Fall 2003, Professor Jay Lemke
Note: To maintain flexibility in the schedule of our discussions, Readings are listed by topic rather than by week in the term. Normally each topic will take up one or two weeks, but this may vary or time for a topic may be extended. All Readings are either in the CoursePak (available at Ulrich's or Michigan Union bookstores) or available online (see Online Resources page). Optional and recommended readings are listed in the Course Bibliography.
Course Introduction. Discussion of changing definitions of literacy and their implications for research.
Topic 1. The Origins and Nature of Writing and Literacy
Week 1: Views of the Origin of Early Writing Systems
Harris, Roy. 1986. The Origins of Writing. London: Duckworth. [Chapter 5: pp 122-158]
The Schoyen Collection – Online catalog of early writing
(paleographic texts):
http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/4/4.4/441.html
see also the collection on accounting and early mathematical texts:
http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/5/5.11/index.html
Week 2: The Diversity of Writing Systems and their Literacies
Daniels, P.T. & Bright, W. (Eds.) 1996. The world’s writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press. [pp. 21 – 43; pp. 88 – 93]
Taylor, Insup & M. Martin Taylor. 1995. Writing and literacy in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. Amsterdam / Philadephia : John Benjamins. [Chapters 3 – 6, pp. 43 – 101.]
Topic 2. The Recent History of Literacy Research in Education -- An Overview
Lankshear, Colin. (1999). Literacy Studies in Education. In M. Peters, Ed. After the Disciplines. Greenwood Press. http://www.geocities.com/c.lankshear/literacystudies.html
Topic 3. The Great Literacy, Culture, and Cognition Debate
Week 1. Does Literacy Change How We Think?
Cole, Michael. 1996. Cultural Psychology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [on Vai literacy, see pp. 227-235]
Greenfield, P. (1983). Review of "The Psychology of Literacy by S. Scribner and M. Cole". Harvard Educational Review 53, 216-220.
Week 2. Changing the terms of the Debate
Olson, D.R. (1994). The World on Paper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Chapter 2, pp 20-44, and Chapter 4, pp 65-90]
Lemke, J.L. "Literacy, Culture, and History." Review of The World on Paper by D.R. Olson. The Communication Review 1(2): 241-259. 1995.
Topic 4. Home, Community, and School Literacy
Week 1. Literacy and Social Diversity
Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Chapters 6 and 7.]
Week 2. Research on School and Community Literacy
Bloome, David. (Ed.) 1989. Classrooms and Literacy. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. [Introduction, pp. 1-25.]
Topic 5. Reading, Writing, and Meaning-making
Week 1. Beyond Decoding and Correspondence Models
Lemke, J.L. 1989."Social semiotics: A new model for literacy education" In D. Bloome, Ed. Classrooms and Literacy (pp. 289-309). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
Week 2. Writing and the Genres of Power
Martin. J.R. 1989. Factual writing. Exploring and challenging social reality. London: Oxford University Press. [Chapters 1 and 4, plus Epilogue]
Luke, Allan. 1996. "Genres of Power? Literacy education and the production of capital." In R. Hasan & G. Williams, Eds. Literacy in Society. New York & London: Longman.
Topic 6. Literacy and Society: the Critical Turn
New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-92.
Topic 7. New Media, New Literacies
Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge. [Chapter 5]
Lemke, J.L. 1998. "Metamedia Literacy: Transforming Meanings and Media" In D. Reinking, L. Labbo, M. McKenna, & R. Kiefer (Eds.), Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a Post-Typographic World. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. (pp.283-301).
Course Requirements:
Reading the items above and participating in our seminar discussions is the most important element in the course. In addition, each student is asked to write a seminar paper which examines how changing views of the nature of literacy are relevant to an area of research of particular interest to you.