Teaching to the Test in the UK

This article shows we have similar problems to those in the US - but can US teachers strike?

BBC article.

Planet Rhetoric

Here's an academic blog I found. I think it will appeal to a lot of us. Planet Rhetoric describes itself as: "a multi-contributor blog by rhetoricians and critical theorists, all of whom work within the realm of cultural studies. It seeks to function as a kind of 'virtual colloquy' for academics and students alike, a clearinghouse for ideas, insights, questions, and concerns. The ultimate goal of Planet Rhetoric is to grow organically, adding new voices from contributors all over the world, and to continue to foster an open and ongoing discussion on cultural discourses in all forms."

See what you think: Planet Rhetoric.

Students' Addicted to Social Media

Interesting article. I should say up front, I'm one of them!!!

Article.

Thanks : )

Thanks for all the lovely comments about my pictures and hometown. Of course I should tell you that the reality is very different, but I don't want to shatter your dreams ; ).

So, class trip to Bristol and Bath anyone? We could pop up and see Barton & Hamilton while we're at it, or visit Buckingham Palace maybe? The picture below is of me outside the gates to the palace (some years ago as you can tell!) - shame you can't see more of the palace ; )

Visual and Digital Writing

Every weekend I'm torn between a desperate desire to watch TV (I've always been a TV and movie fan) and the need to read hundreds of books and write various papers - "if only all this stuff was presented in a TV show, it'd be way easier" I inwardly scream. Then today, I was looking at our class Wiki, and even with the stress of knowing the Wiki is due any day now, I noticed how many people included images on their pages. Therefore, when I cracked our Handbook of Research on Writing, I couldn't help but read: 'Seeing the screen: Research into Visual and Digital Writing Practices' (Wysocki, 2008).

I'm glad I read this chapter, because I learned a alot about how the visual has been valued (or indeed devalued) over the years. The author includes a quote from 1948 which describes comic books as "The marijuana of the nursery, the bane of the bassinet, the horror of the house, the curse of the kids, and a threat to the future" (as cited in Wysocki, 2008, p. 600). Comic books and graphic novels are still with us today, showing that whatever criticisms were leveled at these texts, they hold a great deal of interest for a wide audience. The author explains that historically there was a belief that "interpretation of words, unadorned and unaccompanied by illustrations, is what produces the steadily rational beings we often believe we ought to be" (p. 600) - the idea was that visuals detract from the sense of the written word. However, I think most of us would agree that this is counter-intuitive; afterall, children begin to "write" by first drawing and scribbling - writing is a visual medium.

Of course, recently, the digital world has opened up discussions about visual practices and writing. Traditionally, authors have "used rhetorical and subject knowledge to produce and arrange texts" while the power for "readability [and] aesthetics" has been firmly in the hands of the printing press (p. 599). However, today writers have more power to decide how their text, and images, will look using the online medium. Not only is it now extremely easy to insert images into text online, but the structure of text can more easily be manipulated to convey different meanings (p. 606).

I believe that any kind of writing instruction should include aspects of multi-modality in various forms, especially in today's digital age. As I looked at our Wiki pages today, I was struck by the fact that many of them are formatted very similarly to a traditional printed page. In order to successfully utilise the computer and the Internet as media for writing, I think that instruction in how to work with and structure online texts would be most helpful. As Wysocki (2008) puts it, "readers needed [sic] new strategies for reading new digital (and digitally designed print) texts", and I would go one step further and say that writers need new strategies for writing new digital (and digitally designed print) texts.

Keynsham, England

In case any of you want to see a sleepy, little English town, I discovered you can view my hometown of Keynsham on GoogleMaps (maybe it'll help put the Local Literacies in perspective for you) : )

Here's the link: Keynsham.

Mis-representation

I'm in Historical Analysis hell and nothing else is on my radar right now. In fact, I think I'm going to use this blog to spew forth my opinions about what I've read, which I have to keep firmly locked away as I write my academic paper.

I've been exploring the history of andragogy, and oh boy, isn't this the theory everyone loves to hate. Almost every article acknowledges that it has become one of the best loved theories for adult educators in the field, and then they go on to say that there's a "dearth" of research to test it's effectiveness and many of its assumptions are flawed. Now, I don't mind practitioners and theorists taking a critical stance, but they do all seem to have missed the point a little to my mind.

In one of the earliest descriptions of Andragogy (Knowles, 1970), Malcolm Knowles (viewed as the father of andragogy in the USA) goes to great pains to point out that he is not writing a "how-to" for teaching adults, but is instead attempting to engage in "dialogue" with us adult educators who are interested in andragogy. He further goes on to say that people should not read the book looking for "truth", but should instead treat it as a framework from which they can "compare and test your own ideas" (p. 15). It therefore seems in-congruent to me that people should even attempt to test andragogy quantitatively.

Of course, empirically testing a theory like andragogy is near impossible, not least because andragogical classes shouldn't have the kind of outcomes that can easily be evaluated, like tests. My biggest problem with many of the studies I have read are in their definitions of "adult learners" - until you have 'adult' clearly defined, and you can be sure you're following Knowles' definition of adult, you have a weak study in my opinion, although little mention is made of this in the literature.

Finally I am a little shocked at how many studies, even in recent years, cite Knowles' original assumptions about Andragogy published in 1970, or indeed his update in 1980. Since then Knowles updated his assumptions and models at least once more, but this is rarely acknowledged in the literature.

While the articles I have read on this have been full of criticism for andragogy, and I even took this on board when I described the theory as being a 'little passe' during my presentation in class a few weeks ago, I actually still feel that it is a valuable theory and model to use in adult education. Instead of concentrating on the areas that I may not 100% agree with, I will read the updates Knowles and his followers added to the theory to see if my issues are addressed, and then I will take Knowles' original advice and approach andragogy with a "gentle skepticism" and test his assumptions against my own experiences and "adopt those that make sense" to me (p. 16).

Knowles, M. (1970) The Modern Practice of Adult Education.

Organisations & People as Products of Written Communication

Faber, B. (2008). Writing and social change, In C. Bazerman (Ed.), Handbook of research on writing, New York: New York. Taylor & Francis.

I was reading the above named chapter this week when I came across a line that reminded me of my previous life in England. The author, talking about how writing can bring about social change, stated: "modern organizations and professions are the products of written comunication" (p. 270), and I agree with this wholeheartedly. He discusses universities within the chapter, but I take a slightly different, but connected perspective here.

While in England I worked as a web-editor putting learning materials online in a local university. As part of my role I kept my eye on elearning articles and conferences and became aware of a struggle within the field of education - the struggle of how to define elearning. During a conference I attended, it became clear (to me anyway) that some universities had developed detailed policies and regulations to define their elearning perspective and direction, while others had not, and the ones that hadn't got anything down in writing seemed to be floundering about what direction to go in with their elearning departments. In essence, even though all of the universities had been conducting elearning and online instruction very successfully for many years, until someone defined it and put it in writing as a formal "policy" its place within the university was in doubt.

I think that all organisations, especially universities because they're the organisation I have most experience with, don't feel they are fully "defined" until they are defined in writing, perhaps to such an extent that nowadays universities are a product of their written documents rather than the other way around!! For example, here's a link to the "policies" webpage from my old university - some of the links open onto other pages with further policies (such as the IT policies): UWE website. Even Kent has a list as long as my arm of policies: KSU website.
Ok, so these policies have multiple purposes as they cover the university legally in a variety of ways, but I feel like these policies go some way to make the organisation a product of the writing rather than the other way around.

Organisations as a product of their writing occur in other areas as well. As the chapter states, "organizations exist only in so far as their members create them through discourse" (Mumby & Clair, 1997 as cited in Faber, 2005, p. 270). To my mind this means that every internal memo filed, every new webpage uploaded, every email sent within the organisation works as both "an expression and creation of organizational structure" (Mumby & Clair, 1997 as cited in Faber, 2005, p. 270).

I've already 'talked' too much (what's new!), but I think this notion is also true for people - individuals can also be seen as a product of their written communication. I think this has always been true, but I think it's especially true today because of the variety of online writing that is so connected to a person's identity, such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. We think that as we write we are creating a product (or often as we write online we completely forget that anything is being "produced"), when in fact, eventually, don't we become the product of our written communication?

Did this make sense?! Who knows at this point in the semester!!!

The Culture of Schools

Part of this response was inspired by: Ball, A.F., & Ellis, P. (2008). Identity and the writing of culturally and linguistically diverse students. In C. Bazerman (Ed.), Handbook of research on writing (pp. 499-513). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

For starters, I have to ask that you all forgive me as I'm a little rusty with blog writing since I had 2 weeks off while I worked on other things. Secondly I have to apologize if this entry is a tad cynical - I hope there's some hope in it somewhere!

As I read the above named chapter, I saw connections to a variety of experiences I've had in the preceding week. I started drafting a response that talked about the connection between the social and contextual nature of developing a cultural identity through writing and New Literacies Studies, but another idea kept niggling at me.

In essence, what I've concluded after reading this chapter (and from interesting conversations I've had throughout the week), is that in order to help culturally & linguistically diverse students develop identities as writers, and pretty much in order for us to effectively teach anything to anyone, we need to first start looking at (and changing!) the culture of schools . If a school culture doesn't value certain theories and practices then all the research in the world on the best ways to develop a writing identity in culturally diverse students will be useless.

In their review of the research, Ball and Ellis (2008) explain that some studies have looked at the teaching environment "and the role it plays in the teaching and learning of writing to students from diverse backgrounds" (p. 506). The author's cite Schneider (2003) who suggests that "teachers should move toward a freer, less constrained classroom setting where students" can study in ways that best suit them (as cited in Ball & Ellis, 2008, p. 506).

This sounds wonderful doesn't it?

I can visualise this wonderful classroom where teachers encourage real social interaction between students so that they can begin to share their writing with each other and develop a cultural identity (as opposed to those contrived activities where students don't truly interact or share writing). In this classroom students are able to bring their out-of-school identities and writing practices into the classroom and use them as a basis as they learn to move flexibly through different discourses and writing styles. But how practical is this in today's classrooms?

I'm not a practicing teacher in the USA, but I hear often from teachers that they are constrained in a multitude of ways everyday by aspects of the school culture. For instance, they might be severely constrained on the time they have to teach writing to students, so with exam pressure they concentrate on how to get their students through the test rather than take up valuable time having students actually talk and interact with each other about their writing in order to develop an identity as a writer. The authors note, in fact, that studies show "students of color are disproportionately relegated to classrooms using drill exercises rather than interactive, meaningful approaches..." (p. 507). Research clearly shows this is ineffective teaching, but it still goes on - because of the culture of the school (?).

I know this blog post is one massive generalization (and I feel like I may have written a similar post in the past, but it's an issue I often ponder), but generally we've put a lot of time and money into teaching teachers. We prepare them as best we can before we send them out into schools, and generally, they are keen to put all the best practices they've learned into action. Don't most of them also have to undertake Master's degrees and/or take part in further training? Yet so many culturally diverse students are being left-behind because they're not being taught using the methods that research tells us works best, and that new teachers know about.

What happens to our new optimistic teachers - could it be the culture of the school that gets to them? Or is it simply too hard to put best practice into practice when faced with the testing culture of our educational system? As an aside I've started to plan my summer class teaching literacy and IT to adult students; my goal is to design a new literacies classroom to teach literacy, but with ALL of the standards I have to cover, I wonder how it will be possible in the time I have - the culture of the adult ed. field makes it extremely difficult for me to use what I consider to be the most effective teaching methods.

The authors explain that "every classroom has an identity of its own", which impacts how effectively a student's identity as a writer is developed, but it's more than that I think, it's the cultural identity of the school, the state, the assessments - how they're designed, who they're designed for, what they test....I could go on and on, but these are all elements that have an impact on whether students from all backgrounds get the opportunity to develop writing identities.

While we obviously need to keep educating teachers about how they can foster writing identity in all of their students, as well as educating them about teaching a variety of cultures and nationalities, will they be able to use any of it effectively until we begin to seriously explore, and hopefully change, the culture of the school and educational system in which students are being taught?

N(n)ew L(l)iteracies!

I seem to be writing a paper about new literacies through a New Literacy Studies lens...I'd like to be the first to suggest that one of these names needs to change - if only for my own sanity!

Informal learning and literacies

Wow. I nearly forgot to do my blog post this week. Why? I hear you ask, well I was busy using the Internet to learn about the best ways to deter spiders (don't ask - just know I am an arachnophobic and that this is the weekend from hell!). Anyway, when I need to learn something fast, I go online and find the answer. As a woman living alone in a strange country (well I guess I should say foreign country, although it is a little strange as well!), I have to teach myself things every week that my formal education as a doctoral student can't help me with. In essence, I am taking part in "informal learning".

This week I read a brilliant article by Mary Hamilton (y'know, one of those articles that you just smile at afterwards because it says everything you've been thinking), and it talked about the kind of informal learning and literacies that people take part in everyday: Hamilton, M. (2006). Just do it: Literacies, everyday learning and the irrelevance of pedagogy, Studies in the Education of Adults, 38(2), 125-140.

"Everyday activities can at any moment present an opportunity for learning" (Hamilton, 2006, p125), and I think we all recognise that we learn unexpectedly from a variety of reasons every day. Among other things, Hamilton goes on to explain that New Literacy Studies "are implicitly concerned with, and informed by, models of situated and informal learning" (p. 126), and the idea of situated learning is one that I think is key in adult education.

Adult basic education students are often those most reluctant to return to the institutionalism of formal education, yet these are also the people who use literacy in their everyday lives "to serve their own purposes and needs"; however, these vernacular literacies aren't always highly valued in formal learning (Hamilton, 2006, p. 131). As with my spider searching, people's everyday literacies and informal learning involves "activities that people carry out to make life habitable" using whatever resources happen to be at hand, as Hamilton puts it, "it scavenges available resources and expertise, appropriating them to new ends" (p. 133).

The point of all this then, is that informal learning incorporates a variety of literacy activities and shows the strong motivations adults have when seeking out learning for a variety of purposes. However, to bring this back to a phrase you've all heard me use many times before, doesn't school suck the life (or in this case the purpose, motivation, and "hands-on" aspect) out of learning?

Hamilton's article seems to suggest that the pedagogies used in formal learning situations can actually prevent learning from occurring, because they "colonise learning, standardise and reduce it...they fail to engage with existing motivations, emphasising a narrow range of achievements and ways of being" (p. 133). There are so many areas I could go to with the rest of this post, for instance, looking at the notion of formal and informal learning from a Postcolonial lens, or summarising the rest of Hamilton's article as she discusses how formal educational situations can learn from the informal to better teach adult students. Instead though, I'd like to bring this back to the topic that started this PhD journey for me, the idea that school (or academic literacies) suck the life out of reading for pleasure.

While Hamilton is talking about adult basic education students with low levels of literacy and I am talking about pre-service teachers who will one day teach literature, the phenomenon she describes is the same for both. It is the "reduction" of a topic to the point where students can no longer find enjoyment of it; it is the disconnection between curriculum and students' motivations, "emphasising a narrow range of achievements and ways of being"; and it is inflicting "individualised, authoritarian relationships and particular methods and routines of study" (p. 133).

These problems, as I see them, relate to curriculum across the board of formal education - Hamilton's words here go some way to explain while people who love reading may sign up for an English degree but get so lost in the formal academic reading of novels and texts that their love of reading is not acknowledged, valued, or used in the classroom. If anything, the adult basic education students may be better off in this area; researchers acknowledge their vernacular literacies and informal learning practices and are beginning to research how to incorporate them into formal learning. I suppose adolescents in high school are also being thought of in terms of situated learning - there is a vast amount of literature on how to incorporate high school students' cultural and social literacies into the classroom to make learning more interesting for them (whether teachers follow through with it or not).

Yet I wonder how much of this is being incorporated into the higher education curriculum, for example, in English Literature degree courses. While universities talk about the best way to encompass multi- cultural- and social-literacies for students in secondary education, do we follow the same suggestions for our own degree level students at all levels, or do we simply try hard to acculturate students into the academy (or academic literacies) with little care of what motivated them to study in the first place?

Double Consciousness

I'll get to the photos in a second, but today, I'm still talking about Postcolonialism (mostly because I feel I have to, and one post can never be enough to even start to explore this critical theory). Two of the major ideas from Postcolonialism are "double consciousness" and "unhomeliness". Both of these notions relate to "being caught between cultures, of belonging to neither rather than to both...psychological limbo" (Tyson, 2006, p. 421). These phrases pole-vaulted off of the page for me, because I'm a little unhomed myself these days; I have a double consciousness. The two photographs above are of the view from each of my homes: the picture on the left is the winter view from my "house" in England, and the picture on the right is the summer view from my "apartment" in Kent, Ohio. I am by no means stating that I have an "unstable sense of self", or that I am a "psychological refugee" (p. 421), but I can definitely relate to how easily this can happen. I am caught between two cultures; I now no longer fully belong to either. When I'm in America I am "other" - not as much as some international students, but nonetheless the language I use, my cultural frame of reference, and my educational paradigms all differ from American students. On the other hand, all is no longer normal for me in England either. I am now that bit "Americanised" in the way I speak, act, and view the world, so I have to continuously track my own cultural identity in order not to become the "psychological refugee" Tyson talks about (p. 421).

But enough about me!! I've been thinking a lot about adult literacy over the past couple of days, and I see a connection between double consciousness and adult basic education. Tyson explains that, "double consciousness and unhomeliness persist in decolonized nations today. Among the tasks formerly colonized peoples face is the rejection of colonialist ideology, which defined them as inferior, and the reclamation of their precolonial past" (p. 422). This quote made me think about adult basic education students as similar to colonized people - let me walk you through my line of thinking here. We are told from almost the moment we're born that we have to learn to read and write in order to achieve in this world, in order to do well at school, and in order to find a job. For adults who, for whatever reason, have not achieved this desired level of literacy, the world is a very different place than for those who take literacy for granted. Adult basic education (ABE) students are "othered" - in a sense, just like colonized people, ABE students are "defined...as inferior" by those in power (or in other words, the colonizers) . However, when ABE students undertake study to make gains in literacy, perhaps to get a better job, encourage their children to persevere at school, or just so they can feel better about themselves, they begin to straddle the lines between the culture of low-literacy adults and the culture of their "oppressors".

I imagine that adults who go back to education in whatever form and raise their literacy levels might end up feeling a little unhomed - they will have developed a double consciousness. It's my belief that these adults would still identify strongly with the community of adults who have low-levels of literacy, but at the same time, by improving their situation, they have begun to align themselves with those in power. I think that this may cause a cultural identity crisis for these learners, just as it does for colonized people.

The two issues here then, are the de-valuing (or othering) of adults who have low levels of literacy, and the cultural identity crisis that may occur when adults begin to raise their literacy levels and alter their life situations. Both of these problems have implications for the design of adult basic education. I see a curriculum issue in whether and how adult learners are prepared for the change in cultural identity that is likely to occur after they finish their studies - is it right to educate them and send them back into the world without helping them come to terms with possible changes in cultural identity? And there are issues around the political and social definitions of adult literacy that feed into the "othering" of adults. I doubt much can be done about this, but adult educators can attempt to include elements of empowerment and liberation into adult education curriculum. This definitely calls for more thought.

Response to Critical Theory Today #1

Tyson, L. (2006). Critical Theory Today, New York: Routledge, Ch. 12 Postcolonial Criticism.

So, here's the background. For a class assignment each student was allocated, by chance, a criticism to learn more about and reflect upon. Which criticism did the English girl in a class of American's get, I hear you ask. Why Postcolonialism of course! A cruel twist of fate? A sickeningly ironic joke from the educational gods? I thought so, I have to confess. I mean, for starters, how boring does it sound?! The word colonialism just seems to make my eyelids droop, and anything with 'post' in front of it transports me back to very sleepy lectures from my English degree days. This certainly wasn't a good start then.

With a sigh of resignation I began reading - well, I had to didn't I? It was an assigned chapter, and not completing an assignment would be a cardinal educational sin resulting in, gulp, failure. So I began to read, with a fully closed mind I must admit, and as with anything one undertakes with a closed mind, I wasn't disappointed. There it was, page after page of text about the evil British Empire and how we colonised country after country and stole their identity, and "subjected [people] to the political domination of another population..." (Tyson, 2006, p. 47). My thoughts grumbled away rebelliously as I read on. Of course it's all true, but England isn't the only nation to have colonised people, I muttered away internally, what about....Ok. I stopped there. Time for a break. I surfed the web aimlessly for a while, watched some t.v, and had a weekend away from study. The following Monday I returned to Postcolonialism with a fresh, and slightly more open mind.

And aren't I glad I did.

Individual identity and cultural beliefs

For a couple of weeks now, we've been discussing the notion of Discourse communities and how we navigate these various communities on a daily basis. As I've already stated on this blog, I find this idea fascinating, so I was pleased when I found what I believe to be a connection to Postcolonial criticism. Tyson (2006) explains that topics in Postcolonialism "illustrate the...recognition of the close relationship between psychology and ideology, or more specifically, between individual identity and cultural beliefs" (p. 427). Colonised people are walking a cultural balance-beam between their culture prior to colonization and the culture forced upon them when colonised. This is often called "double consciousness"; "a way of perceiving the world that is divided between two antagonistic cultures: that of the colonizer and that of the indigenous community" (p. 421). But I think this balancing act between two (or more) cultures is not unique to postcolonial people; isn't this a phenomenon that all people experience as their lives grow and develop and encapsulate new people/identities/cultures?

As an example, I recall a class during my English degree in the UK. In that class the professor asked if I was "working-class". I responded that of course I was - I have a very strong working class identity from my parents and grandparents. "No" she replied, and explained that now that I was undertaking a Bachelor's degree I would be clearly defined as "middle class". At the time I got very annoyed and did not agree at all, but in fact, it's probably true. My intention here is not to start a "class" discussion, but instead to illustrate that by completing a Bachelor's degree I was moving from my indigenous culture into another, opposing cultural, with its own unique values. As this change took place, one culture did not trump the other, instead I had to negotiate the two cultures within my own identity (which in this case, as in Postcolonialism, happened to be somewhat opposing cultures, but I don't think they always have to be opposing).

Some Postcolonial theorists believe that "even if there had been no colonization, the ancient culture would have changed by now...therefore, Postcolonial identity is a dynamic, constantly evolving hybrid of native and colonial cultures", and within this hybrid culture is a "productive, exciting, positive force in a shrinking world that is itself becoming more and more culturally hybrid" (p. 422). This is why Postcolonialism started to appeal to me, because within each of us I believe there is a hybrid cultural state based on where we come from, where we've been, where we are now, and where we intend to go in life. This unique mix within each person is an exciting resource, especially in education, where I believe lived experiences and beliefs are crucial elements for successful learning. This idea is also similar to the idea of Discourse communities, in that we utilise different languages and elements of ourselves depending on the community we are interacting with.

I've only begun to scratch the surface of Postcolonialism with this post, and I confess it's all a little messy and shallow in it's thinking. I have lots more I want to reflect upon in future weeks, especially as someone from one culture living in another culture. I'd also like very much to look at adult education with a Postcolonial lens. For a while now, I've been thinking about adult literacy students as a group who have been "othered" in education, but I'm not a keen feminist (so far, but who knows; last week I wasn't a keen Postcolonialist!) so I've been looking for a theory that incorporates the idea of otherness and oppression that could relate to these adult learners, and I think Postcolonialism might be it. Much more reading is needed (when isn't it?!), but let's see what happens; there's definitely lots more to come.

All the World's a Stage? - A Comment Response

Thanks for all your great comments this week. I'd like to briefly respond here to Jen's comment (and thanks for putting Footloose in my head all day dude!). I think Jen is right, and the idea of having multiple identities that you pull out of the bag for different situations is not necessarily the same as the idea of Discourse communities, but for me the two go hand in hand.

What is the authentic self then? Well for me, and without wishing to sound insane, all of my identities are authentic. I'm not acting on a stage, I merely (and without conscious thought or effort) am channeling different parts of myself depending on the Discourse community I'm taking part in.

Since the moment we're born, society teaches us that there are rules and regulations, and different kinds of language, that have to be followed in different social environments, or Discourse communities. For instance, you wouldn't greet your professor the same way you would your husband or friend. Or, if this blog entry makes you want to sing Footloose at the top of your lungs, then you can type it out, but you'd be unlikely to do it in class (go on, I dare you). So I don't believe that people can transcend Discourse communities to always be and act in one way. Should they be able to? Well that's a different question. Lots of our blog entries these days seem to revolve around constraints put on us by others, constraints from society about how we should act in different Discourse communities, constraints on how and what we can teach our students, and constraints on how we can utilise our vast array of literacies within the academy. Doesn't it all just make you want to go to an abandoned warehouse and dance?

Private vs Public

Response to: Barton, D. & Hamilton, M. (1998) Local literacies: Reading and writing in one community, London: Routledge.

This week in class we were talking about the various Discourse communities that we each belong to, and how we communicate and use language (or discourses) differently within each community. This is a notion that appeals to me; I've always believed that people have a vast repertoire of "identities" or "ways of being in the world" that change depending on the context of who, what, where, and when they are, and I was intrigued to see a very similar idea picked up on in Barton & Hamilton (1998).

In their description of Lancaster, the authors talk about a "sense of place" and how Lancaster has both a public and private identity that has been created on paper (p. 46). Barton & Hamilton (1998) say that the public identity is represented by historical postcards, or council-designed documents, while the private identity can be seen more in local magazines or newsletters. But it's more complicated than that. Within the public identity of the town you have the public identity put forth on paper by the local council, the public identity issued by the local university, or the documents from the local museum. Each of the documents from these places constructs a different public identity of Lancaster. Similarly, I find it hard to believe that a "true" private identity can be portrayed on paper by a local newspaper or a community leaflet - these documents likely portray a more private identity than the council documents, but I doubt they truly represent the private identity of Lancaster. And of course other elements not on paper will add to the representation of public and private identities of a place (or indeed of a person) such as accent, colloquialisms, dress...the list is endless.

Connecting this with our discussion on Discourse communities then, it made me think about the different paper-based identities we have each constructed for ourselves, and the public versus private identities we show the world on paper (or on-screen!). This blog for instance is a distinct hybrid between my academic identity and my private identity. This blog is being written for an academic purpose, but "on paper" it shows a very different identity to the more formal one someone might see in my final papers. I confess I'm watching a movie as I write this response (Footloose, which is making me feel both old and nostalgic at the same time!), and I had always planned that this blog would encompass both my academic identity, as represented by these reading responses, and a more vernacular identity, with some posts about opinions on movies and the world at large. But it hasn't worked out that way. I can't bring myself to mix my academic and vernacular identities on-screen so readily. So this blog remains a strange hybrid - more of a public identity with some private mixed in. Now my Facebook page shows a much more private identity than this blog, but it is still not a true representation because I'm highly aware of privacy issues with the internet and how my "on-screen" private identity might be perceived.

I'm not sure where I'm going with all this, but I'm thinking about the connection between multi-identities (or Discourses) and multi-literacies. I was drawn to a concentration in literacy because I see literacy as being so much more than simply reading and writing; we are each skilled in a vast array of "literacies" that we take part in every day based on the context of situations. I guess my point is, that when we become more aware of the different Discourse communities we take part in and the different identities we create for ourselves, whether it be online, on paper, or in the moment, we can better start to reflect on the multiple literacies we each use in every-day life past academic reading and writing.

Perspective

It's all about perspective isn't it? For instance, to those of you from Ohio, this constant down pouring of white, fluffy hell must seem pretty mild and normal for the time of year, while to me, it feels like I've moved to a hostile, alien environment that I have to navigate without the aid of sidewalks. This difference in our perspective also impacts how we view writing.

As I read Menand's Show or Tell (The New Yorker, June 8 & 15, 2009), my thoughts meandered around wildly. The first problem I had with this article was with the term "creative writing". I've used the phrase for years, but as I think of it now, isn't all writing creative? Anything I write comes from my unique mind and is, therefore, creative. As I write this blog, I am creatively writing. So who defines "good" creative writing? As an aside, week-by-week I've come to the conclusion that "good" is possibly the most ambiguous word in the English language!

Reading on, I began to consider whether writing is an art or a craft, or indeed both, and whether "good" writing is a skill or a gift; your perspective on these questions will effect the way you teach writing. On page 111 Menand explains that "what is usually said is that you can't teach inspiration, but you can teach craft" (p. 111), and I agree with this. You really can't teach someone to be creative, but you can teach people different ways of writing so they have a larger writing repertoire.

While Menand then goes on to argue that craft has changed dramatically over the years, and "there is no 'craft of fiction' as such", I do believe that learning to write in different genres, using different techniques, and developing the craft of writing can help people to develop as writers. I was asked recently how I developed my own "voice" in writing, and as I wondered about this, I concluded it was simply through practice. If I don't write for a long time, I forget how to write effectively and my "voice" gets more than a little hoarse (as with today's posting I fear!).

One other idea from this article really stood out for me, and that was that "teachers are the books that students read most closely..." (p. 112).

If we consider teachers as books to be read by students it can inform our work as writing teachers at all levels of education. A teacher with a passion for writing is often more effective than one who has no love for the subject. With this comment, Menand reminds us that we each may not be the best writers of fiction, or we may not have the time to write much outside of making shopping lists and lesson plans, but we should still strive to write regularly in order to keep our creative and writing muscles flexed. If we can model a passion for writing (most easily done by actually writing), then when our students "read" us, they will hopefully alter their perspective on writing and endeavour to become better writers themselves in one form or another.

Local Literacies - Response 1

Barton, D. & Hamilton, M. (1998). Local literacies: Reading and writing in one community. London: Routledge.

I've only just begun reading Local literacies, but it's already a fascinating read. Even though I adore living and studying in the USA, and it's something I've strived for for a long time, reading about community and literacy practices in a British city is like wrapping myself in a warm blanket. Even though Lancaster is a world away from the city I come from in England - Bristol (North West vs South West), I noted a lot of similarities between the "visual literacy environment" that the authors describe in Lancaster (p. 40).

As I said, I have only just begun to scratch the surface with this text, but the idea of a "visual literacy environment" is one I'd like to discuss this week. As a 'highly literate' person I take reading and writing for granted on a daily basis. How often have I passed signs that say thinks like "don't touch - wet paint", and I don't give them a second thought...I simply don't touch the wet wall. But what of people who can't read the signs? How frustrating must that be? Even people who can't read are aware of literacy practices such as putting warning signs and messages on pieces of paper; they know there's a message there they're supposed to pick up on, but they cannot read it.

On page 40 the authors describe a variety of visual literacies in and around the city of Lancaster. As I read those descriptions, it occurred to me that many of those same signs and symbols appear around Bristol, but I have become de-sensitized to them. For instance, recently in my home town, a sign was placed on the way into town claiming "Keynsham: Historic Market Town". This sign was scoffed at by most of the residents who know the town to be far from an idyllic "historic market town", but since that initial reaction, it has just become part of the visual literacy environment that we each ignore. But what of the deeper meaning of signs like this? The authors explain how these kinds of literacy practices in and around a town illustrate "commercial...entertainment...political campaigning...information [or]...legal" intentions.(p. 41). This is a sign put up by those in "authority" to try and get more business into the town, they do not represent the local community's view of the town.

Local people and communities do make there mark though, as the authors remind us, with activities like posters and graffiti. In my youth, I remember lots of old, ripped posters around Bristol, but I'm not sure if they're still there - has the authority stamped their mark and taken these community and political voices away, or do I just not notice them anymore? Graffiti is a fascinating literacy in Bristol. It's long been a literacy that young people and those whose voices are often choked by the authorities have utilised to get their point across. I can think of specific bridges and structures that have had activist messages sprayed on them for years.....but then came Banksy.

Banksy started his days defacing buildings around Bristol with graffiti that made statements about society that the local youth could identify with - I think it was quite anti-authoritarian. I think in the beginning the local council tried to remove his work, as they did with all graffiti in the city, but then Banksy became famous. No one ever sees Banksy spraying his murals, and with some media help he recently became an acclaimed 'artist' and his work is now highly valued (both in prestige and monetary value) all over the world - local council's can no longer remove Banksy's work because it adds value to the buildings that he's chosen to spray. This is an interesting case of a particular literacy practice morphing from one thing to another. Graffiti, traditionally a literacy practice of the oppressed, has suddenly become something that the elite has taken as its own and turned into a literacy practice they accept.

However, there's a deep irony here. I recently heard on the radio that a number of people were in uproar because a graffiti artist had painted a design over a Banksy mural!!! The council calmed people by explaining that they would, of course, remove this terrible graffiti as soon as possible and strive to keep the Banksy 'art' in tact.

I may have digressed somewhat here (what's new?!), but my point is that there are a variety of literacy events and practices going on all around us in our daily environments, yet we have our eyes closed to them. Each of these literacy practices has social, cultural, and historical dimensions and it's fascinating to begin to open our eyes and not only identify our own "visual literacy environment", but also to consider what it tells us about whose interests are being represented.

A Banksy Mural in Bristol, England

Writing a dictionary

Below is a link to my favourite scene of my favourite TV show (found on YouTube) - it relates to writing a dictionary...hope the link works! Let me know what you think!

Blackadder: Ink and incapability (BBC, 1987)

Teacher Training in the UK

I saw this headline this morning on the BBC website and thought it might be of interest: Teacher training article.

Change

It's been snowing here. Well, that's a slight understatement - I'm pretty much snowed in at this moment. That's not a big deal for most of my Ohioan and Pennsylvanian buddies, but this is a big change for me. If I were on my island with this amount of snow, the whole country would shut down and curl into a tiny ball until it cleared. That seems like a thoroughly sensible response to me, but my life and environment have changed, and so I need to alter my response to snow. I now live in Ohio (or the Tundra as I think of it), and part of living in Ohio is that I have to learn to deal with the snow. I'm working on altering my habits and practices so that I'm prepared for bad weather (i.e. getting a snow shovel seems like a good idea, and having plenty of food in the freezer) and slowly but surely my mental processes and reactions to snow will start to change as well. It's not always fun, but circumstances change; the world changes, and as human beings one of our most wonderful abilities is to adapt. However, over the past week I've been thinking about the lack of change in our schools even as the world changes in front of our very eyes. Interestingly, the two chapters I've just read on writing and knowledge inside and outside modern institutions seem to also suggest that very little has changed over the years.

Bazerman, C. & Rogers, P. (2008). Writing and secular knowledge outside modern European institutions. In C. Bazerman (Ed.), Handbooks of research on writing: History society, school, individual, text, pp. 143-156; and Bazerman, C. & Rogers, P. (2008). Writing and secular knowledge inside modern European institutions. In C. Bazerman (Ed.), Handbooks of research on writing: History society, school, individual, text, pp. 157-175.

As I read about the history of writing and knowledge, I was struck by a description of Chinese education many centuries ago. In China, they developed exams and a canon of texts that stayed pretty constant. The authors describe it as an "exam culture" where "knowledge of the key texts and of the expected form of the essay outweighed substantive understanding of the specifics of knowledges, values, and arts expressed within the texts" (p. 152). Is it just me, or is this a pretty accurate description of our school system today? We have our key texts (best that I don't start a rant about the canon of literature in this post), which students are asked to understand in a very narrow way. Kelly Gallagher talks about this in his book Readicide (2009). He describes how students are more willing to read texts when they can see the value in them. He gives an example of teaching Hamlet, where he has his students translate a passage and then relate it to today's real world. He explains that when students are "exposed to the wisdom" (Gallagher, 2009, p. 77) in a text and how that wisdom relates to today's world, they start to value the text - and I would assume, learn more. But Gallagher's approach isn't the norm, and I know from personal experience and from discussions with others, that our canonical texts are taught in ways that mean students pass exams without seeing the knowledge and value of those texts. How can ancient China's school system and today's US school system, light years away apart it would seem, be so similar? Has nothing in education changed? This is one to ponder further...

Open knowledge

One further area I'd like to discuss is one mentioned at the end of page 172, where the authors mention the "modern university" and people committed to "open production and circulation" of texts and knowledge (p. 172). I agree that modern universities will become more and more open with their knowledge and texts over time, and I think that new technologies encourage this. I've recently been looking at the Open Source courseware offered by MIT and the British Open University online. Both of these projects make online resources available, for free, to anyone who wishes to use them - this could be anyone from an octogenarian at home wanting to learn about making kites, for example, to other universities using these courses as supplements to there own courses. We can also see a more open atmosphere in the number of journal articles that are now freely available online, although to get to the really good stuff, you have to be affiliated with a university license. While I do not see universities becoming so "open" that all courses, texts and knowledge will eventually be available for free, these things do point to a more "open" culture in universities.

However, even as I talk about the open nature of knowledge in modern universities I am reminded of a fascinating conference in England that I went to a couple of years ago. The key note speaker explained how new technologies such as blogging, social networking, and bookmarking meant that people academics could be more open about their new ideas and ongoing research projects, and gain immediate feedback and support from colleagues while in the process of conducting research. This was told to us as if it was the most wonderful thing for students and researchers everywhere - with Web 2.0 we can all be open about our ideas and research. But would I write my dissertation ideas on this blog for all the world to see? Absolutely not. There is fear - and the questions asked by the audience in this conference highlighted this fear - among academics about having their ideas stolen. So, how open can the modern university ever be with this underlying culture of secrecy still prevalent in universities today?

I'm afraid I'm rambling now, so it is time to leave you and find a snow shovel!

Community

I've just read an interesting chapter on the History of Writing in the Community (Howard, U. 2008. In. C. Bazerman (ed.) Handbook of Research on Writing, pp. 237-254). This chapter spoke to me for a variety of reasons, but one of the main reasons was the discussion of community writing among the working class.

Community

I used to work with adults in the community. We weren't dealing with writing, but in the teaching of basic computer skills there is much scope for incorporating basic literacy instruction (if you're a skilled enough teacher), and this chapter reminded me of the importance of community as a cultural group that impacts so much of our lives, including our language development, reading and writing acquisition. I think this is something that Brice-Heath also speaks to in Ways with Words. I've been immersed in a world of higher education for so long now, that it's easy to forget that people are out there in the community learning in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes - fomalised education isn't the only way people learn. I was fascinated to read how historically people would often spend hours learning how to write at Sunday school and other community venues with mentors and experienced writers teaching those who were less experienced, rather than at formal state schools. This is clearly the basis for the UK adult community education programmes running today.

I was also fascinated to read that one reason that people historically fought to write was so that they could write autobiographies and histories of their communities – if these people hadn't persevered with writing, we would never have learned so much about the history of local communities. It makes me wonder about the transient nature of so much of our writing today – emails and blogs that could all disappear in the blink of an eye if we lost a server or electricity, for example. With blogs today, I have always sensed that a portion of society thinks they're rather indulgent; people writing about their lives for all to see because of some need to make their mark on the world, but this chapter shows that people have always strived to do that through writing - an attempt to get some part of ourselves, our community, and our society down "on paper" for posterity - while our medium has changed, our intentions, it seems, have not.

The theme that stood out for me the most as I read this chapter, was reading as a tool for empowerment. In the UK we have a long history of class struggle and worker protests, and it seems that learning to write was one way that people empowered themselves, both in order to protest (with flyers and petitions etc.) and to try and rise up in the ranks from one class to another. Knowledge is power, but it's obviously no good if you can't quickly and easily communicate that knowledge. The chapter also talks of women writing more secretly than men in the 19th Century, and those women who worked as maids etc. would use writing as a way to vent negative thoughts and emotions and "precipitate change in their circumstances" (p. 247). I think those of us who learned to write with ease and who write for a variety of reasons on a daily basis take it for granted as both a skill we can tap into easily and a freedom we have to make ourselves heard through writing. I was reminded what a gift it can be to write, when I read how many people learned to write just so they could write their own name on their marriage certificates. This may seem a small thing to us today, but as the author puts it, it can give a "sense of empowerment, identity, and agency...naming yourself rather then being named by others" (p. 240).