherwise, those empowered in turn can define it as they perceive it, leading to possible exclusions.
The new literacy studies
- For Gee, literacy seems to be synonymous of a great divide: literacy versus orality. Each of them has its properties and uniqueness.
- For Gee, literacy as taught in school does not necessarily lead to higher order thinking. He takes the case of the Vai taught in British school who can only do a certain number of things. But those without that formal school, according to him, perform better at a higher order thinking level.
Meaning
- Meaning is influenced by the social context. It is also influenced by the identity of the speaker. It is also influenced by the purpose of the social act.
- Because of that, the same thing can be said in different ways depending on the context or the environment. People then change the nature of their discourse based on their audience
Discourse Analysis
- For Gee, Discourse analysis implies the awareness of what language in-use a given community is attached to, that is, their way of meaning things and making sense.
- Discourse analysis needs to take into account prosody, cohesion, the overall discourse organization, contextualization signals, and thematic organization of the text.
Discourse analysis: stories go to school
- For Gee, the home discourse goes to school. But usually, the school rejects the home discourse, creating then a dichotomy.
- School practice, for him, is then exclusive especially when the home discourse is not in line with the mainstream language modeled at school
Any comment?Also,I am wondering whether somebody is willing to highlight the remaining chapters of the text.
Eudes,
Thanks for your summary of the first part of the book. I believe that we've summarized the ending chapters in our various discussions already. I highlighted in my earlier comment in this thread the chapters about Discourse analysis and how students' of marginalized cultures' discourses can be analyzed to see the ways that meaning is being made in this students' life through language. To me, this is the message of this part of the book...and one of the major components that I took away from this book.
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